It's been a long week, and I don't want to write anything negative, so why not another "Things I Like" post to round things out?

On the suggestion of a commenter from months back I decided to check out a recommendation on a YouTube channel they enjoyed, and boy am I glad that I did. 

The channel? It's called Mentour Pilot, run by a swedish pilot named Petter Hörnfeldt. 

Petter is a 737 pilot who it is impossible not to love. He is a natural teacher--in fact, that has been part of his job as a pilot--and his goal is to educate you about the ins and outs of aviation, especially regarding what happens in the cockpit. 

He covers lots of topics, but the core of his content is aviation incidents and accidents--explaining cockpit procedures, how things work in aviation, and how things go wrong. 

His focus--it's in the name of the channel--is to be a mentor to other pilots to help them be better at their jobs. His central message is that procedure is your friend in aviation. 

The videos are absolutely fascinating, and despite their being aimed at fellow pilots they appeal to everybody. You are getting a first-row seat into the world of aviation, and there is something comforting about that even when Petter is discussing a total cock up leading to disaster. 

One of the things you learn is how robust the procedures are--generally speaking, things will go fine with even a below-average pilot (which half of them will be!) because the system is designed in such a way that exceptional skill is not a prerequisite to safely getting from point A to point B. 

Most accidents happen because the people involved--pilots, maintenance workers, or others--get sloppy, not because they aren't masters of their craft. 

Some accidents are unavoidable--they are truly accidents in the sense of random things that could not have been easily predicted to happen--but most have several identifiable causes, either in failures to observe procedures or in failure to develop a procedure. This is why so much effort is put into analyzing each accident down to the placement of screws. 

Petter's videos give you a vivid sense of why aviation has traditionally been so safe, and how it got to be that way. It's not that everybody involved is a genius; rather, it's that there are enormous efforts put into idiot-proofing things. 

This being the real world, we have yet to idiot-proof everything, so bad stuff happens. 

My wife and I have spent hours watching Petter's videos. They are fascinating, emotionally involving, and yet you don't walk away scared to fly. 

Highly recommended.