How to be smart crazy

éder Navacerrada speaks about aerial firefighting, lessons from BASE jumping, and managing high performance teams

éder Navacerrada walked through the door of the coffee shop and looked around. I was at a corner table by the window, waiting. It was a brilliant sunny day outside.

He saw me and smiled, with a flash of recognition in his eyes. This was our first meeting.

Our plan was to talk about flying, life, and whatever else came up.?

When I spoke, I felt a pang of nervousness flare up. After all, who was I, as a 300 hour commercial pilot scratching by in Sweden as a school photographer, to interview him?

A little bit of homework about his life and career had turned up more than a few accomplishments. He’s the current Chief Pilot for the AT-802 Fireboss fleet at Saab in Nyk?ping, Sweden, for starters. He’s also a father, entrepreneur, leader, voracious reader, firefighter, champion base jumper, wingsuit aviator, aerobatic pilot, and a true airman.?

I bought us both coffee and we chose a table.?

His wife and young son joined us a few minutes later, sitting just a few tables over.?

And then, we started at the beginning, with éder’s father.

Shaping An Airman

éder grew up in Seville, in Southern Spain.?

Like a lot of young men, he looked up to his dad. His father was a working agricultural and firefighting pilot, which meant that the family got to travel together all over Spain. It also meant that éder’s father did dangerous low-level precision flying, in mountainous terrain, day in and day out.

At work, éder’s father flew the Piper Pawnee, the Pawnee Brave, the 600hp radial-engined Thrush Commander, and the PZL Dromader, a Polish aircraft based on the Thrush Commander. For a kid growing up, that created a lot of positive impressions. éder called that part of his life, “brilliant.”

“Don’t get lost in an SOP. Don’t lose the point.”

And then, in an instant, éder’s dad was gone.?

Not in a plane crash, but in a car accident. éder was 8 years old when it happened.?

We paused the conversation for a brief moment.

In The Path Of His Father

“I have a lot of respect for the feelings that most of us have toward our fathers, as a path to follow,” said éder. “When I grew up, I realized he was a good person, and a person I would respect, not only because of our shared blood, but as a person.”

éder continued, “He managed to trigger some interests - not only in aviation — but in some other things. Even if it was just a short period, he managed to teach me many values.

“Be in the present and try to do it as well as you can.”

“Being around with him, he was a good spirit; he was a knowledgeable person. He was a fun person. He was appreciated in the flying community. He managed to put that aviation seed not only in me, but in my other brothers.”

A Big Flying Family

éder has five siblings - three brothers and two sisters. Four of his siblings are involved in aviation in some way.

One of his brothers has a Commercial Pilot’s License and an Instrument Rating. Even though that brother doesn’t work in aviation, éder called him, “very proficient.” Two other siblings have Private Pilot Licenses (PPLs,) and one of his sisters has done some skydives. His non-flying sister shared in the family’s adventures in other ways.

Talking to éder, you could see the affection in his eyes when he spoke about his family.

Core Values

éder got many of his core values from his father.?

And some, he said, he is still discovering today. Now and then, he crosses paths with someone who knew his father.?

éder said, “I still keep discovering the kind of person that he was.

“He was not only working for big corporations. He seemed to have some sense of justice. He worked for small companies and farmers too.

“Some of those farmers remember him - he made a big effort to do a good job no matter how small the corporation or the fields were.

“That’s a value that means something to me. No matter what you do - if you’re sweeping the streets - you do it as if it were Shakespeare writing. You try to reach excellence.”

éder called that one of the most important values that he got from his father.?

“Whatever you get involved in,” he said, “be in the present and try to do it as well as you can.”

Inspiration On A Screen

There’s one more thing éder wanted to mention about his dad.

It had to do with his dad’s love of creating home movies of his own flying. After his father passed away, éder said he was lucky enough to be able to watch those old tapes from the 80’s.?

“When he died, I was not so aware of the whole thing. [But] I was more aware when I was looking at those tapes. They kept the whole thing alive.”

He recalled seeing footage of the Dromader and hearing the big radial engine. That was inspiration for him.

“I knew I wanted to be a pilot… and it was a challenge. I still have memories from high school, maybe at 16 years old - some subjects I liked more than others - and I remember how far away I felt from being on a firefighting deployment.?

“Then things slowly took me there. I always kept the interest in aviation because of those tapes.”

