"We are paid to be comfortable..."
"We are paid to be comfortable" – one of the unspoken rules of flying. This was posted on Facebook in the afternoon, posted by my friend Zsolt Szüle, Boeing 747 pilot, captain and despite that he posted this to full scale pilots, it should be our motto as well. Very wise words from a very experienced pilot.
"We are paid to be comfortable" – one of the unspoken rules of flying.
In the world of aviation, there is an often-quoted phrase that serves as a kind of internal compass when making decisions: “We are paid to be comfortable.” This is not about physical comfort, but about safe, confident, forward-looking operations.
This phrase is used when a given action is technically feasible, but the surrounding signals – performance data, circumstances, risks – indicate that we are drifting to the edge of the safety zone. These refer to the cases where actions can be legally defended, but their executions require such a level of concentration, effort or compromise that it results in risks which can be avoided.
The real meaning of the phrase is that as pilots, we don't take on anything that goes beyond our comfort zone - whether it's a difficult airport to access, performance at the limit, or a critical weather window. We are well paid - but not to be reckless, instead, to make informed decisions with safety as the first priority.
Flying – whether it is a small or large aircraft operation – always takes place within predefined flight safety, professional, legal and comfort limits. These limits were created precisely to protect us from getting into unforeseen and uncontrollable situations. Of course, different limits apply to a DV20 aircraft, and others to a B737 or B747, but the principle remains the same: crossing the comfort zone is not an option, that's a red line.
Once we exceed the known and permitted parameters, we enter a flight zone that is reserved exclusively for test pilots - under appropriate conditions and safety. And what does this mean in practice? Not near a crowded airport, on a traffic circle, not over spectators, instead; at extreme altitude, over uninhabited areas, where if everything goes wrong, there is somewhere available for an emergency landing. This is the difference between taking controlled risks and being irresponsible.
Before (and even during) every flight, we perform a performance calculation to determine whether the aircraft can safely land, take off, stop, or abort a takeoff at a given airport. This isn't just done by large airline crews - even small plane pilots have a duty to perform this calculation before making a decision.
The question is always the same in the end:
- Based on the numbers, is the operation really safe?
- Is the risk justified?
- Or is it just routine, habit, or expectations that get you into it?
Our decisions affect us, our passengers – and everyone around us.
Nothing should be more in common between us, RC pilots and the full scale world, than these words. It's just that we are the "test pilots", because many of us fly at a competition level, many of the models are custom built models, or - at least - built by us. Model aviation has always been and will be an experimental operation. We test our models, our skills, our boundaries. But we must do this in the way that Zsolt tells us to: at the model airfield, far from uninvolved people, in a safe environment following the safety rules and local - even unwritten - rules. And if you feel that something is off, the model is showing signs of not behaving or flying safe, weather conditions are beyond your limits, it's not shameful to put the radio down, to fold the blades in, and skip the flights. And we should not take extra risks by flying too close to ourselves or anyone else. One simple servo failure and...
I know, most of you know and follow these, so I just leave this here as a memo.
By the way Zsolt is a member of a team running a real flight simulator business, so if you are in Hungary, Budapest, stop by their simulator to get some very useful tips - simflite.hu. (And no, this is not a paid promotion)
