Father Time, along with today’s political correctness, has long ago passed by those old James Bond flicks but there are still a few good lines that cause us to chuckle. James had all the gadgets, guns, women, and danger that could only exist in one of those old movies. He also had a penchant for his martinis, but they had to be “shaken, not stirred.” People get stirred up too when something abrupt and unexpected happens; that’s a normal part of our self-defense against danger. Getting all stirred up and startled isn’t the issue, but getting so shaken that you can’t think clearly to solve the problems confronting you is a big problem.

For the full article see the AOPA website at: 
https://pilot-protection-services.aopa.org/news/2019/september/01/the-startle-reflex-shaken-not-stirred?_ga=2.82711254.1972346336.1567347327-641640955.1562858525

The paradoxes in our quest to find the holy grail of flight safety continued last month with our look into cockpit automation. Even tracing this all the way back to the 1930s when Isaac Asimov wrote science fiction stories about “Robbie” the robot that was programmed to help its human developers, we were left with the conflict of our brain trying to get along well with Robbie and integrate our combined talents into the automated systems in the modern airplane cockpit. We established the need to utilize automation to check our own biases but recent events show that unfamiliarity, overreliance, or failures to monitor and supervise the automation can be just as deadly.

For the full article see the AOPA website at: 
https://pilot-protection-services.aopa.org/news/2019/july/01/me-and-robbie-part-two?_ga=2.48863203.479779608.1561642025-1107606214.1547390316