November 8, 2020 • 11 mins
In this episode
My flight rostering goes crazy as I fly as often as I can to build my Left-hand Seat hours, some passengers clutch their pearls as I take control of flights, and I get the opportunity to lend my voice to our Helicopter safety videos for the very first time.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Enid Otun (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to season two of, if women were
meant to fly the sky would bepink, episode four, every cloud
has a silver lining. I'm EnidOtun.
Yoruba is one of the three mainlanguages spoken in Nigeria, and
is relevant here since my familycomes from the south of Nigeria
(00:22):
and this is my native language.
All my family on my father'sside spoke it fluently. Well,
probably everyone except me. Inthe Yoruba tradition, Proverbs
are wise sayings, passed downthrough generations to teach
historical lessons, good morals,and instill social values. There
is a Yoruba saying, Il ba tjw l bsi, which means the
(00:47):
king's palace that got burnedand added beauty to it, which in
turn means, every cloud has asilver lining.
In this episode, my flightrostering goes crazy as I fly as
often as I can to build my lefthand seat hours. Some passengers
(01:08):
clutch at their pearls as Itake control of flights, and I
get the opportunity to lend myvoice to our helicopter safety
videos for the very first time.
(01:50):
On my return from the US, I wasstraight into the left hand seat
with a variety of trainingcaptains, as I built up my
command under supervisionexperience. This meant managing
the flight as its captain andmaking all the decisions. I had
in theory started this somemonths before. But now with an
airline transport pilot'slicense under my belt, it felt
(02:12):
more authentic. It was anadjustment for everyone else as
well, especially down the line,as now although three bars sat
on my shoulders, I had to showthat I was capable of making the
decisions for the entirety ofthe trip, as a full Captain
would. People would often askhow it was to have to be right
all the time about everything.
In fact, that was not the caseat all. Even captains were
(02:34):
human. What needed to be shownamongst other things, was the
thought process behind decisionsas well as the ability to carry
them out with that degree ofconfidence. All people make
mistakes. Some are more costlythan others. Some are learning
experiences, and others do notlearn from them at all. But most
(02:54):
human error accidents are causedby a chain of events, where that
chain is not broken, at anystage before the accident
occurs. One of my mantrasthroughout my flying career,
which will probably not be muchof a surprise for you, is that
if I was sat in an aircraft, andnot learning anything new, then
(03:15):
it would be time for me toleave. I can honestly say that
for the length of my career, asin life, I learned something new
every day. I spent a good dealof my time off watching TV
documentaries about aircraftaccidents. I know, It's such a
fun hobby, Lucy loves it. Butanyway, I can tell you that the
(03:35):
vast majority of these accidentshappen because of a chain of
events that could have beenstopped at various points, but
weren't. Sometimes it's becausethe copilot was afraid to
challenge the captain. Thecaptain made an error. And the
consequences were dire. There isno room for arrogance or
overconfidence. I believedstrongly that you always had to
(03:57):
have a very healthy amount ofrespect, for mother nature, and
for your aircraft. In lateryears, I would always try to
teach my students and co pilots,that the aircraft was an
inanimate object. It didn't careif you were having a bad day or
you were off your game. If youare not ahead of it and in
control, it would kill you.
(04:20):
Harsh, maybe, but true. And Iwas to see it many many times
throughout my career.
(04:43):
Those skills have saved my bacona few times since my flying days
as well. A few years ago, Lucyand I were traveling from
Keswick to Kettlewell, Cumbriato North Yorkshire. And as often
happens, the weather changedswiftly from a bright cold day
to a snow blizzard. We weredriving along some extremely
narrow roads when this happened,and unfamiliar with the area, we
(05:04):
took a turn that led us up anarrow hill with a steep drop to
one side. Visibility was poorand the road was becoming
incredibly icy. We could see theprecipice of the hill ahead of
us and the prospect of meetinganother car on the road was
terrifying. Potentially, I wouldhave had to reverse down a
steep, icy narrow road in lowvisibility. My flight training
(05:27):
kicked in. Lucy was by thispoint, turning white and both of
us were slightly petrified. Idecided to turn around and go
back. That in itself was a toughdecision, but I knew I had to
break the chain when I had thechance, and when I still had
some opportunity to save thesituation. It was one of the
most nerve wracking three pointturns I've ever done. But we
(05:51):
just about made it, the reliefwas immense. Shortly after this,
we stopped for petrol andrecounted the experience to one
of the staff at the garage 'OhChrist, that road', he said with
wide eyes, 'we never use thatroad in bad weather, I guess
they forgot to put the signout'. Er, you live and you
learn.
