Blog: Hangar Talk with Eon

Steinbeck and the Delicacy of Coordination.

Posted on by Eon de Vos in Aviation, Flying, History, Pilots, Radio

(Originally published in FMR’s Opus Magazine, August 2024).

The American author John Steinbeck was 65 in 1967, when at the behest of Newsday magazine, he went to Vietnam to report on the war. (Steinbeck had received the Nobel prize for Literature in 1962). Alicia Patterson’s friend since 1956, he wrote a series of articles in the form of “Letters to Alicia” for Newsday following her death. At Pleiku, he flew aboard a UH-1 Huey helicopter with D Troop, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry, and wrote about the helicopter pilots:

“I wish I could tell you about these pilots. They make me sick with envy. They ride their vehicles the way a man controls a fine, well-trained quarter horse. They weave along stream beds, rise like swallows to clear trees, they turn and twist and dip like swifts in the evening. I watch their hands and feet on the controls, the delicacy of the coordination reminds me of the sure and seeming slow hands of (Pablo) Casals on the cello. They are truly musicians’ hands and they play their controls like music and they dance them like ballerinas and they make me jealous because I want so much to do it. Remember your child night dream of perfect flight free and wonderful? It’s like that, and sadly I know I never can. My hands are too old and forgetful to take orders from the command center, which speaks of updrafts and side winds, of drift and shift, or ground fire indicated by a tiny puff or flash, or a hit and all these commands must be obeyed by the musician’s hands instantly and automatically. I must take my longing out in admiration and the joy of seeing it”.

Knowing of Steinbeck’s love of music, I’m not surprised at his musical description of the pilots’ control. I do think many of the pilots (barely out of their teens) would have been surprised at the comparison, though.

Flying helicopters demands very fine coordination – left hand handling the collective and throttle, plus radios and switches, right hand unable to leave the cyclic with its tiny movements and many switches, and the anti-torque pedals requiring constant inputs to counter the helicopter’s natural wish to pirouette around its own vertical axis.

Watching the finalists in our FMR Bursary Trust Music Awards concerts on the 23rd and 26th July, I was reminded of Steinbeck’s description – the “delicacy of the coordination”.

 

The cello, the clarinet, the piano, the guitar, the uhadi or xylophone – all demanding total concentration, full commitment, and that delicate coordination. Resulting in the beautiful music we were treated to.

Four categories, Classical Instrumental and classical vocal on the Tuesday, and African Music and Jazz on the Friday again gave us an assurance that the future of our music is in good, coordinated hands.

Demanding a cerebral dexterity of another kind is the art of the wordsmith. Steinbeck may have achieved international recognition, but so has our own Amanda Botha, who wrote about opera and ballet for an international publication for many years, and last year they gifted her six weeks in New York to see some productions. A journalist since the late ‘Sixties, publicist for Afrikaans theatre and Opera, published author, acclaimed art curator – those are only some of her accomplishments – and, for the past 15 years, editor of FMR’s programme Boekkeuse. The vast amount of work this demanded was simply astonishing, but Amanda soldiered on – always smiling and always humble.

And now Amanda has decided to call it a day, and step back from the unrelenting demands of live radio at the end of August. She leaves a legacy, and the FMR family will miss her dearly.

We wish Amanda a well deserved rest, but knowing her, she’ll keep busy with her many other projects. We salute her.

Van almal by FMR – Baie, baie dankie Amanda. Mooi Loop!

The Art of the Understatement.

Posted on by Eon de Vos in Aviation, Flying, History, Pilots, Radio

(Originally published in FMR’s Opus Magazine, June 2024).

By the time you receive this edition of Opus, the cacophony of mudslinging and empty promises we experienced during the May elections should be fading out. All the noise and hot air we had to endure, set me thinking about the value of FMR to our communal psyche – especially with our 29th birthday coming up soon.

But first, my obligatory flying story:

Legendary pilot, educator and adventurer Dick Rutan died early in May this year. He was 85. Rutan was probably best known for the record-setting nonstop (without refuelling) circumnavigation of the earth he and Jeana Yeager accomplished in 1986. This in a strange-looking aircraft with two small piston engines, designed by his brother, maverick aircraft designer Burt Rutan.

A highly decorated Vietnam veteran, Dick Rutan flew 325 combat missions and was awarded the Silver Star, the Purple Heart, the Air Medal with three silver oak leaf clusters, the Collier Trophy and was also awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross – twice. These decorations are not dished out by Uncle Sam for just showing up.

