"When Automation Becomes the Risk"

Modern aviation relies heavily on automation to reduce workload and increase capability—but automation can also introduce new risks when it is misunderstood or over‑trusted.

Aviators encounter automation traps through avionics modes and flight management systems. Maintainers face them through software‑driven diagnostics and automated test equipment. Controllers and UAS operators rely on increasingly complex traffic‑management tools. This episode explores how automation affects attention, trust, and complacency, and how aviators in every role can remain actively engaged rather than passively reliant on technology. For aviation maintenance technicians (AMTs), this includes software-driven diagnostics, automated test equipment, and system logic that must be questioned, not assumed.

This podcast is the audio part of the original live video broadcast available at https://www.onsecondthought.me/2 If you wish, please visit that website to view the archived version of the live event - including audience comments and polling.

This podcast qualifies for FAA WINGS credit.  After listening, go HERE to test your knowledge and earn immediate FAA WINGS credit upon successful completion of the quiz.  You must be registered on the FAA Safety Team website to access this quiz and credits.  If you have not yet registered, you may do so HERE.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

On Second Thought is a monthly, live-streamed aviation safety video series. Each hour-long episode dissects real-world Human Factor Behaviors to identify why pilots continue to make harmful decisions that put themselves and passengers in harm’s way. And most important, this series offers practical personal develop solutions to improve one’s Aeronautical Decision Making skills

With a 100% focus on Human Factors, the “Final Frontier” of aviation safety education, this first of its’ kind series draws from FAA, NTSB, and international safety and human factors research to highlight:

• The Individual Pilot Characteristics that influence Aeronautical Decision Making 

1. Age 

2. Gender 

3. Financial Challenges 

4. Career Pressures 

5. Relationship Conflicts 

6. Peer Pressures 

7. Cognitive Biases, and more

By combining expert analysis with FAA WINGS / AMT / IA credit, interactive learning tools, and Lightspeed Aviation sponsorship integration, On Second Thought will directly improve safety awareness, and help shape behavior.

We seek your support and collaboration to help make this series possible.

ON SECOND THOUGHT is proudly sponsored by AVEMCO. Learn more about Avemco Insurance Company HERE or give them a call 800-353-9107. Tell them ON SECOND THOUGHT sent you and earn a 5% discount on your aircraft insurance.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:08

Well, good evening, everyone. I'm Harvey Madison, and welcome to episode two of On Second Thought. And with me, as always, the wonderful Jolie Lucas. Again, I'm Harvey Madison. I'm an instructional designer with over uh 30 years of experience across several industries right now in aviation. And Jolie.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Yes, I think instead of a CFI, which I am not, I should be a CBI, which is a certified brain instructor. So I've been a licensed psychotherapist for about 34, 35 years.

SPEAKER_04 0:49

But you're only 37, so.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

I know it's kind of, you know, I did it in my infancy.

SPEAKER_04 0:55

As always, we want to thank our premier sponsor, Evemco. Uh, and be sure to give them a call, tell them that you are a viewer of On Second Thought, and you can get a discount. Uh, Avemco is wonderful because they care very, very much about flight safety, which is why they sponsor programs like this, where we know if you're watching, you're in the right mindset to have a second thought and think about your safety uh both before and during flight. Uh also, when you talk to Avemco, you are talking directly to the underwriters, the folks who are actually going to insure you, not a not a middle person. Uh so give them a call. Also, uh this evening, uh, as with episode one, you'll be able to earn FA Wings credits, A and P credits, uh by listening to our entire presentation, taking a quiz uh online, which you can uh access through our website on secondthought.me, that's Mike Echo. Uh and also want to point out that the episode one uh AP Credits has now been approved for IA as well. So uh if you want to get IA credit and you have not yet gone and taken that test, uh that quiz for episode one, you can uh view it uh on our website, you can listen to it on the podcast platform of your choice, take the quiz, and you can get IA credit. And for those of you who have not been to our website, wait a minute, that would be everybody. How else are you watching this presentation? You may have noticed that our website contains a nice menu uh that can tell you everything you want to know about Jolie and I, about our program. Um we have uh not just about this program, which kind of covers our philosophy, but also uh uh course resources, uh something about us, how to earn the wings credits, about our sponsor Evemco, uh, and then of course our own second thought archives. And we want you to participate. We don't want this to be a one-sided conversation. So uh if you want to participate, click down on the little speech bubble that has a person icon in it. Click uh to join the conversation, choose to log in using guest, enter your name first, not your question. Otherwise, your question will become your name in the in the chat, and that's just uncomfortable for everybody. And we also now have uh a uh newsletter.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