During this particular time inmy career, I was to learn a lot
(06:13):
from an extra ordinary number ofpeople to whom I owe a great
deal. This next level wasintense, and I would often
second guess myself again, as Ihad often done at the start of
my career. This time, however,the nagging self doubt would be
dealt with on a more positivelevel. Just changing a seat
position was enough to changeyour mindset in a significant
(06:36):
way. Even though I had atraining captain in the right
hand seat, it had to make nodifference to my decision
making. I was being assessed ona lot of things, not only what I
did well, but also any mistakesI made. As long as I could
recognize and identify them andrecover. My transition was going
(06:56):
well, and as part of this, I waslearning to correct the
continued invisible behaviorfrom others, who could not
accept seeing a woman in charge.
I called it the invisiblebehavior, because whenever there
was a decision to be made, whichrequired the captain's input, I
would suddenly become invisibleto them. This was in spite of a
very clear mandate to allsupporting staff. that a senior
(07:19):
first officers transition to theleft hand seat, part of that
command training process was tomake sure that all queries be
directed to them. Unless thesenior training Captain
intervened. I realized that ifthey could not be convinced to
follow the guidance, then Iwould have to force them to
comply. Interestingly, I neverhad to do this by raising my
(07:40):
voice or in anger, that wouldhave somewhat defeated the
purpose. Instead, I would signalthat if the process was not
directed to me for my attention,then we would not be continuing
the flight and this would resultin very expensive delays which
would subsequently be reported.
When I was a captain undersupervision, my training
(08:01):
captain's became wise to this.
When someone came to the cockpitwith a question, they would
frequently ignore me. Luckily,the training captains would
pretend that they were naive copilots and redirect the question
to me, making it really clearwho was actually a captain on
the flight.
Whilst on a regular scheduledtrip to our mid stop
destination, Warri, I wasapproached by one of the
(08:23):
helicopter training captains whoI knew in passing. He took me to
one side and asked if I would beinterested in lending my voice
to some of the safety videos dueto be rolled out in the next few
months across our Nigerianhelicopter operations. I felt
honoured, but I certainly haveno experience in this field, so
I wasn't sure what to expect. Ateam would be arriving to record
(08:46):
the audio against a videopresentation. And this could be
done at our fixed wing operationin Lagos. All I had to do was
familiarize myself with a safetybriefing script, which will be
provided along with a newlyproduced video. All passengers
and staff transitioning onoffshore, had to watch a safety
video prior to boarding thehelicopters. I have to say, that
(09:08):
when the day came to record thescript, it wasn't ideal. I'd
developed a cold and even withSudafed, my voice was deeper
than it usually was. One of thelocal team was very helpful and
pointed out that this wasprobably a blessing in disguise,
as I actually sounded like aman. 'Sigh" Let's just say that
(09:29):
he had to sit out the recordingas far away from me as was
physically possible. cold or nocold, my right hook was not
affected!!!!. I must admit thatfor a first try at this, It
wasn't half bad and I hadenjoyed yet another distraction.
It would be really strange inthe coming months for me to
hear, me, reading the safetybriefings in the helicopter
(09:52):
operations lounges, for someyears to come.
Thank you for listening. Asalways, your reviews and
comments are very muchappreciated. Thank you to Lucy
Ashby for the editing of thisepisode. If you would like to
ask a question or make a commentthen please do so on our social
media sites. We're on Instagram,Facebook and Twitter, or send us
an email. Our email address isthe skyispinkpilot@gmail.com or
(10:19):
visit our website,www.skyispink.co.uk.
