The superior pilot uses superior judgment to avoid using superior skills. I combine my experience as both a neuropsychologist and an active airline pilot to provide the best care and training for the unique challenges faced by air crews.
I have enjoyed flying Boeing 757/767 aircraft for a major airline, and have a neuropsychology practice in Orlando, Florida.
Flying is, I think, the activity that most fully taxes the brain’s ability to process information, make judgments, devise & implement problem-solving strategies and appropriately manage emotions. Especially in the airline world, it has little to do with “cat-like reflexes” and “hawk-like eyes”: A pilot in urgent need of these traits probably made errors in judgment that led to the predicament requiring such abilities.
Neuropsychology studies brain-behavior relationships. Cognition (e.g., information processing and decision making) as well as personality/emotional functions are brain-based skills essential to flight. Neuropsychology is thus one of the relevant aeromedical disciplines that can be brought to bear on certification, training and fitness-for-duty issues.
My over 7,000 hours of flight time and 15 years clinical experience allow me to marry these two fields, resulting in “common sense” assessments.