And what's lovely about the newsletter is that we do read your comments that are in the chat, and so we answer them in the newsletter, and as well, you'll get an updated schedule of what we will be doing out and about in the aviation world, and as well coming up on second thought. So you can sign up for our newsletter or use the QR code that is right on your screen. So, as you may know from episode one, on second thought is 100% focused on human factors. And again, human factors aren't about fixing people or blaming people, it's understanding how our brains work, how and how under real conditions what might be going on with your thinking and your behavior. We are super glad you're here. Whether you are a non-pilot companion, a pilot, a mechanic, ATC, line personnel, airport manager, whatever you might be in the aviation world, we are glad that you are here and um so happy that you've joined us tonight.

SPEAKER_04 5:14

So tonight's uh topic is all about mnemonics. Now, we all have learned uh a whole bunch of mnemonics to remember things like memory items for emergency checklists, or uh I'm safe, for example, to uh check ourselves before we get in the airplane and wreck ourselves, things like that. But specifically tonight, we're going to talk about one called Ford. And in fact, I now pronounce it for dash deck because it turns out that that dash in the middle is part of this mnemonic, and it is absolutely fantastic. It was developed by Lufthansa for urgent high stress emergency situations, but it turns out that when you look at it and when it was tested by uh academics who did a rigorous study on it, that it is universally applicable. It can be used in high stress situations, low stress or strategic situations, and not just in aviation. So, first we need to talk about why is something like that needed? And for that, we have to turn to the real brain expert, Jolie.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Well, um, here's a picture of somebody that looks a little bit stressed out. And the research under underlying FordEck, and that is also in our resource guide, you can see the research in which we based our presentation on. Um, the basic concept is that human decision making degrades very predictably under stress. So as your workload increases, as you have a sense of urgency, your attention narrows and your working memory gets overloaded. And so what people tend to want to do is to rely heavily on pattern recognition and on what they've done in the past. And I haven't looked at the chat, but I hope that the potatoes are showing up. So we're gonna talk about why good people make bad decisions as soon as uh my technology catches up here. There we go. So, you know, decision failures aren't because somebody's not very educated or doesn't have, you know, a good cognitive ability. Um, most of the time, bad decisions are made because we are trying to make them under pressure. And when we are stressed out, that shifts our thinking away from careful evaluation and it moves toward rapid action. So here's the scenario for you is uh you're late to work for an important meeting, you're feeling a time stressor, and traffic is worse than expected. So, what humans like to do is make a quick decision whether it's the right one or not. So you get the bright idea of taking a shortcut, and unfortunately, this is something that you've never used, the shortcut that Waze or Google Maps is taking you through, and you actually end up later. So remember that urgency and feeling like you need to make a decision is an illusion, it's just a feeling. So here we go. The myth of rational decision making. You know, we like to think that we uh make rational decisions, but we really do not. We tend to get that sense of pressure and that we need to make a decision here in the scenario that's on your screen. You're standing in the grocery store because you want to compare two different products. You want to know that one is a little bit of a lower price point, and you get into the situation, the grocery store is busy, and you're holding up the two products. What tends to happen is that even small amounts of pressure nudges toward what feels known, i.e., the product that we have used before, rather than the careful analysis. So again, we get pressured into making a decision, any decision, before we have some thoughtful reflection. We're going to talk a little bit about how stress changes your brain. Most of us know what stress feels like. Of course, it's a physiological response. And when we're feeling stressed out, we have lots of wonderful little stress hormones that get released. And we are made for chronic, for urgent stress or stress that happens acutely. We are not made for chronic stress. Stress typically activates our amygdalas located right behind our ears. They're about the size of an almond or so. And what happens with our amygdala when we're stressed out? Fight, flight, and freeze. And so when we are stressed, it feels more like we're wound up and it feels a lot like anxiety. As we know, mild stress is fine. It's a part of life. It's what got us here at the top of the hour to start our presentation. But when we're dealing with moderate, severe, or extreme stress, uh, then we typically lose the ability to assess risk and also mitigate risk. So we're much more likely to say that something is 10 out of 10 important and I have to do something, you know, with this 10 out of 10 thing that actually might be a 5 out of 10 under reflection. The other thing that stress does is it reallocates our energy and our cognitive resources away from effective decision making and it turns us toward this coping with the stressor instead of making good decisions. So again, mild stress, not really a problem. But when we're talking about moderate, severe, extreme chronic stress, then we start to talk about our anxiety becoming higher, our decision making becoming poorer, and we can have a lot of fatigue in our adrenal system and just in our everyday life, our body feels fatigued. So here's our little super brain. We call him Captain Cortex. What I want you to know about your brain is that its sole purpose is to predict the future and to protect you. Your brain does not want you to be happy, your brain does not want you to feel joy, it wants you to stay stuck because stuck is predictable and stuck feels safe. So when your brain is trying to keep you surviving and breathing, it is going to urge you to be in the same pattern, the same rut that you've been into, the same story. So even when you're miserable, your brain will choose a familiar pain than unfamiliar peace. What I would like you to remember, what I work with my clients in therapy with is knowing that discomfort is not danger. Discomfort is only data, and that growth does not feel calm at first. You feel shaky and awkward and it feels wrong. So when you are in a situation and your brain's going, this is dangerous, this is dangerous, you know, go back to what you know, stay