In the next episode, I go backin time to a story that had a
great impact on me both as aperson and as a pilot.
Thank you and goodbye
Hello, and welcome to season two of, if women were
meant to fly the sky would bepink, episode four, every cloud
has a silver lining. I'm EnidOtun.
Yoruba is one of the three mainlanguages spoken in Nigeria, and
is relevant here since my familycomes from the south of Nigeria
(00:22):
and this is my native language.
All my family on my father'sside spoke it fluently. Well,
probably everyone except me. Inthe Yoruba tradition, Proverbs
are wise sayings, passed downthrough generations to teach
historical lessons, good morals,and instill social values. There
is a Yoruba saying, Il ba tjw l bsi, which means the
(00:47):
king's palace that got burnedand added beauty to it, which in
turn means, every cloud has asilver lining.
In this episode, my flightrostering goes crazy as I fly as
often as I can to build my lefthand seat hours. Some passengers
(01:08):
clutch at their pearls as Itake control of flights, and I
get the opportunity to lend myvoice to our helicopter safety
videos for the very first time.
(01:50):
On my return from the US, I wasstraight into the left hand seat
with a variety of trainingcaptains, as I built up my
command under supervisionexperience. This meant managing
the flight as its captain andmaking all the decisions. I had
in theory started this somemonths before. But now with an
airline transport pilot'slicense under my belt, it felt
(02:12):
more authentic. It was anadjustment for everyone else as
well, especially down the line,as now although three bars sat
on my shoulders, I had to showthat I was capable of making the
decisions for the entirety ofthe trip, as a full Captain
would. People would often askhow it was to have to be right
all the time about everything.
In fact, that was not the caseat all. Even captains were
(02:34):
human. What needed to be shownamongst other things, was the
thought process behind decisionsas well as the ability to carry
them out with that degree ofconfidence. All people make
mistakes. Some are more costlythan others. Some are learning
experiences, and others do notlearn from them at all. But most
(02:54):
human error accidents are causedby a chain of events, where that
chain is not broken, at anystage before the accident
occurs. One of my mantrasthroughout my flying career,
which will probably not be muchof a surprise for you, is that
if I was sat in an aircraft, andnot learning anything new, then
(03:15):
it would be time for me toleave. I can honestly say that
for the length of my career, asin life, I learned something new
every day. I spent a good dealof my time off watching TV
documentaries about aircraftaccidents. I know, It's such a
fun hobby, Lucy loves it. Butanyway, I can tell you that the
(03:35):
vast majority of these accidentshappen because of a chain of
events that could have beenstopped at various points, but
weren't. Sometimes it's becausethe copilot was afraid to
challenge the captain. Thecaptain made an error. And the
consequences were dire. There isno room for arrogance or
overconfidence. I believedstrongly that you always had to
(03:57):
have a very healthy amount ofrespect, for mother nature, and
for your aircraft. In lateryears, I would always try to
teach my students and co pilots,that the aircraft was an
inanimate object. It didn't careif you were having a bad day or
you were off your game. If youare not ahead of it and in
control, it would kill you.
(04:20):
Harsh, maybe, but true. And Iwas to see it many many times
throughout my career.
(04:43):
Those skills have saved my bacona few times since my flying days
as well. A few years ago, Lucyand I were traveling from
Keswick to Kettlewell, Cumbriato North Yorkshire. And as often
happens, the weather changedswiftly from a bright cold day
to a snow blizzard. We weredriving along some extremely
narrow roads when this happened,and unfamiliar with the area, we
(05:04):
took a turn that led us up anarrow hill with a steep drop to
one side. Visibility was poorand the road was becoming
incredibly icy. We could see theprecipice of the hill ahead of
us and the prospect of meetinganother car on the road was
terrifying. Potentially, I wouldhave had to reverse down a
steep, icy narrow road in lowvisibility. My flight training
(05:27):
kicked in. Lucy was by thispoint, turning white and both of
us were slightly petrified. Idecided to turn around and go
back. That in itself was a toughdecision, but I knew I had to
break the chain when I had thechance, and when I still had
some opportunity to save thesituation. It was one of the
most nerve wracking three pointturns I've ever done. But we
(05:51):
just about made it, the reliefwas immense. Shortly after this,
we stopped for petrol andrecounted the experience to one
of the staff at the garage 'OhChrist, that road', he said with
wide eyes, 'we never use thatroad in bad weather, I guess
they forgot to put the signout'. Er, you live and you
learn.
