Airmanship

Airmanship is that quality possessed by some pilots that marks them out - the difference between a competent pilot and a good pilot. It is that extra dimension of understanding and sympathy with an aircraft that makes a pilot safer, more aware of his surroundings and better able to cope with the unexpected. Airmanship is a quality that not all pilots possess but it is something to which all pilots can aspire.

Carey Edwards is a former Royal Air Force helicopter pilot and present Chairman of the Royal Aeronautical Society's Human Factors Group. He holds a commercial pilot's licence and is managing director of LMQ Ltd, a leading training consultancy in human factors and Cockpit Resource Management training that has worked with most of the UK airlines as well as Airbus and the CAA. He is a resident of Crowhurst, Surrey England.