Being Prepared is Important. Ready? Not So Much.
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
- Abraham Lincoln
The three most useless things in aviation are the runway behind you, the altitude above you, and the air in the fuel tanks.
- unknown
Pilots have several considerations in preparing for a flight. They must be well rested and physically and mentally healthy. They must have the required equipment, knowledge, and qualifications. It is also important they ensure the aircraft is airworthy. The traveling public obviously has an interest in pilots being prepared and ready to fly. Flying a pressurized aluminum tube several miles above the planet at hundreds of miles per hour is not something to be taken lightly.
In the previous post I covered choosing a destination. For a pilot to be adequately prepared it is also important that he know about the destination. (And also decide if the flight can even depart.) For example, when I was a young and inexperienced pilot, my boss tasked me with picking up two airplanes he had recently purchased. I was to fly one of his airplanes, a mechanic that worked for him that was also a pilot, and a pilot friend of mine to where the airplanes were located, several states away. We were to inspect the airplanes, finalize the deal, and fly all three airplanes home.
We met up, got in the airplane, and took off. We had been flying eastbound for a couple of hours, with my friend flying and the mechanic in the backseat, when I began reading about our destination in an FAA book I had brought along. As the sun was setting behind us, I read aloud to my crew: “Airport and runway lights missing or intermittent. Night operations not recommended. 60-foot trees within 350’ of end of runway XX. Mountains rising several thousand feet within nine miles east of the airport. Pavement condition poor. Grass growth on runway and excessive cracking.” Reading that for the first time as we approached the destination with the sun going down was not ideal. We landed safely and without incident, but I resolved to be better prepared in the future. (Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment.)
PREPARED VS. READY
There are differences between being prepared and being ready. The terms may be used synonymously but differentiating between them is important. In life you can be prepared for something but not necessarily ready (e.g., death of a family member). It is also possible to be ready but not prepared (e.g., an opportunity to go swimming but you do not have a swimsuit, if that matters to you). Preparedness can often be objectively measured, proven, defined, or put into a checklist whereas readiness is a state of mind. (Level of Preparedness vs. State of Readiness.) Answering the question “Are you prepared for ___?” may be straightforward and easy to answer. However, answering the question “Are you ready for ___?” is often more challenging, and certainty may be elusive.
Here are some examples to drive home the point:
A pilot may be prepared for an engine failure, but is he ready?
You may be prepared for college, but are you ready?
You may be prepared for marriage, but are you ready?
You may be prepared for your first child, but are you ready?
You may be prepared for a road trip across the U.S. with your spouse and four young children but are you ready to be trapped with them in the family truckster and at roadside hotels for many, many days?
(By the way, if kids are along it is not a vacation; it’s a trip.)
A more personal example comes from my youth growing up in Minnesota, where winters are not for the faint of heart. (I saw ambient air temperatures as low as -60°F.) Growing up we burned wood to heat our house so getting prepared for winter meant spending part of each summer and fall ensuring we had enough wood for the entire winter.
Being ready for winter meant knowing it would bring much shorter daylight hours and sometimes early mornings to clear feet of snow in the dark, with bitter cold and howling winds. It also meant being ready for challenging driving conditions that demanded more alertness and caution and sometimes significantly longer drive times. Regardless, whether we were ready or not, winter was coming. Being prepared for winter was vastly different than being ready, and if you have never experienced that kind of winter there is really no way to be ready for your first one.
Pilots fortunately get repeated practice in high quality full-flight simulation devices reacting to major problems that, thankfully, have a low likelihood of occurring. That practice tests their preparedness. It also greatly increases their state of readiness for any event because similar procedural responses, reactions, and thought patterns are used to address almost anything that might occur. However, simulators have limitations. For example, they do not illicit the same emotional or physiological responses as would be present in the aircraft. (Everyone walks away from a crash in the simulator.)
If there were such a thing as a “life choice simulator” we would all have an opportunity to achieve a similarly high state of readiness. However, as with pilots, it still would be just a simulator and it would be impossible to cover every situation that might occur, or all the possible variations. A pilot may perform well in emergency situations in a simulator, but only if one happens in the aircraft will he truly know if he was ready. The low likelihood of an actual emergency occurring does not negate the need for pilots to be prepared. A good pilot is prepared regardless of likelihood. As it is for pilots it is also true in life.
Preparation is important for planned life events (e.g., executing the flight plan to your destination) and the unplanned such as illness, lost employment, death in the family, house fire, etc. You may find that some preparations were never necessary, but, like pilots, we do not get to choose the type or timing of emergencies. Besides, much is learned in getting prepared, and getting prepared also increases your readiness.
All the preparation that a pilot does for a flight is leading to one decision point, one critical moment when the airplane is fully loaded, all the doors are closed, and he releases the parking brake and tells the ground crew “brakes released, cleared to push.” He has until that moment to get himself, the crew, and the airplane prepared and ready.
If the flight does not push on time, he will have to explain the nature of the delay. Once the aircraft is underway, the time for preparedness has passed and the captain is now fully responsible for the aircraft, crew, and passengers. This same scenario applies to life. Preparation is a great thing but eventually the time will come for you to release the brake, push back from the gate, and get underway on the adventure. If you don’t, you may be asked to explain the nature of the delay to your friends and family.
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