in your box, stay in your lane, then we have to say, this is not wrong, it's not dangerous. This is just new. So we talked a little bit about feeling urgency and feeling time constraints, especially when we're making decisions. One thing that I think is really fascinating is that urgency is not a fact. Urgency is an emotional state. So it's a story that your brain's telling you that you have to make a decision right away, you have to do something right away. But urgency is not the truth, it is merely a feeling. It also takes away your window for reflection. Um, action can feel safer than waiting. So, what that might mean is that making a decision quickly feels safer because you're making a decision. But much like life, if we actually slow down our pace and we try to look at the bigger picture, then we can make decisions that are based more on perspective, and it allows us to take time to really process the layers of what we would like. So we often rush solutions that's kind of human, but what we need is clarity. So here comes our little Captain Cortex again. And so our hidden superpower in our brains is that we already know how to think ahead, which is double-edged, like I mentioned. The brain wants to keep you safe and in your lane and in your box. We naturally rehearse outcomes before acting. We imagine consequences, reactions, and second-order effects. So it is our superpower that we can think in a comprehensive way. But stress really affects our ability to access this higher brain function. Okay, we're going to talk a little bit about attention. Last time in episode one, we talked a whole hour about how we pay attention. So this is just a little bit of a refresher. So our attention is very selective. As you can see from the slide, we've got somebody that's driving a car and having a text message conversation. And so that person is not paying attention to the road, the traffic, the deer that's on the side of the road, what time of day it is, none of that. So attention is very selective. We think that we process everything, but we don't. So what we do is we filter out first, and then we reason second. So attention is really filtering reality before we even get the ability to start making clear decisions. And under a stress load, humans really narrow their attention and we can only process a certain subset of the data that's in front of us. When we're you know working on an airplane as a mechanic, when uh we have ATC that is managing a lot of aircraft, when we're piloting command in a busy space, or when we're a non-pilot companion, we have to know that when we are stressed out, what we pay attention to is very selective. We can get fixated on things instead of seeing the bigger picture. So I love this topic because if we can help even one person to recognize that they need to think in bigger ways and to know that their ability to pay attention and their ability to make decisions is state dependent. So, what that means is that my emotional state is going to be what helps us make good decisions. On the slide in front of you is why experience can betray us. So, experience is valuable, don't get me wrong. If you've been working in your field, I've been working for 34, 35 years. I have a lot of experience doing what I do, but it doesn't exempt me from being human and making human errors. Sometimes familiar patterns feel right, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they are. And um, what the research shows is that aw my dog is howling. I don't know if you can hear that, but it's breaking my heart. Um, experience increases uh confidence before it increases accuracy. So, what that means is I am going to be feel more confident from my experience, but what's really happening is that that confidence is getting built up long before it does anything with our accuracy in decision making. So, talking about driving, this is my slide on driving down the 101. So Californians put the in front of our highways. So this is an experienced driver driving down the 101 and a brand new driver driving down the 101. Experts and novices decide very differently. So experts are often relying on recognition-based decisions. They have experience in a certain, they've they've driven on the 101 or the 405, and uh especially in high traffic areas. Novices tend more to rely on analytical comparison, but what happens with our novices is they pay much more attention to every single detail versus on the details that matter. And so novices have a hard time in selective attention in terms of maybe an instrument scan if you're a pilot, or for the non-pilot companion to know what in the instrument panel is necessary for us to look at and what are some signs that there might be some difficulties ahead. Lower experienced people, again, they they tend to get overwhelmed because there's so much going on. In my right seat ready companion seminars, oftentimes we start the beginning of the course, it's a two-day course, and I show the folks an instrument panel with all the all the radio stacks, GPS, everything that's there, and I ask them if they know what anything is and and could they tell me. Most folks are overwhelmed. By the end of two days, I have them pointing out where the manifold pressure gauge, where's the GPS, where the compass is, what the ground speed is, all that good stuff. Um, lower experienced folks notice discomfort earlier, which can be handy because they're trusting their somatic sense a little bit more. I want to give you some examples here about how experience can betray us. So here's a pilot scenario. And for those of us who've who've flown routes or flown into airports a lot, this can happen to us where this pilot has flown into uh an airport dozens of times. The weather looks pretty good. And the approach feels pretty routine. And as a matter of fact, the pilot starts configuring for landing and for the approach early. And the pilot did not check the weather, the winds, the runaway conditions, none of that. And what ends up happening is that you're actually not flying the approach in real time. You're flying an approach that you flew two weeks ago. And the situation, the conditions are different. So again, remember that familiarity can create confidence that is puffed up and it's too much. And actually, your accuracy hasn't caught up to what you think that your experience provides you. So here's another one with a controller issue. And based on your work as an ATC controller and your past patterns, you assume what route they're going to fly, and that you're already planning their handoff. And then you notice late that today the situation is very different. So your experience really didn't help you all that much because you were based in the past and what happened last Wednesday instead of today. So recognition feels efficient, but it can quietly outrun your current reality. So, Harvey, you want to hit these next two um scenarios. We have one for the mechanic and we have one for a non-pilot companion.

