Fast Jet Performance

What top tips do I have for presenting to people? What is the 20/20/20 rule? Why should you try to introduce yourself whilst standing on tip toes? Why you should NEVER talk to the board! Why are TED talks all 20 minutes long? ...and more awesome advice!    Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/Fast-Jet-Performance. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I have a question for you. If you had to go to lunch tomorrow with someone that you’d never met before, would you feel nervous? It’s just like a blind date, I guess. But wait - there’s probably something that I should tell you before you commit. You are going to meet ‘yourself’ and there’s a catch. ​ http://www.fastjetperformance.com/podcasts/how-to-be-the-best-version-of-you-jettison-the-baggage#Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/Fast-Jet-Performance. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Want to know a pretty good way of killing yourself? Fly an aircraft long enough that you get lazy, let your standards slip and do something stupid. Highly skilled jobs need razor-sharp concentration but sometimes people lose focus. Look at some sportsmen who got to the top of their game and then messed up, think Tiger Woods or Lance Armstrong. It wasn’t their technical skill that let them down, it was their standards. I’m currently writing a book about decision-making and analysing how I have made decisions over the last 20 years of flying military fast jets. Some decisions have been intuitive, ‘do or die’ ones and others have been long, drawn out rational thought processes. In flying training, decision-making is not something you are ever formally taught and tends to be wrapped up in the catch-all of ‘airmanship’. ‘Airmanship covers a broad range of desirable behaviours and abilities in an aviator. It is not simply a measure of skill or technique, but also a measure of a pilot’s awareness of the aircra

Today I get together with Theresa who is a Psychiatrist and mental health practitioner to talk at length on diet and nutrition and how to increase performance. Also covered are the problems with priorities, why we feed pilots poor food, alcohol (good and bad), clinical depression, the power of small changes, the detrimental effect of mass media, why a lack of mentors is creating a depressed workforce, suicide, PTSD and much more...Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/Fast-Jet-Performance. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It was all going horribly wrong. I was a military fast jet pilot and I was in a spin, things were coming apart and I didn't know what to do. I was losing control and all I could think about was the end. But, as I sat in my office looking out over the airfield, I wished that I was having a real emergency in my aircraft because the one I kept having... ...was in my head.   Imagine that there's an illness in the UK that the government doesn't fully understand. If you are a man, and you catch the disease, it will kill you faster than road accidents, murder and HIV/Aids combined.  http://www.fastjetperformance.com/podcasts/when-good-pilots-go-badSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/Fast-Jet-Performance. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

‘EJECT, EJECT!’ screamed my student from the front seat of our military training jet. That got my attention. Now, there’s probably not a situation that requires more of an immediate ‘ownership’ of a problem, than in the precise moment when a pilot calls for an ejection to be initiated from an aircraft they are flying. If we were to break down exactly what would happen in the next few seconds, it might help us to understand the magnitude of my student’s decision. Initiating the ejection sequence is done by an aggressive pull of the ejection seat firing handle which detonates explosive miniature cord that is embedded in the canopy above your head. This canopy now explodes into millions of razor sharp fragments only a few inches from your face. Simultaneously, a telescopic tube with two explosive charges is fired at the rear of the seat which starts to move it up the guide rails activating an emergency oxygen supply. Personal equipment and communication leads are automatically severed. Leg and arm restrain

I decided that I was not going to die today.   And with that I closed the throttle and, as the nose of my fighter jet lazily dropped below the horizon, I rolled out on a rough heading for home.   'Jester 3 is bingo, RTB.' I called over the radio, letting the other two aircraft that I was with know that I was heading home and on minimum fuel.   I was on fumes.   It's a daily occurrence when you are flying to one of the most tightly packed flying schedules in the world. In order to maximise the training value for the student pilots you have to stay in the air for as long as possible and that often means running your fuel down to frighteningly low levels. Think of it as driving past a fuel stop in the hope of reaching another one even though your car's fuel light has been on for the last 10 miles.   Except there is no hard-shoulder to park in should you get it wrong.   And the penalties for making mistakes become harsher depending on the discipline being flown. If you are flying a low-level navigation sortie, in

It was the sort of thing that only happened to other people but now it had happened to me. 'That's so wrong mate, I'd put a complaint in for sure - how dare he!' cried my friend down the phone when I told him my bad news. I'd been 'grounded' which, as a pilot, meant that I wasn't allowed to fly again until I'd been further assessed by a doctor.  I'd just had my annual aircrew medical and there had been a problem; I was over the maximum boarding weight for the aircraft by a few pounds. The doc said that he would have to inform the Squadron Boss and I knew what that meant.  But unlike my angry friend, I wasn't mad.  I was actually quite calm. CLICK HERE FOR FULL POSTSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/Fast-Jet-Performance. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

