Rituals

My ritual is my pre-flight. It's done a certain way, and if it's interrupted I go back a couple of steps and start over.

I've also generally followed the "three little mistakes" rule for a long time now. If I arrive at the airport and I'm making little mistakes during pre-flight, and prep... on the third mistake I close up the airplane and hangar and go home. Doesn't happen often, but it's a sign of being either way too distracted or fatigued to be PIC today. A bigger mistake is coming.
 
denverpilot said:
I've also generally followed the "three little mistakes" rule for a long time now. If I arrive at the airport and I'm making little mistakes during pre-flight, and prep... on the third mistake I close up the airplane and hangar and go home. Doesn't happen often, but it's a sign of being either way too distracted or fatigued to be PIC today. A bigger mistake is coming.
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I like that and I think I'm going to start implementing that. I imagine the first could be chalked up to silly stuff and after the second you should have brought out your 'A' game. A third mistake with your game face on is a great indicator that something bad is going to happen.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I often sacrifice a couple chickens on a short local flight, and a goat on a cross country.
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To hell with sacrificing the chicken, eat fried chicken!

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Minus the pounder if you're pre-flight snacking.

Sac Arrow said:
The former is hard to come by, and the latter is hard to get to.
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And would be a waste anyway.
 

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Cajun_Flyer said:
Not really a ritual so much, as a superstition... it involves a necklace.

Backstory - I stayed at a hotel close by the airport the night before my checkride... airport is over an hour from home and I just wanted to minimize anything Murphy's Law could do to sabotage things. Murphy and I aren't exactly the best of friends.

The morning of my checkride, I went downstairs to print out some things in the lobby. There was a security guard sitting in a nearby chair... big guy... it looked like he was sleeping. Right as I sat down, he stirred and I heard him say, "Why are you here?"

I was confused and wasn't sure if he was talking to me at first, but there was no one else around.

So, I told him that I was a student pilot about to go take my checkride and that I was, basically, a nervous wreck. At this, he opened his eyes and, still not so much as glancing my way, gets up from his chair, walks into a small nearby room and closes the door. I thought, Well that was bizarre and kinda rude. But whatever.

A few minutes later, he comes out of the room and sits back down in the chair. In his hands he has a dark crystal, some wire, a chord and pliers. I tried to mind my own business and go about printing off what I needed, but I couldn't help glancing over at him from time to time and watching what he was doing...
he was making a necklace.

When he was done, he cupped it in his hands, blew on it and - with his eyes cast down to the ground, still not looking my way - hands it to me and said, "For good luck."

Murphy threw me some solid wind conditions, but I managed to nail every maneuver and landing, so much so that my DPE - a pilot of many decades and with tens of thousands of hours - said my crosswind landings were the best he'd ever seen.

I went back to the hotel a few days later to thank the guy. When I walked in, neither the security guard nor the chair he had been sitting in were there. The entire exchange had been so bizarre that I didn't want to ask the desk lady if he was around because I was afraid she was going to say something like, "Security Guard? We don't have a Security Guard..."

:eek:

Anyway, I have to have the necklace with me on all my flights now. I'm really not sure I'd be able to go up without it.

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Des...um what you think is a dark crystal is actually a severed finger but hey, if its luck that it gives, then whatever blows yer dress up. ;)
 
My only ritual is to clean the dead bugs off the plane because they're too damn hard if the guts aren't fresh. And I always pat the cowling and thank her for a safe flight.
 
asicer said:
So do commandos go commando? While going as a commando?
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There is a reason for it. When you're eating, sleeping and crawling through dirt and mud 24/7, underwear starts to get very abrasive after a couple days.
 
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