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Thank you twice.

(I don’t want to belittle any other occupation by what I’m going to say next, or get into a flame war or “oneupsmanship”, so I hope no one takes offense, and I won’t respond to those who do. Also, he == he/she. )

Every day a commercial or military pilot takes off, he has in his hands many millions of dollars worth of equipment and often hundreds of lives. He knows it every time. Few others ever think of it, outside of his supervisors. A huge amount of training goes into getting him ready for the task to begin with, but in addition, that training NEVER ends. No matter how experienced the pilot may be, he is required to continue that training in emergency simulators, and most pilots very willingly do. And the simulator operators have the most devilish minds of all... no matter how good you are, they can always dream up some more difficult, but still feasible, situation for you to handle. Seldom did I leave a simulator session completely satisfied with myself.

Losing all power on takeoff? Well, I think the third flight I had, my instructor said, “You just lost your engine. What are you going to do? Where are you going to land?” Almost every flight, I could count on that question... now, mind - my instructor was about 60yo, and a WW2 pilot.. so he had been around the block a few times and was an usually excellent instructor. But most instructors will drill their students similarly, and again, that never really ends.

Before every flight, pilots have to figure out speeds and altitudes for go/no-go and other decisions if they lose an engine, and they review them just before running up their engine for takeoff. Good pilots are aware all the time of their emergency landing options, and that is constantly changing with their speed, altitude, terrain and weather. A mildly experienced pilot is very familiar with how far his aircraft will glide, and how much altitude it is going to lose in a no-power turn. Most experienced pilots have experienced some sort of at least relatively major inflight emergency. I had four engine failures myself which strangely enough didn’t seem “major” to me (hey, I still had at least half my engines left!), and several other emergencies, one of which that was far worse than the engine failures.

Only a few of us are ever exposed to these kinds of realities in our occupation where the stakes are so high, and very few really train for those situations he may face, and even fewer keep in mind that today cold be that day. But every time he flies, a pilot knows this can happen, that it will usually happen with no warning at all, and he tries to keep himself well-prepared to handle those “moments of stark raving terror” as well as he is able. Few others can honestly say the same.

And again, thank you.