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There Would Be No Butterflies

Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • Pilots must constantly reassess conditions and adapt their plans, especially in dynamic weather, embodying the principle of changing one's mind when the facts change.
  • The author's flight demonstrated this by requiring multiple course deviations to navigate around developing summer thunderstorms, utilizing XM Weather and a Stormscope for real-time data.
  • The experience reinforced the pilot's ultimate pilot-in-command authority to make safe decisions, even when it meant questioning or deviating from ATC suggestions based on their own, often more detailed, onboard weather information.
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Once I’ve landed, my assessment of a flight switches from the “how-goz-it” while airborne to the “how-went-it” when I’m safely on the ground. When I did my self-debrief following the last leg of my flight home after attending AirVenture in Oshkosh in August, two quotes seemed apropos of my efforts to successfully negotiate my way around the summer storms.

John Maynard Keynes said, “When the facts change, I change my mind.” Some might call that “flip-flopping,” but it’s a sentiment that pilots who should constantly check the “facts” during a flight — and politicians — would do well to embrace.

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