The “patient” presented as a black screen with white letters displaying CRITICAL FAILURE followed by a comatose SAFE MODE. This electronic workhorse travels in my Jeep, the cockpit of the 737, and aboard the Duke – a well-padded aluminum briefcase for a home. But the briefcase receives no exceptional handling. TSA scans and searches, hotel van loading and unloading, jarring, dropping, and wide variations in temperature are its lot in life. Well, they were its lot in life…its virtual existence faded to an eternal black screen. A post-mortem forensic investigation exposed the cause of death: Due to the minuscule clearance inside the hard drive, a combination of cold temperature start-ups and a malicious virus had conspired against its delicate innards thus destroying both the body and mind of its hardworking hard drive.
Measured and Mature
The operating system, programs, pictures, music and documents were all lost. SAFE MODE was apparently not so safe after all. The apocalyptic event called for a measured and mature response. My unbridled “OMG” and teary-eyed whimpering appeal, “there’s no place like home,” which had worked in the past, failed to help. Next, a geek-wizard from the Emerald City computer fix-it store was sought for consultation. But neither my whimpering appeal nor the wizard were able to return me, or the hard drive, to Kansas. The alternative response was to follow the yellow brick road to the web and order a new laptop.
Come hither and behold for all to see the Dell “Inspiron” running Windows 10, the newest Internet Explorer and the latest iteration of Word for Office. Never approach a steer from the front, a horse from the rear, or, from any direction, a person over 60 with a new PC (or cell phone), especially one who neglected to back up their old data. Certainly, you’ve had a comparable level of been-there-done-that. Not since getting my first smartphone have I struggled so desperately not to throw it into the air and blast it with a couple rounds from my 12 gauge. I obviously needed assistance – and counseling.
I was told that using a kerosene heater to preheat the hard drive to prevent cold start-ups, as I do for the Duke, would produce too much carbon monoxide. And the TSA is hesitant to let me through security with said heater anyway. After three hours of consultation with a computer guy during the setup procedure of my new traveling companion, we agreed on several TSA, EPA and APA (American Psychiatric Association) approved backup systems so as to prevent the security, environmental and no-place-like-home syndromes from manifesting themselves again. The strategy would be this: Allow some warm-up time after travel and before boot-up, use of a flash drive, emailing important documents to myself and securing rental space in “The Cloud” – a virtual safety deposit box for data, on an internet server. No kerosene, no wizard, no shotgun and no psychiatrist.
Head in the Clouds
Coincidentally, the term Cloud is used to describe the internet “place” where our data is stored. The electronic revolution has created a generational paradigm shift in where our attention is directed. To say that the expression “Head in the Clouds” is accurate would be, well, not only truthful but ironic. I’m sure you’ve seen people, most people in fact, with their heads hung low, staring at an electronic device as they walk or drive. You may have needed a zigzag to avoid colliding with one of them. My Part 121 carrier and the others are once again post-COVID beginning to hire new, mostly young crew members. I point out the young part because of the generational differences – a difference in work ethic, colloquial language, manners, attention span and their incessant and apparently fluent use of electronics. But it’s not just the younger generation distracted by electronics. I guess because we old geezers are a “bit” slower in learning and using new tech, often the electronics distract us older folks even more than the tech-savvy youth.
These electronic distractions come from the usual suspects: social media, music, e-readers, email, Googling and texting. Often their use is at an inappropriate time – like when I’m trying to conduct a pre-departure crew briefing (a mandatory event in the Part 121 world). And occasionally it’s during the gate arrival phase when my crew is supposed to be disarming the inflatable slide function of the passenger exits. We’ve “blown a slide” or two because they weren’t disarmed before the gate agent or catering dudes and dudettes opened the door from the outside. I’m certain it’s happening at all the airlines, and it’s not just the newbies making mistakes. It’s all crew members that are allowing themselves to be rushed or distracted, often by electronics.
