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A few aviation idioms that come to mind.

1. "Stay ahead of the aircraft."

i.e. anticipate and manage administrative (or tactical) minutiae to put yourself in the best possible position when the tempo increases.

2. "Aviate, aviate, aviate...then navigate and communicate" (already mentioned).

This is commonly used during a crew brief prior to a flight, particularly when discussing emergency procedures. Focus on the most critical thing (EP immediate action items, keeping the bird aloft, not hitting lead or the ground) and when that's done, use your remaining bandwidth to complete the 'nice-to-have' items (e.g. keeping the flight on course, a MAYDAY call, or an advisory call to the flight/controller). I like to really emphasize the aviate portion during my briefs. Junior pilots have a tendency to try and do all three things simultaneously which can compound an already bad situation.

"Waveoff's are free."

If you see a landing going bad, don't hesitate to use a mulligan.

*Free as in you won't be judged for choosing to 'go-around' but will be held accountable if you push a bad situation that you could have prevented through better judgement.

Get-there-itis: Wanting to accomplish something (e.g. get to a cool destination or hit a time on target) so badly that you will accept unnecessary risk in order to achieve whatever you're trying to do. Many aviation (and life) mishaps are the indirect result of get-there-itis; most notably, accepting poor weather or an aircraft with maintenance issues.

This is kind of fun and I could go on...




Get-there-itis can adversely affect code quality too!




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