His fist connected with my lower jaw, throwing my head back several feet from the impact.​ I didn’t feel pain as such but more of a huge disturbance, a very sudden and very real shock. I could feel something in my mouth, a tooth maybe, or part of one; I spat it out, I wasn’t going to need that anymore. My assailant stood in front of me, his hands by his side and a look of disbelief on his face. He had just thrown the hardest punch he had and, for some unknown reason, I was still standing. I’m sure that neither of us expected that. I’d been hit before but never with so much force and never with so little warning; I didn’t know why I hadn't fallen. If I’d had my mouth open it would have broken my jaw for sure; I wasn’t sure that my jaw wasn't broken, the adrenaline that results from such trauma doesn’t always allow the damage to be revealed for some time. He was stood there, looking at me. The colour was starting to drain from his face and the voices of his friends that had, until a few seconds ago been l

My team of instructors had just told me that they were never going to fly with him again and here he was, sat right in front of me.  He had no idea.  If you are a student going through military fast jet flying training and the instructors won’t fly with you then that’s it, you fail - it really is that simple.  ‘I’m not going to fly the test for you, you are good enough to pass this course but you just need to believe that you are!’ I shouted at him.  It was the first time I had raised my voice in over 5 years of teaching fast jet pilots.  ‘I don’t want to see you for the rest of the day. Don’t go to the gym, don’t go home and play Xbox - I want you to go and think of 5 honest reasons why you shouldn’t fly a front-line military aircraft. Tomorrow we’ll fly the trip again. You will pass it when you finally believe in yourself and not a second before.’  He wasn’t a bad student and he’d had a good flying course. He’d made some early mistakes and had flown a few trips again but his performance wasn’t out of

She was crying. It happens, and I knew that the best thing to say was nothing at all. 'Fuck! My eyes just leak, I don't know why they do it, I'm so sorry!' she stuttered. Women always apologise and female pilots are no different. It’s a flaw they have that I suspect is borne out of living in a male dominated and patriarchal society that has yet to recognise them as equal. She was crying because I had failed her flight.  I’d failed her flight because she was unsafe. But, as I told her, 'We've all been unsafe at some point in our training, we just needed further guidance.’ A simple re-fly would do it.   http://www.fastjetperformance.com/podcasts/when-fighter-pilots-cry-women-and-the-end-of-vertical-ambitionSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/Fast-Jet-Performance. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Something was very wrong in my aeroplane. My student had locked the missile onto the heat plume of the hostile aircraft and I could hear the familiar 'growl' signalling it's imminent departure. But nothing happened. We'd been flying for over 40 minutes and my trainee pilot had gradually become less talkative and less animated and, for someone who was heavily engaged in air combat with two other fast jets, this was a problem.  'You OK there, buddy?' I asked, as my student disengaged from the hostile aircraft and climbed skywards, out of the fight. 'I just think I could do it better, it didn't look right.' came the reply. But I'd seen this before and I knew it wasn't good.    The Passionless Pilot - Why the Advice to ‘Follow Your Passion’ is Inherently Flawed Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/Fast-Jet-Performance. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I am expensive. Not that I have an apartment in Knightsbridge and wear Louis Vuitton shoes, no, but to the taxpayer, I am worth a lot of money. ​ Every trainee fast jet pilot in the last 7 years has come through a school that I have been an instructor on. Training each pilot has cost the taxpayer £4 million and there has been about 30 of them per year. Quick maths says that I’ve been involved in £840 million worth of training. And my own training costs, well I could only hazard a guess. There aren’t many instructors who train instructors (how to teach other instructors) how to teach the students. It gets complicated after that but, because I commanded the team that did just this, I know there’s not many. But ‘illusions of grandeur’ and humour aside, I turn 42 this year and I really need to start thinking about finding another job. Years of teaching air combat have convinced my neck and back that they would prefer to become mattress testers but I reckon they could still be involved in some pretty fierce t

​​'Wolf 3 defends SA-11 bearing 020!' came the call from the back pair of our low-level 4-ship of Tornado GR4 bombers.   Our formation had stumbled upon the enemy Air Defences and they were not happy to be disturbed over their lunch hour.   'Well, there it is!' proclaimed my Navigator confirming what we'd both been expecting; 'I told you they'd get themselves killed!' he laughed.   I chuckled with him as I hugged the valley floor, pressing on towards our target which was now only 2 minutes flying time away.   'Wolf 4 defending SA-8 bearing 270, egressing to the east!' came a call soon after.   'That's the back pair out, that's not good.' I said, noting that there were just two of us left to hit the target.   We thundered on as low as we dared, trying to use the undulating terrain for cover. The wind over the hills buffeted our 26 tonne war machine making it hard to plot the enemy's systems onto my kneeboard.   'Mike,' I called, 'I've got an SA-6 looking at us right 2 o'clock - make it go away.'   Our Radar Wa