SPEAKER_04 23:52

Absolutely. So we have a mechanic scenario here. So for our AMTs, so an aircraft comes in, it's got a symptom. This is something you I mean, you could practically do this in your sleep, as far as as far as you know, uh uh as far as diagnosing and and resolving the situation. So your experience points you to the usual suspects, right? You start troubleshooting right there. Later, you realize oh, oh, this airplane had a recent modification that changes the failure logic. So you thought you were going down a path that had turns that you're used to taking on this decision tree, and whoop, nope, actually it doesn't. So experience can speed diagnosis, but it it can narrow curiosity, meaning it can make you stop thinking. Okay. And when you stop thinking, when we're dealing with something safety related, that's a risk factor. Now, for uh a nonpilot companion, we've got a nonpilot right seater sitting in our GA airplane. You have flown with this pilot, whoever it is, sitting to your left many, many times. The sounds, the movements, everything is familiar. But something a little different happens. There's a little bit of a pause, and you know, you hear a little bit of tension in an exchange, and and and that's off a little bit, but your senses are a little heightened because you're in a small GA airplane and you're not a pilot, so it's not the world's most comfortable place for you the way it is for a lot of GA pilots. Um, you don't say anything, it feels like a normal flight, so you just assume it is. So the takeaway from this is familiarity creates comfort faster than it creates awareness. And this kind of goes back, Julie, I think, to episode one, we were talking about attention and how it's something not only that you can learn, but that you can uh you can turn into a habit. And one of the important things to keep in mind when you decide that that's something you want to do, uh uh, is to think before you get into an airplane or before you get into some situation where you know you want to pay uh close attention and remember this particular lesson. Uh, familiarity creates comfort. So stay on your toes, keep your eyes open, keep paying attention. Uh, if you see something, say something. Uh don't give up the ship. Whatever else I can think of.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

What other metaphor can we use? Yep.

