Over the last few months, I’ve been working with a friend, Tom, who’s looking to expand his aeronautical horizons. His comfort zone is getting in the way of accomplishing his objective. As I considered this conclusion, I realized that it’s a fine line indeed.
“You can’t expand your comfort zone from inside it,” I keep telling him. While essentially true, that doesn’t recognize the whole situation. Expanding one’s comfort zone must be done in carefully crafted, measured steps. You wouldn’t, for example, take a pilot fresh from his or her Private checkride in a round-dial 172 to a new Citation and expect much more than total confusion and a little panic. But, going from that round dial 172 to EFIS might be a reasonable step.
