Faulty Dissonance

First of all, "Playing Mental Defense" (March 2010) was an excellent article. I would like to offer clarification on a key technical point, however. Mr. Pestal correctly identifies "cognitive dissonance" as the condition of psychological discomfort experienced when competing cognitions occur. He also correctly described the human tendency to attempt to resolve the cognitive dissonance by utilizing denial, rationalization and other unproductive defense mechanisms as we seek to return to a state of psychological comfort. We in psychology refer to this process as "dissonance reduction" or "dissonance resolution."

Key Takeaways:

• Cognitive dissonance should be seen as a valuable internal warning system for pilots, indicating vulnerability to poor decisions; the critical factor is consciously choosing safe dissonance resolution strategies rather than unproductive denial or rationalization.
• The article clarifies technical points, including the definition of a skid (too much yaw for bank angle) and reinforces that airborne radar has limitations, warning pilots against flying into "shadows" in convective weather.
• Mandatory three-minute wake turbulence separation for intersection departures begins when the preceding heavy aircraft lifts off, with specific distance-based rules applying only in certain military or parallel runway scenarios.

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