SPEAKER_04 26:52

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Okay, so we've got Captain Cortex here, and he's ready to fight. Um, so I want to talk about defensive decision making. This is one of the harder things for us to look at in ourselves is our ability to um look at our defensiveness and the way that we protect ourselves psychologically. What tends to happen with defensive reactions is that we deny conflicting information. So again, we are not focused solely on the what's in front of us, but we are going into the past and and not and not looking at things that are conflicting. So they rarely look dramatic. It looks like mostly not choosing to slow things down. Remember a few moments ago we talked about urgency is a feeling, it's not a fact. So when we are able to slow things down, to ask the question, to be the person that maybe complicates the day a little bit, then we are not doing the defensive decision making. And oftentimes we do defensiveness and defensive decision making when we're feeling like we're psychologically at risk, and it really is a protective aspect. And so again, what we would like to encourage you to do is slow things down and take the time to ask the questions. I truly cannot remember if I gave this example before in episode one. So if I did, please forgive me. But I was up in San Carlos, California, it's uh GA Airport that's just right outside the San Francisco airspace. I went up for a Cal Pilots convention, California Pilots Association. And when it came time to leave, I was getting permission to taxi, and it was going to be a VFR flight home to Santa Maria. And as I was taxiing to the run-up area, the controller asked me if I knew the pres if I knew the departure procedure for the airport. And um guess what? I said yes when I did not. And so I knew that I did not have time to look it up. And so what I was doing at first was just trying to act like I was competent, like I knew the departure procedure. And I didn't want to ask a question. I didn't want to slow down the process. And as I got into the run-up area, I call myself sis a lot. So I was like, well, sis, you do not know the departure procedure that they just asked you about. So you need to fuss up. And I called him up on the radio and I said, 6619 uniform is unfamiliar with the departure procedure. And he was so grateful. He said, thank you so much for asking. And he told me what the procedure was, and I did it. And of course, that felt really good just to slow things down, to ask the question, and to get the information that I needed. And a lot of times our decisions start as bodily sensations. So it could be tension, it could be a vague sense that something doesn't feel right. And oftentimes these bodily cues happen before conscious thought, and they can be used as a form of situational assessment. So I don't know about you, but I've had it happen where I walk into a room and immediately I feel tension or I feel uneasy, but I don't yet know why. And that's because my body is picking up on the energy in the room. And we know that stress and dysregulation of your nervous system is socially contagious. So your uneasy feeling if you have it is not wrong. It oftentimes is a sign that your body is picking up on something before your brain does, before you think about it. So good decisions come from situational awareness, and that comes first. So what we would encourage you to do is to make your decisions based on what is going on and to really understand what your body is saying and what the situation in reality, remember, reality, we're not just based on the past, we are based on the present data, the present facts, and that we need to make sure that we are not feeling a sense of urgency, that we haven't come to a foregone conclusion, and that we are able to recognize that if any part of the decision chain breaks, then the quality of our decision suffers, oftentimes without us even realizing it. So I'd like you to watch the following video and see where the chain breaks.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

It's just there's all this pressure, you know? And sometimes it feels like it's right up on me, and I can just feel it, like literally feel it in my head, and it's relentless, and I don't know if it's gonna stop. I mean, that's the thing that scares me the most, is that I don't know if it's ever gonna stop.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

Yeah. You do have uh a nail in your head.

SPEAKER_02 33:17

It is not about the nail.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Are you sure? Because I mean, I'll bet if we got that out of there.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

Stop trying to fix it.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

No, I'm not trying to fix it. I'm just pointing out that maybe the nail is causing You always do this.

SPEAKER_03 33:29

You always try to fix things when what I really need is for you to just listen.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

See, I don't think that is what you need. I think what you need is to get the nail.

SPEAKER_03 33:36

See, you're not even listening now.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

Okay, fine. I will listen. Fine.

SPEAKER_03 33:40

It's just sometimes it's like there's this achy I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

And I'm not sleeping very well at all. And all my sweaters are snagged. I mean, all of them.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

That sounds really hard.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

It is. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 34:08

Ow! Oh, come on. If you would just don't try to do things my way. Do I have to keep on talking till I can go on? We can work it up.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

So you might have noticed something about her ability to figure out what is going on in the present moment compared to what she thought. And I would wager that many of us have a nail in our forehead about something. And uh, so I'd encourage you when somebody does give you a little bit of a mirror into what's going on, that you recognize they might be giving you some feedback that's actually that is actually very important. So experience improves speed, but it does not give you immunity from basic human error. Faster doesn't always mean safer. As we spoke about a few moments ago, your confidence is bigger than your accuracy. And um, experience does have does change how decisions are made, but we still want to get things done quickly, and oftentimes we do not want to pause and have the bigger picture. And getting better at something doesn't turn us into machines, but it does help us to recognize cues, patterns that we have, um, biases that we have, and pressure or urgency that we're feeling. We're going to be talking a little bit more about automation in episode two, I believe. But when we are using automation in the cockpit in our work, it does change what we pay attention to and we can get focused on it to much more of a greater extent than we need to. Uh automation, of course, does reduce our workload, but it also gets in the way of my assessment of what is going on in the cockpit or at work, and it can reduce our vigilance. So we need to make sure that we know that we will tend to overfixate on automation and that we might ignore conflicting information between what the automation is telling us and what I am seeing with my eyes. So sometimes we trust the system too much, and we um are more likely to accept uh suggestions from our um our machines, our automation, and we are not critical about it. So be really careful when uncertainty is high, we tend to trust automation, and we do know that that is not always accurate. As we talked about last week, high performers use low stress time wisely. We know that my ability to pay attention, my ability to make decisions is state dependent. That means that my nervous system needs to be very regulated so that I can have a broad sense of attention and I can make good decisions. So, what I would encourage you to do is to get a little bit better at checking in with your body, with your emotions, with your environment, so that you can keep yourself in the calm, which lets us make decisions that are safer for all. So, up to this point, we have been talking about what humans actually do under pressure, how they think under pressure. We have discussed avoidance and rushing and the sense of urgency that we believe is a fact instead of a feeling. We also saw how the seasoned driver drives down the 101 Pacific Coast Highway in California, and how a novice does. And so what we'll be doing here is I will be handing over the controls to Captain Harvey, and he is going to be discussing the tool that can help us to make decisions in a better way.