I had the honour of meeting Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager (not related to the famous Chuck Yeager), when they visited South Africa during the late eighties as guests of the Aero Club of SA. I interviewed them on morning TV. Knowing of his wartime exploits and achievements, I asked Rutan what he would consider as the most dangerous thing he had done in Vietnam. His answer: “Walking into a bar in Saigon…”

Dick Rutan, whose round-the-world flight made history, dies at 85 - The Washington Post
Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager after their record breaking flight. (Image: Washington Post).

This very quickly made me realise that he was not going to be questioned in public about his combat experiences, and it also taught me about the power of understatement.

Sometimes less is indeed more. When I started out as a young broadcaster, one of my mentors was the legendary Robin Alexander. Although he could talk the hind leg off a donkey as “Minister of Midnight Affairs”, his mantra was always: “If you have nothing to say, don’t say it”. That bit of sage advice has stuck with me throughout the years, and through my many career deviations.

During the recent election campaigns in our country, with lots of bombast saying absolutely nothing, I was often reminded of Robin’s advice again.

What he tried to convey, was that you should never start talking, without knowing exactly why, how, and for how long you’re going to have that microphone fader open. It is still the best advice I can offer our presenters today.

I believe that we are listening to FMR, because of the distinct absence of talk-for-the-sake-of-talk, and rather for our music. The founders of Fine Music Radio had the wisdom to apply for a broadcast license, which today still stipulates 90% music and 10% talk. This allows our presenters to weave a gentle background of valid information around the playlist, without bombarding us with the frustrating chatter and inane comments found on most other radio stations.

Where we do have talk, our programmes are geared to serve our “community of interest” as defined in our broadcast license, and to promote all our communities’ activities in the performing, visual and literary arts.

That is why we believe that our promise of “calm in chaos” is even more relevant today, than when FMR first hit the airwaves 29 years ago. While the hoo-hah around 30 years of democracy recedes into the history books, FMR quietly and calmly soldiers on, to next year celebrate 30 years of playing the world’s most beautiful music – understated, and with your support, against the odds.

Systems Thinking.

Posted on by Eon de Vos in Aviation, History, Radio, Science

(Originally published in FMR’s Opus Magazine, May 2024).

The psychologist Daniel Kahneman recently died aged 90. He won the 2002 Nobel prize for economics, but about the subject he described himself as “mostly cheering … from the sidelines”. He achieved celebrity status in 2011 at the age of 77, and after a lifetime of rigorous academic research with the pop psychology book Thinking, Fast and Slow.

I found Thinking, Fast and Slow very useful for my work in aviation human factors training. Kahneman’s work revealed the extent to which human beings make erroneous judgments in everyday situations and then base often wrong decisions on those judgments. Steven Pinker had called him “the world’s most influential living psychologist”.

One of his first insights came when he was trying to persuade flight instructors that reward was more effective than punishment when training people in new skills. Old-school flight training was pretty much a case of beating discipline into the “stupid” pupil pilot’s head!

Thinking, Fast and Slow proposed that we apprehend the world in two radically opposed ways, employing two fundamentally different modes of thought: “System 1” and “System 2”.

System 1 is fast; it’s intuitive, associative, metaphorical, automatic, impressionistic, and it can’t be switched off. Its operations involve no sense of intentional control, but it’s the “secret author of many of the choices and judgments you make”.

System 2 is slow, deliberate, effortful. Its operations require attention. System 2 takes over, rather unwillingly, when things get difficult.

Gary Klein is another American psychologist I often referred to in human factors training; he developed an aviation decision making model for the US Federal Aviation Administration, based on –what appeared to be – very fast, almost instinctive decision making by pilots. Turns out that, with loads of experience, what appears to be “fast” thinking is actually “applied slow thinking”.

Referring back to last month’s story about the buckets of luck and experience, it reminded me of Gary Player’s famous quote “the harder you work, the luckier you get”.

With pilots, a feat that could look like sheer blind luck would actually be the result of years of slog, training and hard work – lots of System 2 influencing System 1 to make the correct judgement call, leading to the correct decision.

Which is why experienced broadcasters can “think on their feet” when faced with a timing problem or technical dilemma. It may look like fast thinking, but stemming from years of experience (“slow thinking”), it becomes almost intuitive, and muscle memory.

At FMR we often field approaches by would-be presenters, but once in the unforgiving studio environment, faced with the technical challenges and the prospect of actually committing to a regular daily or weekly slot – the confidence and enthusiasm evaporates very quickly.

