"John Gaquin" wrote in message
...

"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message

I've always been convinced that it's the pilots who "think" about what
they're doing.... who have the best chance at a higher level of flight
safety.

I agree. Almost 40 years ago now, a long passed fellow named George Day
started my commercial certificate training with a very short flight
wherein he asked me to demonstrate a left bank.....right bank....pitch
up...... pitch down........ok, let's go back and land.

That's good, he said after we shut down. Now, everything else you need to
know and do to fly professionally is mental. Thinking is what seperates
the professionals from the amateurs. Get the right attitude to start, and
keep it right, and you'll be fine. He then handed me a book called "Song
of the Sky", by Guy Murchie, and told me to come back next week. [the
book dates from the early fifties, and may be overly sentimentalized for
today's tastes, but is still worth the read, in my view, if you can find
it.]

I have subsequently flown 22 years professionally without a catastrophic
failure of anything, without ever having to declare an emergency. I am
convinced that George, although a world-class curmudgeon, had it right
about thinking and professionalism. His advice, along with a very healthy
allotment of good luck, got me through.

John Gaquin

I think those of us who had a George Day somewhere in our past are
fortunate.
My George Day was named Jim Shotwell. :-)
Dudley Henriques