SPEAKER_04 38:56

Well, thank you. That was uh uh excellent. I I I mean I've heard it before in some of uh some of the presentations and talks that you've given over uh over the years, but here you actually put it all together and uh it's really cogent and and very, very important to understand what's going on in your head um uh uh before you know you even start uh figuring out what to do about it in order to uh improve and increase safety. Uh that context, I think, is incredibly important. Uh and speaking of what's going on in some people's heads, we do have some answers about uh favorite forms of potatoes uh that have come in. I've been informed by our producer, Johnny T. Um, and uh some of the answers were why are we talking about potatoes again? I understand, I understand. We're trying something. We're trying to, you know, this is episode two, folks. You know, we're just trying to, you know, we we want to know what you want. So and uh everybody else had terrible answers. None of them were fried. They had home fries, those are baked, you know, uh uh mashed potatoes. I can get behind the mashed potatoes, but there's just got to be a ton of butter in them, anyhow. Okay so I wanted uh I wanted to cover that, and I am also very much looking forward to uh our automation episode uh next month, episode three. It's going to be uh it's gonna be a good one. I've already started looking at it and working on it. So uh it's it's gonna be grand. So let's talk about this four deck thing that we started with uh at the top of the show, and uh not just explain what it is, uh, but build a little context beforehand, and then we're gonna go through some examples of applying FordEck and also back up a little bit uh of why it is the one mnemonic to rule them all, as I call it. Um so checklists are one way you can think about them is separated broadly into two categories. Um one is regular checklists, and the other is emergency checklists. Well, emergency checklists are assuming you're anxious. Um and so they come up with things like you know, the the memory items that you have to memorize, uh, and things like that uh when you're uh uh training, when you're learning. But understand something. Those emergency checklists don't manage anxiety, they simply assume that you're anxious uh correctly, uh, in I would say almost all cases. They're the memory items, and we come up with mnemonics. Uh, I know uh one that probably all pilots learn is ABC. Some people learn ABC D, yada yada, yada, you know. You lose power. Okay, airspeed, get the best glide. B best place to land, find it and commit to it, start heading that way. C communicate. Uh there are different variations on it. I understand that. Uh, but we rely on these mnemonics, and there are so many of them. Well, how do we how do we know that they're they're they're good, that they work, that they're the best ones that we can't do better? Well, somebody, actually, several people with PhDs and human factors, wondered the same thing. And so they went out and they looked at mnemonics that airline pilots and military pilots use for emergency scenarios, and they tested four big ones that are used globally. Um shore, don't know what that stands for, I forget. Pass. Uh, I believe pass is used by the United States Air Force. Uh, decide, actually, I may have that backwards. I don't, I don't recall. Some of you watching right now are probably, you know, veins popping out of your head saying, no, it's for this. Understood. But what we're gonna talk about tonight is four deck, four-deck, because it is far and away the best mnemonic and the best process to follow under high stress scenarios. Here's what it stands for facts, gather all the facts, situational awareness, what's going on right now, what's around you, what what conditions, if you're a mechanic, uh you know, uh, is it too noisy or are you under stress? If you're air traffic controller, is it too noisy? Is there a bunch of stress? Uh uh you know, just regardless of what uh your particular task at the moment. Is options. Okay, you've got all the facts. What can be done about it? You run through those, and then you come up with risks and benefits, pros and cons basically. Okay, what's good if I do this? What is potentially bad if I do that same thing? And you run through some of those. And then the dash, it turns out, according to these researchers, is very important to make sure that you are not still in panic thinking and that you are having second-order front-of-the-brain captain cortex uh level thoughts instead of amygdala thoughts. Uh, very, very important. Now, when it says pause for a sec, it doesn't mean you know realign your chakras and sit here and breathe for five minutes. It means take one breath. It will take three seconds and then move on. Decision. Come decide which options you are going to choose. Definitely at least come up with a plan A. Better if you could come up with a plan B also. Execute. Do it. And then check did it work? Is the did it have the desired effect? Am I headed toward the desired outcome? No. Do something else. Plan B. That's what you need the plan B. Plan B doesn't work. Start again through four-deck. Now I know what some of you might be thinking about, gosh, doesn't that take a lot of time? We're getting to that. Because yeah, that does sound. That was the first thing I thought when I read this. I was like, how in the world are you gonna have time to run through this when something really crazy is happening? I will tell you the secret shortly. You have to stick around though. So remember this slide that Sholi was showing us earlier with Captain Cortex. Imagine, we imagine consequences, reactions, second-order effects. Stress does not remove that ability. It does not remove our ability to think. All it does is interrupt it. What we're doing with Ford is we're interrupting the interruption. We're getting the front part of our brain back, the part that's smart and can think and go, I know what to do. And then you do it and save the day. So we're gonna talk about some real-world examples, and all three of these examples have Pucker Factor for sure. Uh, thank you, Jolie, for coming up with that fantastic imagery there. I love it. Of course, I like I like lemons, so Pucker Factor isn't, you know, really a bad it means something very, very different for me. Uh, anyhow, okay. You're a line service tech, and uh you notice that there is a ground power unit on fire. It is the uh uh statutory 