Well, let's not go overboard either.
You took up flying because you enjoy it, right? If you come to the point where
you no longer enjoy it, then don't make a point of pride out of it.

Our psychological mind set has a lot to do with the outcome of everything we
undertake. Without considering flying, all of us have seen talented,
intelligent people get themselves into situations where they were subjugated -
perhaps they "gave" power to someone else, who was able to manipulate them,
perhaps through anxiety about a professional situation they got into a
situation where they looked stupid, and everything they did only made them
look more clueless, when you KNOW they have far greater talent and ability
than that.

As pilots and (perpetual) students, we are constantly trying to improve our
risk management - however in our efforts I wonder if we don't sometimes create
situations that actually degrade our performance. Look at the VFR into IMC
problem. It has been drilled into us that an inadvertent foray by a VFR pilot
into IMC is guaranteed to reduce his life expectancy to 23 seconds. Well
that's not necessarily true, and neither is it a correct reading of the
experiments cited to support it. With just a little bit of training, pilots
can be expected to do much better - well over a minute in some cases!

Seriously, I read an article recently in which a pilot recounts his foray into
IMC. He enlisted the help of his non-pilot passengers - one to watch the AI,
and to "yell" if it moved. Another to do the same with the VSI, the altimeter,
etc. Well OK - he found a solution and came out of it alive, and good for
him, but my impression in reading the article was that his greatest weakness
was his attitude. He took it as a given that the situation was unsurvivable,
when at the same time he demonstrated that he knew exactly what to do. In this
case, I believe his training about risk actually hindered his performance, and
with a little less of the "23 second" self-fullfilling prophecy, he would have
improved his performance immeasurably.

Many pilots have pretty interesting stories about early solo flights. The
first time you think you're lost, and there's no instructor to bail you out.
How many thoughts go through your mind before you finally decide "Wait a
minute . . . I know how to do this"? After this, some assurance is gained, and
every new challenge, despite the anxiety it produces, can be met with the
LEARNED (not born-with) problem solving attitude - provided of course that you
have not grossly overstepped your limits.

To be honest, in the example cited here I don't think I would have flown
either. I don't like the "leaky brakes" thing, particularly with passengers
who place their trust in me. So it's not the decision I question, but all the
brow-beating. I'm interested in hearing others' opinion here - even those who
say I'm way off - but I think to fly safely (not to mention enjoyably) we
should be more serene in our judgement of managable risks vs imprudence.

G Faris