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by toss1
1867 days ago
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Yes, and this happens also in many other arenas. I've only done a bit of flying, but in my experience in speed sports such as Downhill ski racing and auto racing, you must be mentally able to switch your goals in a fraction of a second, from [win the race] to [save the run] to [save your life], without hesitation. Sometimes you succeed in [save your life] and are still on-track / on-piste pointing in the right direction and are back to [win the race] in the space of a few seconds. Other times, you are on the sidelines, and hopefully not on the way to the field clinic. But the switch in perspective must fully committed and absolutely not include [save the equipment], which is replaceable, even custom one-off gear. Anything else is over-constraining the problem and inviting disaster. |
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I remember an incident from one of my auto racing instructors. In a race, coming into a downhill turn (Diving turn at Lime Rock) at triple-digit mph, he found that he had no brakes. So he very rapidly pushed in the clutch, redlined the engine, grabbed 2nd gear, and popped the clutch with some steering input. The result was that he spun the car with enough control to crash into the barriers with the back end first. It was the end of that Porsche, but it would have been anyway, and he walked away.
Or, another guy I knew who was at logging school, 150' up pruning in a pine tree, realized that it was getting way out of balance and was about to get violent. He cut to just the right point, then threw the multi-$1000 chainsaw as far as he could away from him, and hung on for life to his harness and tree strap as the tree whipped back and forth until the oscillations dampened. He got kind of beat up, but climbed down and walked away.
It's key to be ready to completely change your mindset in a flash.