During this particular time inmy career, I was to learn a lot
(06:13):
from an extra ordinary number ofpeople to whom I owe a great
deal. This next level wasintense, and I would often
second guess myself again, as Ihad often done at the start of
my career. This time, however,the nagging self doubt would be
dealt with on a more positivelevel. Just changing a seat
position was enough to changeyour mindset in a significant
(06:36):
way. Even though I had atraining captain in the right
hand seat, it had to make nodifference to my decision
making. I was being assessed ona lot of things, not only what I
did well, but also any mistakesI made. As long as I could
recognize and identify them andrecover. My transition was going
(06:56):
well, and as part of this, I waslearning to correct the
continued invisible behaviorfrom others, who could not
accept seeing a woman in charge.
I called it the invisiblebehavior, because whenever there
was a decision to be made, whichrequired the captain's input, I
would suddenly become invisibleto them. This was in spite of a
very clear mandate to allsupporting staff. that a senior
(07:19):
first officers transition to theleft hand seat, part of that
command training process was tomake sure that all queries be
directed to them. Unless thesenior training Captain
intervened. I realized that ifthey could not be convinced to
follow the guidance, then Iwould have to force them to
comply. Interestingly, I neverhad to do this by raising my
(07:40):
voice or in anger, that wouldhave somewhat defeated the
purpose. Instead, I would signalthat if the process was not
directed to me for my attention,then we would not be continuing
the flight and this would resultin very expensive delays which
would subsequently be reported.
When I was a captain undersupervision, my training
(08:01):
captain's became wise to this.
When someone came to the cockpitwith a question, they would
frequently ignore me. Luckily,the training captains would
pretend that they were naive copilots and redirect the question
to me, making it really clearwho was actually a captain on
the flight.
Whilst on a regular scheduledtrip to our mid stop
destination, Warri, I wasapproached by one of the
(08:23):
helicopter training captains whoI knew in passing. He took me to
one side and asked if I would beinterested in lending my voice
to some of the safety videos dueto be rolled out in the next few
months across our Nigerianhelicopter operations. I felt
honoured, but I certainly haveno experience in this field, so
I wasn't sure what to expect. Ateam would be arriving to record
(08:46):
the audio against a videopresentation. And this could be
done at our fixed wing operationin Lagos. All I had to do was
familiarize myself with a safetybriefing script, which will be
provided along with a newlyproduced video. All passengers
and staff transitioning onoffshore, had to watch a safety
video prior to boarding thehelicopters. I have to say, that
(09:08):
when the day came to record thescript, it wasn't ideal. I'd
developed a cold and even withSudafed, my voice was deeper
than it usually was. One of thelocal team was very helpful and
pointed out that this wasprobably a blessing in disguise,
as I actually sounded like aman. 'Sigh" Let's just say that
(09:29):
he had to sit out the recordingas far away from me as was
physically possible. cold or nocold, my right hook was not
affected!!!!. I must admit thatfor a first try at this, It
wasn't half bad and I hadenjoyed yet another distraction.
It would be really strange inthe coming months for me to
hear, me, reading the safetybriefings in the helicopter
(09:52):
operations lounges, for someyears to come.
Thank you for listening. Asalways, your reviews and
comments are very muchappreciated. Thank you to Lucy
Ashby for the editing of thisepisode. If you would like to
ask a question or make a commentthen please do so on our social
media sites. We're on Instagram,Facebook and Twitter, or send us
an email. Our email address isthe skyispinkpilot@gmail.com or
(10:19):
visit our website,www.skyispink.co.uk.
In the next episode, I go backin time to a story that had a
great impact on me both as aperson and as a pilot.
Thank you and goodbye
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