Today's brief:

• Whoa, we're halfway there. Whoa oh, flyin' on a chair.
• Plus: Busted TFRs are still a problem near Trump properties, and EASA pumps the brakes on single-pilot ops. 

🛩️ Estimated time en route: 3 minutes

Contrary to what confused looks on the subway might have you believe, talking to yourself isn’t that big of a deal. In fact, it’s a helpful thinking strategy.  

We talk to ourselves instinctively all the time when we need to think hard. Numerous academic studies have found that self-talk can improve the mental processing of complex problems and even affect the emotional side of thinking.

But wait, there’s more. By closing your eyes to visualize situations while thinking and talking through them, both problem-solving and learning improve. You can add body movements, if applicable, to really turn on the brain’s afterburners.

If you haven’t guessed by now, what I’m describing is what we pilots call chair flying. If you haven’t performed a chair flight since a few minutes before your private pilot checkride, then it’s time to get back at it. The myriad ways in which chair flying benefits safety and confidence in the cockpit have been well-studied, and they’re too great to ignore. If all the potential in-flight gotchas are nails, then proper chair flying is a really big hammer.

Notice I said “proper” chair flying. If you’re going to do it, then be sure you know how to maximize the benefits. Here’s a recipe for a solid chair flight.

Environment and body
Perform chair flights in reasonably quiet environments where you won’t be interrupted. Don’t sit on the floor or lie down; sit upright in a chair just as you would in the cockpit. Similarly, just as with actual flight, run through IMSAFE so that something like hunger, fatigue, or your bladder doesn’t degrade your performance.

Preflight briefing
Brief your chair flight just as you would an actual flight. Get detailed WX information (or make it up), choose alternates, and calculate W&B, fuel, and ETE. Throw in some emergency procedures, but 80-90% of your chair flight should involve normal operations.

Visualization, articulation, and movement
As you sit in your chair, close your eyes and “see” the cockpit as you are seated in it. Begin your before-engine-start checklist. It’s ok to open your eyes to read as needed.

When you start your mental airplane, involve your hands by having them perform all the movements needed in the real airplane. Keep doing this through the end of your chair flight. Tune to ATIS and get the weather, call Clearance/Ground/Tower/CTAF as required, and speak your radio calls aloud, including reading back what you imagine ATC will say to you.

Hit all the phases: run-up, taxi, takeoff, climb, cruise, maneuver, approach, descend, land, taxi, shutdown. Yes, it’s okay to skip two hours of cruise on A/P, but you should think through what events will (or could) happen, such as when you’ll overfly a particular city or when ATC might start vectoring you to intercept an initial approach fix. It’s helpful to run through challenging parts of a flight more than once.

Post-flight briefing
Sometimes, you will make mistakes during a chair flight and catch them, which is the best part. Write down those mistakes and any other information that will help you during your actual preflight and flight.

Busted TFRs continue to be a problem near President Trump's Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida and Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey. Eight GA aircraft violated a TFR over the golf club in Bedminster last weekend, one of which resulted in a fighter intercept. 

EASA is pausing an investigation into new regulations that would allow for single-pilot operations. Per AVweb, for the agency to reconsider the regs, it would need flight decks to have well-tested systems for workload management, pilot health and status, security threat awareness, and various autonomous safety backups. 

The United States Navy Blue Angels are one of the best aerial demonstration teams in the world. Given the remarkable maneuvers they perform, their accident rate exemplifies a team with an extreme dedication to safety.

If you’re as amazed and impressed by the Blue Angels as I am, you should know that they perform a chair flight as a team before each practice flight and performance. This recording of one of their chair flights is a great model upon which to base your own, even if yours are at a slower pace (no shame in that game).