20 feet away from an aircraft. It's not hooked up to the aircraft, but that aircraft is being refueled by somebody else, another uh line service tech at that very moment, and wind is blowing smoke. And then you think maybe it's blowing some sparks right at where that refueler is up on the wing pumping gas into the vehicle. That's ah activate four deck. F-O-R-DEC F facts. Okay, these are things that are going to occur to you without you having to hear the sentence in your head. Okay, so when I say wind blowing sparks toward wing, Ford does not assume that you're going to go, hmm, wind is blowing sparks toward the wing. No, no, no, it's intuitively obvious. You're gathering facts in a very meta fashion, but they're definitely in mind. Another way to think about facts and gathering facts and getting the situational awareness is go back and watch episode one about attention. It tells you everything you need to know. Uh the the the your fellow line tech who's up there refueling is in smoke. And uh you know that if uh he or she pulls that that that hose out, uh there are sparks going by, and suddenly you're exposing potentially uh uh fuel to an ignition source. Um you know that the GPU is movable by one person, the airplane is movable, but it's large. There is another tech running from the hangar toward the scene, and you notice that there is a small tow bar nearby, like you would you would hook up to the front of a skyhawk to tow with. Okay, so you've gathered some facts. All right, so what are our options? Well, you could push the GPU, clear the aircraft, as uh that's how it's normally moved anyway, pushed or pulled. You could use the tow bar kind of upside down to hook onto the handle of the GPU and pull it. Uh, you could run over to the guy who's refueling and help them somehow, not really sure how, until you get there. Uh, turn around to the other line tech who is running uh towards you from the hangar and say, call 911. Or, and don't laugh, because this is a choice that is made frequently. You could decide to do nothing. Sometimes it's the right thing. It's very, very situational. Okay, now it's time to go through and uh risks and benefits. We're gonna weigh the pros and cons. The cons are in red, the pros are in green. Okay, we're gonna push the GPU clear of the aircraft. Well, we might get hurt because it's on fire. And if that doesn't work, how much time have we wasted? But if it does work, it's fast resolution and speed is pretty important right now, right? Okay, well, we could use the tow bar and kind of hook it. Well, uh, might still get hurt. Uh, you know, that the fire might be so big that you know, or it grows while we're there. We're getting ourselves in close proximity to danger. Uh, and that toe bar might you might not be able to hook it on just right. You don't know, you've never tried it before. Uh, but the benefits are it could uh uh happen, uh uh it could be fixed very quickly, and uh it could reduce chances of you getting injured. You could assist the refueler, run into smoke, really? No. Um, but you might be able to you know reduce injury to that refueler as well. Uh, or you could tell that other technician, uh, hey, call 911. Well, you've just taken them out of the picture, potentially able to come up and help. Maybe they know something you don't. Uh, but if they call fire services, then um fire services knows exactly what to do uh in order to take care of this. That's literally their job. They are equipped to handle all of this. All right. And so you could also do nothing. Well, possibly a catastrophic outcome. Possibly you just left the fueler to perish, uh, and you could be held accountable for inaction. What's the positive? Now don't laugh, because this is real calculus, it's done in people's heads. There's no risk of injury to yourself, and there's no accountability for you getting in there and potentially making things worse. Then take a breath. Take a breath. You decide plan A, you're gonna push the GPU clear of the aircraft. And if that doesn't work, plan B is going to be to use the tow bar. So you rush toward the GPU, it's very hot, and it's something you weren't even thinking about happens. You touch it, it's electrified. That's what it does, is it produces electricity, and so you receive electrical shock. So you go to plan B, you're gonna use a toe bar, but you also have to think kind of uh kind of quickly, which is take your shirt or take a rag or something like that, use it to hang on to the toe bar, hook it onto the GPU, and pull it away. So now you check, did that work? Well, upon moving clear, you notice uh the wind is still kind of blowing. Some sparks is probably okay, but better safe than sorry. So you uh move it a little bit further. The immediate danger is resolved, and you can assess and you can proceed with less stress and more cognitive capacity through the final resolution. And at this point, uh, I would ask uh John, is there any chance you could advance us through to the uh summary? I want to show everybody the screenshot of the matrix that shows how effective Ford is. There we go. So sure, pass, four deck, and decide. Those are the ranks of how well they performed in resolving a situation in six different types of problem areas. Notice 4DEC or 4-deck came in number one in every situation. And the last thing I want to say about this is I promised you at the beginning of the show I was going to tell you how to train for this. If you want to use 4DC, if you go to the resources section of our website, you're going to find the actual academic paper that talks about FordEck. Don't worry, it's not a bunch of edgy babble, gobbly gook that doesn't make any sense. It's actually kind of written in plain English, so you can really uh uh understand uh uh the study itself, and it's not terribly long either. It's maybe a 20-minute read. If you want Ford to work in high stress situations, you have to practice it while under stress. A great way to do that for pilots is in a flight simulator. Have emergencies pop up, even if you know the emergency is happening because you're the one causing it, you're still under time pressure. If you are an AMT, if you're air traffic control, if you are a truck driver, challenge yourself to fix a problem that you make up in your mind or that you create that's safe within a certain time constraint. When you do that, and only when you do that, will Fordek work for you.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

