As said, no problem. Thanks for this post.
Old sayings I like:
Look to Lockheed for design, look to Duglas for engineering, look to Boeing for damn fine airplanes.
New pilot asks Old pilot, “How did you develop your good judgement?”
Old pilot replies, “By surviving my bad judgement.”
Some of my most important flying techniques I learned sitting in a chair in a hanger listening to old pilots. 
On another note, what are the markings on the fuselage of this B-52?: NASA X-38 - Wikipedia
From this article: NASA X-38 - Wikipedia
Zooming way in they appear to be mission symbols.
Back in WWII days guys would paint a bomb on the side of their bomber for each mission flown (and survived). Likewise fighters would paint small enemy insignia for each enemy shot down.
Those marks appear to be silhouettes of the many various things this aged B-52 has dropped over the decades it’s been doing that work for NASA. There’s a lot of aerospace history that’s hung off that pylon over the years.
I’d agree. Under the rear of the wing is what looks to be the silhouette of a lifting body of some type, & further back looks to be a airplane. I’m guessing this B-52 has launched a lot of “X” planes.
Cool - thanks!
Jon is currently flying his hot-air balloon over the Grand Canyon!
Bet he gets some great pictures …
The problem with comfort zones is that you have to push the boundaries of it to get it established in the first place. If we didn’t do that we’d all still be on our backs on the ground waiting for someone to pick us up and feed us. So I guess the key is in expanding your comfort zone in a controlled manner when you can(learning to fly with an instructor being a relevant example), and recognizing when the risk/benefit equation doesn’t work anymore. Finding yourself unexpectedly IMC is not an ideal way to test or expand your comfort zone but then sometimes shit just happens despite our best intentions.
Airline type flying is nice in that, provided you’re working for a reasonable outfit, the way you operate is quite strictly defined and for the most part your personal comfort zone is likely to be well and truly adequate for the task. However, ss you say, we sometimes don’t know what we don’t know and I think there is a bit of unchecked normalization of deviance in the industry that’s just quietly waiting in the background to jump up and bite someone on the arse. Sometimes it’s the rules themselves a that are the problem. We can all be flying around strictly by the book, but sometimes the book is flawed, and no one really knows that until something happens.
Nice.
For those who didn’t hear, Bob Hoover passed away. There’s already a thread on it but since this was an aviation thread I thought it should be mentioned here. I lost count of the number of times I heard him speak at Oshkosh. He lived the lives of 20 interesting people in one go.
As you explain rather well in the remainder of your post, this is a little dubious.
The weekend pilot who on rare occasions does something with, say, a 1% chance of disaster has a reasonable likelihood of living to a ripe old age - he bet badly, but not too often.
By contrast, the professional is obliged to bet often - and so shouldn’t expect a long life if he bets badly.
If I can butt in?
The professional pilot will rarely, if ever, encounter a situation that hasn’t been encountered before by someone else and that doesn’t have some kind of procedure associated with it. In general, the only real bets we make are that the procedures we follow are valid, and most have been tested or were written from experience so we can have high confidence that if we do things “by the book” the outcome will be a safe one. There will of course be times when the book doesn’t apply, but the chances of any one pilot facing one of those times are remote.
When talking about conservatism and flying in the sense that LSLGuy was, I think it is more with regards to the gap between what the rules allow you to do and what you have the skills to do. An instrument rated private pilot who doesn’t fly often would be well advised to stay on the ground in marginal weather even if the rules would allow them to fly. Such a pilot may use higher minimum descent altitudes when flying an instrument approach. This isn’t the case for a professional pilot who is expected to get the passengers from A to B. There can be no conservative “personal minimums” for such a pilot because they are employed and trained to fly to the limits set by the rules and the aircraft flight manual.
The above private pilot is seen to be being conservative in that he is operating well within the rules. The professional pilot is seen to be less conservative because they will fly to the extent allowed by the rules (with some exceptions, but generally true.) However once you factor in the training and experience of the respective pilots and the capabilities of the equipment they operate, the “conservative” private pilot may still be carrying a lot more risk than the “less conservative” professional pilot. In real terms the professional pilot may be operating a lot more conservatively, because the rules they follow are more restrictive than their skills, while for the private pilot, it is their skills that are more restrictive. You are in a much better place if the rules you follow keep you well within your comfort zone than if you have rules that fall outside your comfort zone.
To put it in your terms, the private pilot may take rare 1% chances, while the professional pilot takes more frequent 0.0001% chances. That still puts the pro in a much better position than the amateur.
None of the above is meant to denigrate the skills of the PPL, it’s about training and experience and a PPL can have just as good training and experience as an airline pilot if they seek it out.
Jeppesen pay tribute.
Well said Richard Pearse …
Tis wise to listen carefully when the wise old Pelicans talk about what worked for them in this or that situation.
Sit quiet and apply that solution to your time/place/equipment & make a plan and have it in your pocket for when the Gremlins are trying to push you out of the box.
Thank you Richard. That was a thing of beauty; clear and complete; far better than I would have mustered. This being the nub of what I meant and you said:
An interesting corollary to this formulation is that the PPL often has greater need to rely on judgment in the marginal cases than does the pro. E.g. We often joke “I don’t know why we’re checking the weather; we’re going anyhow.” Which is not a statement about ignoring a risk. But rather a statement that weather is a show-stopper for one in 1000 of our flights, as opposed to 1 in 5 flights when I flew lightplanes recreationally in the Midwest winter. It takes a lot more mature execution of judgment to abort one in 5 than one in 1000.
And as you further say:
A cool Douglas DC-3 necktie I saw recently: http://www.alberene.com/prodinfo.asp?number=JBTDC3
Almost makes me wish I was a tie guy. 
It does have an iconic shape.
When I was a kid, in the early-'70s, I thought a certain airplane was really cool. I only saw pictures of them in flying magazines. This week, I finally saw one in the wild. On two different days.
