![Every pilot—student or professional—eventually encounters plateaus, frustration, and self-doubt. According to Top Gun instructors, these are not signs of failure but rather expected phases of training. [Credit: Adobe Stock]](https://www.flyingmag.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/FLY0226_1.jpeg)
I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the U.S. Navy or a graduate of the U.S. Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program, better known as “Top Gun.” But like many civilian pilots, I’m interested in how the best aviators in the world think—particularly when it comes to safety issues of managing risk, handling mistakes, and performing under pressure.
This curiosity led me to the The Fighter Pilot Podcast, hosted by Vincent Aiello, call sign “Jell-O,” a former Top Gun instructor, F/A-18 pilot, and now airline captain. What began as listening turned into email exchanges and, eventually, an hour-long conversation. That discussion opened the door to further talks with Dave “Bio” Baranek, Craig “Crunch” Snyder, and Greg “Hoser” Hansen—all former Top Gun instructors with thousands of hours in high-performance aircraft.
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We were not talking about air-to-air combat. What interested me was something far more universal: how these elite aviators manage human performance so that small errors do not turn into catastrophic ones. Many of the lessons they shared translate directly to civilian aviation.
Managing Plateaus and Frustrations
Every pilot—student or professional—eventually encounters plateaus, frustration, and self-doubt. According to Top Gun instructors, these are not signs of failure but rather expected phases of training.
Aiello emphasized the importance of normalizing plateaus early.
“You have to offer some inspiration inasmuch as that it’s normal and overcomeable,” he said. “If you’re able to identify it before it happens, that’s great. Tell students, ‘You can get through it, but it will take time.’”
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Hansen echoed this sentiment, adding that consistency matters.
“Everybody can have a bad day,” he said. “But you don’t want to string two bad sorties together. It creates a
reputation.”
The emphasis isn’t on perfection, but on steady, incremental improvement. As Hansen put it, the goal was always to be “1 or 2 percent better than the last flight.”
Social media, they all agreed, can distort expectations. Flying looks effortless once someone is proficient, but that polish hides years of struggle. Even Top Gun instructors recalled difficulties with landings, instrument flying, and airsickness. The takeaway was simple: Difficulty is not abnormal; it is part of the process.
Frustration, however, can become a safety issue if left unchecked.
Snyder noted that student frustration often stems from lack of preparation, while instructor frustration usually comes from lack of patience. If a student isn’t ready for a task, pressing forward often does more harm than good.
“If you can’t get through step one,” he said, “you’re not doing anyone any favors by forcing step two.”
Preventing Errors From Escalating
One of the most safety-critical skills any pilot can develop is the ability to contain mistakes. Mistakes can be debriefed later. The priority is always to remain focused on the mission at hand.
“I wasn’t always good at it,” Aiello said. “But you have to learn to master your emotions.”
Everyone makes mistakes. The danger lies in allowing one error to cascade into several.
Aiello recounted a time he struggled with carrier landings. His confidence wavered, making things harder until he eventually diverted to a nearby land base.
“Sometimes the right answer is to stop, regroup, and come back another day,” he said.
Hansen’s mindset applies to every cockpit.
“The airplane shouldn’t be any place your brain hasn’t been ten seconds prior,” he said, explaining that putting aside what went wrong and correcting it on the next maneuver, within a minute or two, is one of the hardest, but most important, safety skills a pilot can
develop.
Combating Fear With Preparation
Fear never fully disappears in aviation—and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
“I don’t think you manage fear—you cope with it,” Hansen said. “It never really goes away. If you’re a little excited, a little on edge, that’s OK. What you can’t let it do is handcuff you into a poor performance.”
At Top Gun, new instructors undergo something known as the “murder board,” an evaluation similar to an FAA oral exam, in which an instructor must present a subject they’ll take over from an outgoing instructor. Despite their experience, Baranek recalled being extremely anxious and even on the edge of passing out during his own evaluation. What carried him through was preparation.
“I had the material in me,” he said.
High-stress events can be reframed as challenges rather than threats, according to Snyder.
“You get less nervous if you gamify it,” he said. “I used to think of it as—I didn’t have a check ride, I had a challenge. ‘Hey, I’m going to go play a game, and I’m going to play to win.’”
The lesson? Last-minute cramming often increases anxiety without improving performance. Preparation must be paired with rest and perspective.
Debriefing: The Ultimate Safety Tool
An emphasis on debriefing is the cornerstone of Top Gun culture.
“The debrief is where learning really takes place,” Aiello said. “Briefing allows you to have success, but debriefing is where learning happens…What constitutes a good debrief is that we’ve identified up to three issues. These could be safety-related or simply a fine tweak. I feel that’s what people can take.”
Overloading someone with corrections may feel thorough, but it often undermines retention and confidence. Snyder uses a technique that reinforces ownership. He asks students for their own top three takeaways first.
“If I call them tomorrow,” he said, “they’ll still remember those three.”
Meaningful debriefs take time.
“If your debrief is five minutes long, you’re not getting your money’s worth,” said Baranek, who kept a personal notebook of lessons learned. “I’d write down my own debrief points after training flights. That helped me be self-critical and internalize things. I didn’t beat myself up. Writing it down helped me learn and get it off my mind so it wouldn’t drag me down the rest of the week.”
Debrief culture matters as much as the content. Hansen described removing ego by discussing the airplane in the third person, not the pilot: “The airplane exceeded critical angle of attack,” rather than “you stalled it.”
Top Gun debriefs aren’t categorized as good or bad—only good and “others.” The goal isn’t judgment, but removing ego from the process.
What Top Gun Can Teach Us
Insight from Top Gun instructors reinforces a consistent truth: Pilots are not defined by perfection but by discipline and preparation.
They expect mistakes, plan for stress, and rely on structured processes—especially debriefing—to keep errors from compounding and mistakes from repeating.
For civilian aviation, the lesson is clear. Safety depends as much on mindset as it does on skill. Staying ahead of the airplane, managing workload and emotion, and conducting honest debriefs all serve the same goal—keeping small problems from becoming big ones.
The stereotypical image portrayed by Hollywood of Top Gun emphasizes bravado, but the reality is far more measured.
There’s a culture built on accountability, being humble, self-awareness, and continuous improvement. Those habits are what keep aviators safe, and they
apply in every cockpit.
Editor’s note: Aviation Safety focuses on risk management and accident prevention, providing information on basic and advanced technique, accident analysis, and practical advice on how you can develop the judgment that will keep you in the air and out of the NTSB’s files.
This column first appeared in the February Issue 967 of the FLYING print edition.