And actually, Harvey, with our right seaters, so we can um get our right seat nonpilot companions into a red bird simulator or other simulator, and they can be practicing, practicing, practicing. Well, tying it all together here with the bow, good decision making is not a personality trait, and it's not a talent, it's not something that you have or don't have, like green eyes. The goal is for us humans to stop thinking against our own biology and start giving ourselves some tools to work with. And again, we are always going to have some level of stress. We need to manage uncertainty and time pressure. Decision making is a skill, but it can be supported, trained, and improved. And so we hope that you got a lot out of our presentation. In the resources, I did put the psychology notes because sometimes folks say that I speak quickly when it comes to the psychology and the brain science. So I wrote up a two-page summary that is available in our resources. And in closing, on second thought is built for anyone whose decisions affect aviation safety.

SPEAKER_04 57:30

It's every one of you watching right now. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 57:34

And it really is for next month, March 11th, is when automation becomes the risk. So that will be fun to have. So you can see on the slide um some things that I will be up to coming up shortly. Right seat ready companion safety seminar is March 20th and 21st in San Luis Obispo, California. And uh we'll be at Sun and Fun doing a presentation for AOPA and doing some meeting greets, and that will be great, and of course, at Oshkosh. And then we have two pilot plus one seminars coming up, and that is left seat pilot education and right seat ready. That's May 29th and 30th at the Pilot Proficiency Center at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and June 12th and 13th at Pres Airport.

SPEAKER_04 58:29

That's right. Um yes, yes. And hanger, we are greatly looking forward to seeing. Thank you again to our wonderful sponsors of MCO. Uh, give them a call, get a discount when you tell them that you listen to On Second Thought.

SPEAKER_00 58:44

Don't forget to get your credits, your Wings credits, or your AMP IA credits. All you've got to do is take the quiz. We had over a hundred folks take the quiz last time. So that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 58:58

Absolutely. And one more time, remember, you can go to on second thought.me, which most of you I assume are on right now watching this, and uh you can find all of the course resources, information, quizzes that you need. This is this is it.

SPEAKER_00 59:18

Thank you for your participation.

SPEAKER_04 59:20

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 59:21

And uh together we can help pilots pause, reflect, and choose safety.

SPEAKER_04 59:26

On second thought. Thank you for joining us.