éder said that his father’s early video inspiration also motivated him to do video today. “Some people think it’s egocentric and showing off, but I got a lot of interest from people because of the videos.”

éder sees his own videos as tools for inspiring and educating others about aerial firefighting and safety. And he’s willing to take the heat from whatever detractors he might have. Talking to éder, you get the sense that you’re in the presence of someone who has a deep-seated sense of who he is and what he stands for.?

It’s hard not to feel inspired.

Digging Deep

I asked him if he’d had any lows in his career. Because it’s so easy to forget that most people don’t have their successes handed to them on a silver platter.

He thought for a moment and then said, “Sometimes you feel you’re progressing, and then you come to the bottom of the valley, a real low point. But when I came to those points, I felt that my soul was into it - I was really driven.

“It always - in the end - was worth it.”

éder continued, “When I finished high school, my mother was in a difficult position…. We had just enough. She was taking care of the family and she needed to have full commitment to that.? She was very good at it.?

“Crazy is a wide concept.”

“When it comes down to the path of what you’re going to do in life professionally, my father took that role.?

“When I finished high school, I knew I wanted to be a pilot. I didn’t have the money. I decided to go to University, make some money, and improve my English.”

éder soon realized that the University path wasn’t right for him. He wanted more action.?

He went to the UK and worked at jobs that had nothing to do with aviation, including some stints at bars. His English improved.

éder said he remembers thinking, “I’m making ￡5-6/hr working - how the hell am I going to get to 60 grand? How am I going to do this?

“Sometimes you try to be as rational as you can be at 18 years old: This is not going to be a sprint. It’s going to be a marathon.”

éder took it day by day, doing the best he could. He said that things naturally began to work out. He just put his heart into everything he did. One step after the other.?

He came back with ￡4000 saved up. He used that to get his PPL in Spain.

After getting his PPL, he got in touch with a British-run skydiving outfit in Spain and got to work dropping skydivers. To him, it felt like being in the right place at the right time. The path he was on was the correct one, and things seemed to want to fall into place.

Anti-Fragility

éder has a strong sense of curiosity about the world and the people in it.

He likes to read. One of the thinkers he seems to appreciate in a deep way is Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

A Taleb concept that resonates with éder is the concept of “Anti-fragility.” It’s the idea that some systems can thrive and grow stronger as a result of applied stressors, shocks, and failures.

There’s a lot of standby time for a firefighting pilot, and éder sometimes dives into ideas like these during his time away from the aircraft. With 15 years of standby experience, he’s had plenty of opportunities to read and think.

éder said, “I still think I haven’t squeezed as much as I can… but I really try to connect all the dots.”

Skin In The Game

He’s also begun to write about safety, which you can explore on his blog at doxasticsafety.com.

One of the core values of his safety concept is the idea of having “skin in the game.” It’s an idea that Nassim Taleb promotes in a strong way.

éder was careful to also say that you can’t ignore academic information, and that safety is not a binary game between academics and heuristics. According to éder, the people who teach safety need to specialize and prepare with academic rigor, as well as spend time on the front line.?

He said, “We all have more respect for the people who are on the front line. That’s why I spend as much time on the front line as I can.”

éder sees a trend where the people managing teams are increasingly disconnected from the reality of the work. The end result is that managers can become distracted by fads and buzzwords and implement policies that don’t make practical sense.

Combining Lessons From BASE Jumping And Aviation

éder is a BASE jumper. And he sees that activity as being connected to aviation.?

That might seem like a risky thing to point out, especially for folks who work in more corporate or managed aviation settings.?

éder said, “The physics are similar - flying, falling. And then, it really helped me on both sides. [In base jumping], I have seen death up close, and that has also driven me to try to make it safer.”?

He believes that the culture in BASE jumping is focused on “getting there too quick,” without much academic rigor. On the other hand, he sees aviation as sometimes being too focused on theory, without enough action.?

He said, “Don’t get lost in an SOP. Don’t lose the point.”

éder is trying to combine what he sees as the best of both worlds, combining lessons from both fields in order to improve both of them. He believes in applying the Pareto Principle, which is that 20% of our actions are most important and deliver 80% of the results.?

“I don’t consider myself an inventor or creator,” he said, “but that’s the beauty of creativity.”?

What he sees himself doing is connecting the dots between BASE jumping, aviation, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s ideas about financial bubbles.?

He said, “You put it together in the bending, blending, and breaking process of creativity.”