Believe me, we are very lucky to have very experienced people on air at FMR, and even “luckier” to have these experienced people prepared to share their time, knowledge and experience with our new prospects.

Being new on air is very much a sink-or-swim situation, but we have enough strong hands on deck to help you to stay afloat and breathe, while learning to make those instantaneous decisions!

If you have the inclination to volunteer at FMR, give it a try – in particular we’re looking for contributors to our community programmes.

If you think you have the grit and determination to volunteer, contact us on auditions@fmr.co.za.

It’s incredibly hard work to provide the calm in chaos, but it’s equally rewarding!

Buckets of Experience.

Posted on by Eon de Vos in Aviation, History, Music, Radio, TV

(Originally published in FMR’s Opus magazine, April 2024).

A few years ago I retired as an airline captain, and now and again some groups of us still get together and reminisce about those days with “and there I was, inverted, running out of airspeed, altitude and ideas” stories.

Every generation views the past with a yearning for simpler times, when things – they believe – were somehow better and easier. I find myself in the throes of nostalgia every now and then, and I’ve come to realise that things haven’t (yet) changed fundamentally, it’s me that’s changed. The patina of youth makes the past sparkle, effectively hiding the flaws and blemishes. Things WERE better in my youth, mainly because I was young…

Then I am reminded of the youngsters, who would sit in my flight training classes with bright-eyed expectation – and I could see the younger me in their unbridled enthusiasm. They were going to make the same mistakes I had made, they were going to learn the hard life-lessons and hopefully experience the buckets of luck I managed not to empty during my career. (The story goes that you start your aviation career with a bucket in each hand. One filled with luck, and one empty of experience – the trick is to have enough in the experience bucket, when the other bucket runs out of luck).

Were things really better before?

I was reminded of this fallacy recently, when I listened just the other day to some old-school recordings with the voices of inter alia David Davies, Evelyn Martin and Clackie MacKay. While we always maintain that there is nothing new in radio – had radio stayed with the formats of years gone by, it would have died a slow death by now. That is in fact the problem with nostalgia radio, it dies with its audience – and its presenters.

That’s why we’re so encouraged by the growing younger audience to FMR, reflected in the BRC RAMS figures (which advertising agencies solely rely on). For the first time FMR now shows an audience between 15 and 24 years old, and a growing segment of 25 to 34 years old.

But what’s more encouraging is the young and eager brigade of FMR presenters, and our production staff.

Just look around our offices and studios: There is Mawande Lobi working with Andrew Williams, here’s Shireen Fisher, Anathi Godlo, and Siphiwo Deke talking jazz with Melissa Stephens. Here is Otto van der Walt sorting out RCS programming, explaining things to John Woodland and Kyle Paulssen, with Elizma Badenhorst looking on.

And don’t forget our older brigade – the ones with the full experience buckets, but still sounding young and working with high energy: What better examples than Mike Mills and Rodney Trudgeon?

Speaking of the young brigade, on the 1st of March, 2004, a very young man walked into FMR and started work, not quite knowing what it was all about.  Now, 20 years later, he is the programme manager – a position he holds with great aplomb. Congratulations Wesley Lewies! Thank you for your passion for, and dedication to Fine Music Radio – long may it continue.

With our young, and our young at heart FMR team, we’re set for a successful future.

Now we just need to turn the SA economy around and get businesses to plough some money into our station, because our bucket of luck is precipitously low at the moment – and all the youthful enthusiasm and buckets of experience could well prove to be not enough.

Nobody should die in an aircraft during peacetime…

Posted on by Eon de Vos in Air Crashes, Airline Ops, Aviation, Flying, History, Pilot Training, Pilots, Safety

That’s a quote we often use during CRM training.

For a number of years most airline pilots used to be former Air Force pilots. Many of whom managed a seamless and successful transition to civilian flying. The numbers of ex-military civilian pilots may have dwindled, but many still make that transition.

During two decades of Human Factors training, I have also encountered the military “mission attitude” – and spent many hours explaining that an airline schedule does not have to be kept at all costs!

Jay Rayner’s book “Stardust Falling” is a very worthwhile read, telling the sad story of a military mindset, which killed too many innocent civilians.

Fortunately, aviation has come a long way since those postwar days – when the Captain’s word was treated as Gospel.

I can recommend this article from Flight Safety Australia, which looks at Bennet’s unfortunate, unenviable and simply sad history.

No place for a hero