I am working on a handbook of sorts for my oldest son, Blake, who turns 13 in August. It’s one part letter from Dad + one part guidebook for life + one part ceremony + one part inspiration for the future, etc.

Would you read the first part of it and share your feedback below?

Introduction

You are alone in the cockpit of an experimental aircraft, one that has never flown–it still has that new car smell. You sit there listening to the pounding of your own heart and the sound of static on the radio, waiting for the test conductor to respond.

After carefully positioning each switch in the cockpit–and there are hundreds–you have set up the fuel system and the hydraulics and the electrical system and every other component of the aircraft that must work during the engine start. You have arrived at the critical step in the checklist. It says this, “Engine Starter Switch – Depress.”

Just moments ago, you radioed into the control room, requesting permission for engine start. There are hundreds of people inside that room, somewhere else on the airfield, and each one is watching a computer monitor. In that room, there are hundreds of graphs and plots and gauges. These engineers will monitor every variable when you press that switch, ensuring that just enough fuel gets to the engine, that the temperature inside the engine is just right, that nothing goes wrong. After all, this is the first time this engine has ever been started on this airplane, and you are the test pilot. They want a successful engine start, but they care even more about your safety.

The control room radios back, “Cleared for engine start.”

A bead of sweat trickles down your forehead. But you can’t wipe it off, because it’s behind your helmet visor.

Your mind quickly goes through everything that will happen in the next several seconds. You will depress the engine starter switch. When you do, you should hear the sound of the starter motor beginning to turn the engine. The ignition and boost pump lights on the cockpit instrument panel will illuminate. Ten more things have to happen successfully, all in about forty seconds. You know each step. You know where to look to see the next step. You even know what to do if something doesn’t go according to plan, what to do if someone radios from the control room with a minor malfunction or even an emergency.

You know all these things, but still there is an element of risk. The engineers believe that the engine will work. They have predicted its response, and you are about to test it. Will the test verify that it performs according to specification? If it doesn’t respond properly, will it just shut down automatically, or will it catch on fire?

This is a story about how you can be a test pilot. But it is also a guide for facing the unknown and knowing when to take risks.

In today’s day and age, we have unprecedented opportunity. You can be anything you want, including, of course, a test pilot.

But if you haven’t figured it out yet, let me be the one to tell you–you will face the unknown. In the years ahead, there will be gray areas, and sometimes you won’t know what to do. You will have to make decisions without all the information, and life is not multiple choice. Uncertainty is definitely a part of life.

(should i write some “sample questions” that might be on the readers mind?)

But just because the future is unknown does not mean you cannot prepare. A test pilot faces the unknown and faces risk every single time he takes off and performs a test flight. But you can know with certainty that he spent many hours in preparation for each maneuver that he flies.

Perhaps you are thinking to yourself, “I don’t want to be a test pilot.” That’s okay, because you can apply the principles in this book to many professions: you can be an engineer, you can be a president, or you can be an author. I am not suggesting that this is the perfect handbook for becoming an author or president–there are more qualified people who will tell you how to do that. But the principles laid out here will equip you to face uncertainty and risk, and each of the vocations listed above involves some degree of unpredictability. (I just don’t know how much.)

Someday, you will be the one flying a new airplane or spacecraft to the edge of the envelope, doing something that no one has ever done, or going somewhere no one has ever been. Regardless of your vocation, someday you will face a situation or a decision that no one has ever had to make.

Will you be ready?

Begin preparing today. Together we will walk through three simple steps to help you navigate through life and its uncertainty, help you navigate your way to a time and place where you can be a test pilot.

Begin preparing today by learning these principles, and then put them into practice.

This is your preparation for the future, your map for exploring the unknown. Are you ready to begin the journey?

(Setting up the Predict Test Validate – Planning Execution Accountability)

Imagine that you just hopped in your car and turned left as you exited the driveway. Now what?

Where do we go from here?

Do we go straight? Do we turn around? Should we just stop or go back to the house? We cannot answer any of these questions without first asking a more important one: “Where are we going?”