A quote that is often attributed to John Lennon was actually first used in 1957 in an issue of Reader’s Digest by a man named Allen Saunders. …and Mr Saunders was absolutely right.But he wasn’t the only person who knew what the quote meant.When I was young, my father was a Police Traffic Officer and an Accident Investigator. In-between catching speeding motorists or breathalysing drink drivers, he would sketch intricate portrayals of vehicle accident scenes using very fine pens and on tracing paper that was admissible in court. Investigating accident sites, especially where there had been a fatality, was never an easy task and some nights, after arriving home from work, he would take a whisky up to his office where he would set about drawing his day’s work.Often I would have a sneaky look at the plans that he would create. I would wonder at how a car’s skid marks would finish where my father had drawn a tree or how neatly he had sketched the outline of a motorcyclist but had somehow forgotten to draw some of

Yep, my instructor had made it pretty clear that I had a choice to make and I was going to have to make it fast. Ahead of me was a valley full of low stratus and, above me, solid weather that extended up to 20,000 feet. The tops of the cavernous walls faded into grey as they were consumed by the low cloud and there was no way that I could be sure that we would make it through. The alternative was to climb out of low-level now but then the sortie would have to be repeated as I wouldn't be able to get back down to hit my target. I didn't know what to do. I was a student pilot flying a military fast jet at a height of 250 ft and covering 7 miles every minute - I had to think fast. If I pushed us into the valley, I might get just get through but if the cloud became too low then I wouldn't be able to turn around - I would be committed. And there was every chance that I might not be able to out climb the valley walls either which would mean certain death for both of us.   'Arrgghh!' I thought, 'Which decision do I

Let's talk about our relationships in the workplace whether that's in a fast-jet cockpit, a ship at war or somewhere a little more traditional.Because I think that there is a better way of working today and it's not by still going to... ...the office. For as long as people have worked together they've come to one single place to do it. Normally this is a building that has all the things that a worker needs to generate output. Computers, coffee machines, somewhere to park the car - those sort of things. These workers gather together and their managers tell them what they need to do to make 'stuff' happen and eventually an output is achieved, something is sold and everyone gets paid. But it doesn't need to be that way any more. ​The majority of people in today's workplace are 'makers'. They make something: a car part, documents, sales, clothes, TV sets or baby pilots. They 'do' something at work. And above these 'doers' we have managers who manage them. Managers are important - I know this because I used to be

Did you know that some people come up with great ideas everyday that could earn them millions? It’s totally true.I had a buddy who came up with an app that he said was going to make him the next Mark Zuckerberg.He spent months refining his idea, built a business plan so he could get some capital together and kept it secret from all of his friends and even his family.He even started to learn to code so that he wouldn’t have to share his idea with an app developer.​He did everything right.Except one thing.http://www.fastjetperformance.com/podcasts/how-to-create-insane-success-in-just-3-simple-steps Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/Fast-Jet-Performance. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Want to know what we should've been told at school? Remember those career advisors who told you to do the right thing and get a steady job like your parents did? Well, they should have been saying something else. You see, every week I get a lot of people emailing me asking what their next job move should be.Should they join the military or the airlines? Should they change careers from banking to something more ethical? Should they start their own business? And my answer is always the same. But before I tell you, there's something you should probably know about me - when I signed up to fly military fast-jets, I had no idea what I was doing.Really, I didn't. I was just a young kid who'd seen planes flying around at a few airshows and thought 'Hey, that looks cool!' I'd built some model aircraft, seen 'Top Gun' maybe 20 times and thought that one day I could be Dougie Masters from the film 'Iron Eagle'! And that was about it. So, when people ask me what they should do with their career choices - this is what I t

‘RECOVER!’ came the shout from the back seat of my Tornado GR4 combat jet but it wasn’t necessary - I had already started to yank back on the controls as hard as I could! Our 25 tonne fuel laden bomber was now a treacherous 40 degrees nose down and shuddering madly as the airflow violently separated from the wing due to my impossible demands. As we broke through the base of the cloud, my Head Up Display was suddenly filled with a sickening amount of earth and fields. This was bad. The Ground Proximity Warning System sounded. ‘WOOP, WOOP! - PULL UP, PULL UP!’ ‘7, 6, 5 - that’s 400 ft Tim!’, called my Weapons Systems Officer. We were well outside ejection seat parameters and we both knew it. How had I got us into this mess?Post HereSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/Fast-Jet-Performance. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.