Insidious and Overwhelming
Unfortunately, we pilots can stick our heads in this new societal and metaphoric cloud just as much as anyone. The data available in the cockpit is more and more often coming from other than ground-based VHF and UHF signals – and the majority of available information is not aviation-related. Today’s electronic content comes from geosynchronous orbiting satellites for weather and GPS, and the internet, radio and cell/Sat phones for everything else. While these sources of information and entertainment are transformational in their usefulness, they can be habit forming, insidious and an overwhelming distraction. It’s no epiphany that the many forms of electronic information distract us from the moving parts of reality. And in our above-the-ground reality, the moving parts often move unforgivingly quickly.
We made too many
wrong mistakes.
Yogi Berra
Have you ever been running a flight plan and been interrupted by a phone call, email or text and had to start over? How about when you were driving to the airport, or pre-flighting the plane, or boarding your pax? Did you forget to duck while texting and hit your head on part of the plane? Did you forget to remove a protective cover or the chocks because you were distracted? Forget to close or lock the hangar door? Maybe one of your pax took a call, answered an email or text while you were giving them a briefing on the doors, environmental system or how to communicate in-flight. Our new information sources can be attention grabbers, and we must learn how and when it’s appropriate to ignore them to ensure the safety of our flights.
Sterile Period
At the airlines, the “when to ignore” is a well-defined point: when we begin required duties or run the first checklist. And if that fails, the “sterile” period, engine start to 10k, is a line in the sand – the time at which all communication and activities are strictly related to the operation of the jet. In GA, the beginning of the before starting engines checklist is a good point to turn off the phone, reader and non-EFB tablets. You may even add “non-essential electronics off” to your on-screen checklist or write it on your old-school paper version: PED’s…Set and Off. Personal electronic devices set in airplane mode or off.
Before flight isn’t the only time that our electronics may beckon to us. In the middle of the cruise segment, particularly if the flight is longer than a couple of hours, our minds will drift or we may indulge in non-flying activities. Call it boredom, daydreaming or complacency, but whatever it is, your head is in the clouds and you’re not paying attention. You may catch yourself, ATC may ask you if you copy center, or they might call you on guard. This is your heads-up, your black screen with white letters telling you that you’ve been placed in safe mode. Remember, safe mode isn’t so safe after all.
If it keeps up,
man will atrophy
all his limbs
but the push-
button finger.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Do you have a plan if your GPS, GFMS or electronic kitbag becomes corrupted? How about if the GPS signal is disrupted by intentional USAF jamming? Our EFB and aircraft electronics are not as sensitive as a laptop’s hardworking hard drive, but they are electronic machines after all, and machines malfunction. The method in which we typically bring ourselves back to reality is to simulate the failure of a system or instrument – like our primary artificial horizon, in this case, the loss of our virtual world of electronic data. The less often we perform this exercise, the more uncomfortable it becomes to lose the virtual world.
Perhaps at some point during every flight we should tune out some, or all, of the virtual world, and tune in more of the real world – except required use of the autopilot during certain, single-pilot operations. Plus, the loss of some of this electronic magic may remind you of why you got into airplanes in the first place. It’s fun to be fully engaged and to fly the thing.
Starve Your Distractions Feed Your Focus
The electronic information available to us through cockpit installed hardware, our EFB tablets, readers and cell/Sat phones have reached an exciting level of usefulness, but it can also create distractions and sometimes dependence. Especially post-COVID, we all lean on available aids, crutches and devices for comfort and safety as we regain proficiency. We deal with real things while at the controls of our aerospace vehicles. And it’s those real things that remain the most important. From our airplane’s perspective, it’s still a matter of up-down-left-right and air molecules over and under the wings. Gravity is still there; the ground is still there. And our electronics will supply distracting data or entertainment to the point in which that gravity thing brings us into contact with the ground thing.
If your head is in the “Cloud” due to electronic distractions, complacency or post-COVID fog, this contact may occur at a time, place or a velocity other than that of your choosing. Don’t blow a slide, hit your head on the plane, or let Dorothy drop a house on you while you’re emailing, texting or engaging in the latest internet fad.