Destination, knowing where we are going, is the single, most important part of getting there.

That may sound obvious, but I assure you that many people wander through life not knowing what their goals are, having no plan, and generally being uncertain about the future, because they do not know where they are going. In fact, their future is not just unknown–more specifically they have not decided their destination.

You must decide where you are going.

(good place to input discussion of vision and salvation)

This is the most critical step in the checklist for accomplishing any goal.

Before takeoff, a test pilot knows where he is going. He also knows each maneuver, how to perform it, what data to collect, and many other details. The reason he knows all of those things inside and out, forward and backward, is because he knows where he is going, and he has a plan for getting there.

One of the test pilot’s most important tools is a checklist. He uses the checklist on the ground, even before starting the engines, but he also follows detailed steps as he performs each complicated flight test maneuver.

However, using a checklist might not be as simple as you think. For instance, recall from the introduction, after one critical step–“Engine Starter Switch – Depress”–more than ten things had to happen in the next forty seconds.

In that example, there were three very critical phases, described by the actions taken in that stage: predict, test, and validate.

1. Predict
This was the planning phase. The test pilot and the team of engineers figured out what to expect from pressing the engine starter switch and documented it in a detailed plan.

2. Test
Execution of the plan happened in this phase. When a test pilot finally presses that switch on the new experimental aircraft for the very first time, it is a test of the system and its operation and the aircraft design.

3. Validate
Keeping track of and analyzing the progress and outcome of the plan are all part of validation. The test pilot must cross check the instrument panel after depress the starter switch to ensure the correct response of the switch itself and each subsequent part of the system during the engine start.

Perhaps another way to remember these stages is to describe them as planning, execution, and accountability — those are three things that test pilots do every single day. They happen in single checklist step, and they happen on an even larger scale, like planning a mission and navigating an aircraft to its destination.

However, before we can plan our first test mission using complex, experimental navigation equipment in an experimental aircraft, we need to review some of the basic principles and create a navigation checklist of our own. So let’s hop back in the car and use it as a simple example of the first and most important step in navigation: planning.

I’ve done other things like this and received inspiration from other dads, but I really want your feedback on the content above. What do you think?

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You’ve just read confessions of a freelance test pilot, a monthly column that illustrates in my personal life and leadership the technical concepts found in ATOMs. Some people may not want the technical content that appears on this website–if you only want to follow these more personal updates, I set up a special subscription for that option here: by Email or RSS.

He was a highly successful astronomer, scientist, inventor, professor, and even a Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He was quite distinguished and internationally renown–he even received the Draper Medal from the National Academy of Sciences for his work in solar physics.

All of these facts I learned from wikipedia–because I knew so little about him.

Here’s what I did know about him already though:
He wasted $70,000 of Uncle Sam’s money trying to invent an airplane.

That’s a LOT of money in 1903 dollars, and I’m not sure it was all wasted. But the fact of the matter is, he never had an airplane to show for it. His invention launched off a platform from a ship in the Potomac and promptly flopped into the water below.

As we all know, the Wright brothers, bicycle makers from Ohio, beat him in that quest. And they did it without a grant.

There’s probably a commentary in there on acquisitions and Defense spending and other things, but I’ll try to mostly sidestep that one.

Today, as I write this, the situation with both DoD’s headline airplane projects and the big aircraft manufacturers is just as disappointing as Langley’s failed project. But again, I don’t want to stew in the failures of the past unless it gives some hope for the future.

Compare and contrast all this, with the plight of my good friend Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. He didn’t have any resources–no money, no bullets, no troops, no supplies for his troops, no reinforcements. Quite frankly, he had no hope, at least from the outside. He had far fewer men than he needed to defend Little Round Top, and the ones he did have were tired and wounded.

So far, that sounds a lot like today’s military.

With a tactical move that was either brilliant or desperate or both, Chamberlain charged down the hill and into history, saving the day, the battle, and the war for the Union.

The bright spot here is leadership.

It was not a tool or a process or metrics.

It was not a platform or a program or a decision arrived at by survey.

It wasn’t community or connectedness.

Langley had all those things–that’s three things you can have and still fail. Chamberlain had none.

But Chamberlain had purpose:  He knew that he could not lose that hill. Read his writing–that’s what he said.

Call it what you want, whether it’s purpose or vision or a goal or a plan–what I know is that it gave him meaningful direction in a moment of uncertainty. It illuminated and guided his decision.

If what you have doesn’t do those things, it will flop and crash like a Langley “aerodrome.” (He couldn’t even give the flying thing a name that stuck–”aerodrome,” really?!)

I’d like to further suggest that together with purpose, we need Providence. But I won’t spend the time reinforcing that statement: If you agree, then I don’t need to, and if you don’t agree, it’s not likely I can convince you.

All of this is relevant to what I am doing right now, I promise.  And in the days, weeks, and months ahead, I’d like to tell you more about Equator and Synergy. The short version of the story is this–they are two companies turned down by Kickstarter, who I think are changing the world–only time will tell.

We don’t need Kickstarter. We don’t need a platform or process.

We need purpose.

My purpose is to build seesaws to invest in leaders and inspire others. What’s yours?

You’ve just read confessions of a freelance test pilot, a monthly column that illustrates in my personal life and leadership the technical concepts found in ATOMs. Some people may not want the technical content that appears on this website–if you only want to follow these more personal updates, I set up a special subscription for that option here: by Email or RSS.

Our greatest conquest lies before us.

I’ll try to explain what I mean.

Robby, our third child (second son, age 6) just started church little league baseball this past week. I was able to attend his first game and snap this photo with my phone’s camera.  I’ve missed a lot of “firsts” in the past, but I was fortunate enough to attend this one.  I also witnessed his first strike out. He didn’t seem to mind it.

Emily Rose, on the other hand, was not pleased at all when she struck out–in fact, I think she was blinking back tears. She may not have even blinked them back, just let them flow freely.  You see, she played in her first softball game this week too.

She has amazing physical talent. I watch her play softball, having never taught her a single thing about it, and see her effortlessly making plays at second base, or throwing people out from right field.  Along with this talent comes the most passionate intensity I have ever seen–she pours out her heart into her games.  So when she doesn’t perform, when her team loses, it crushes her. Fortunately, I know that it’s not really “crushing her”–it’s just a figure of speech.

In her second game, she went two for three at bat, had one RBI, and made several great plays. But she was so distressed on the ride home, because her team lost by one–with the bases loaded, the tie run was forced out at home plate on a grounder.  Emily inherited this trait from my wife, Beth.

All of this drama is the first part of the explanation behind that bold statement I made above. The second part is this:

I want to be a test pilot in the first aerospace plane that takes off from a conventional runway, achieves self-propelled hypersonic flight in the upper atmosphere, and returns to earth for a normal landing on a conventional runway.

I still have big career dreams.

I’d also like to build a highly successful consulting firm. And I want to tell everyone that it’s called mc² and then explain why.

I want to inspire, inform, and invest in those who dream of exploring the unknown…whether that’s the unknown parts of the flight envelope or a technical leader taking his team to new heights.

But adding those feats to my “list of accomplishments” won’t be my greatest conquest.

My greatest conquest will be to win the hearts of my children and daily invest in them–inspire them to reach for heights that I can’t even imagine–inform them of the tools and relationships and character that will help them to reach their dreams.

My greatest conquest will be to keep my family first.

My greatest conquest will be to steward the lives and talents of each member of this family while I continue striving to be an example to them.

I want you to win too Emily Rose! But I don’t cry when you strike out, when you stumble, or even when you fail. I know those things are building character.

But I hope you’ll forgive me if I cry when I see you get back up…on your own, when I see you succeed. When you do that, you please this dad and the Father.

You’ve just read confessions of a freelance test pilot, a monthly column that illustrates in my personal life and leadership the technical concepts found in ATOMs. Some people may not want the technical content that appears on this website–if you only want to follow these more personal updates, I set up a special subscription for that option here: by Email or RSS.