éder said that his Base jumps can look like “just a jump, a crazy guy leaping off a cliff.” Then he added that “crazy is a wide concept.” He goes through a risk assessment process for every BASE jump in a way that resembles a Standard Operational Procedure. He identifies hazards that could kill him, then he looks at how to mitigate those risks.

When it comes to aviation, he sometimes tries to incorporate some of the “action that we have in BASE jumping.”

I asked him what that means.

éder said, “Action, and not getting lost in bureaucracy. Training for real. Doing Scenario Based Training. Getting things done. Not to the extent of jumping off a cliff, but taking the leap metaphorically.”

According to éder, BASE jumping has had another interesting benefit, and that has been a perspective shift in the rest of his life. It’s helped him better understand what matters and what doesn’t.

He said, “Being in those situations of danger, risk management, and brotherhood with other people - and seeing life and death - it puts the whole thing in perspective. And then when you face a hard day at work, or a problem in the family, having been in those [dangerous] situations helps you be more effective.”

The Stoic Approach

éder admires elements of Stoic philosophy.

He said that being aware of the things you can’t control gives you power and control over the things you can influence. When it comes to aviation, éder believes that the Stoic approach requires being as proficient as possible in the entire flight envelope.?

It requires real training and taking small, calculated risks that won’t cause death. And he believes that the concept applies to much more than just flying.?

It’s an approach to life.

Slamming The Door (from time to time)

éder has written about the concept of slamming the door on situations in life that aren’t serving your purpose or aligned with your beliefs.

We talked about the concept a bit more, since it flies in the face of Conventional Wisdom, which is never to burn a bridge. Many of us are afraid of losing options, acquaintances, and relationships, to the point that we’ll “put up and shut up” in order to avoid facing the unknown. The idea of “loss aversion” kicks in, and we generally become very hesitant to ever let go of things we have. It’s a powerful psychological barrier to change, and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman wrote about it in his book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow.”

éder explained the concept of slamming the door a bit more.?

“It sounds a little bit rude,”? he said. “It’s a little bit edgy.”?

According to éder, the idea keeps him aligned with his “vital architecture and beliefs.” There are times in his life where he has felt it necessary to end certain professional relationships while being explicit that there were no more options to continue or resume the relationship.

It may sound tough to speak that way. And it takes courage to walk the walk. éder said that learning to say “No” has been one of the main challenges in his life.?

He said, “Sometimes we have loss aversion… and I was trying to hold too many tree branches and not letting [any] go. And sometimes, that feeling of not holding onto something is quite productive.

“When you really get more to the bottom, and you don’t have security, and you see your bank balance getting lower and lower, that’s… an opportunity to be creative and think, ‘What do I want to do now?’”

éder sees learning to use ‘No’ in a decisive way as a key skill for not getting stuck in life. And he believes that leaving doors halfway open is like preventing a wound from healing.

Grow in discomfort

We ended up talking longer.?

In the course of that time, we turned over a few more stones, which we agreed to keep off the record.?

The feeling you get after meeting éder is that you’ve just met a human being completely aligned with his purpose and mission in life.?

?You can also see the degree of affection he has for his wife and son by the way he is with them - gentle, patient, and loving. He is the kind of person other people can aspire to learn from.

He is also the kind of person who can inspire others to take action in their own lives, to find their own meaningful contributions.

The surprise for me wasn’t that our conversation had drifted away from flying. It was a feeling that everything was going to be okay. That if I just followed my path and gave it my all - if I really put in the work - that the doors I’ve been looking for as an expat in Sweden would eventually open.

So many of us fear what we don’t know and seek to build comforts and distractions around that very basic fact of humanity. Talking to éder was a reminder that we don’t have to be afraid of the discomfort. We can embrace it and grow.?

And that means something.?

Update:

éder recently moved to northern Spain with his family. He and his wife are expecting a daughter in January.

While in Sweden, éder completed his assignment and succeeded in establishing a self-sustaining aerial firefighting team with the Fireboss at SAAB. The team has 10 pilots, including instructors, and multiple aircraft that fight fires both in Sweden and within Europe.

Now, he’s advising another aerial firefighting operation and helping them as they expand from Europe to South America. In October, he’ll be doing trans-Atlantic ferry flights with their single-engine firefighting aircraft.

éder mentioned that 2022 was a bad year when it came to industry safety flying the Fireboss. Those losses hit home for him, and he’s passionate about helping his friends and colleagues stay alive as they do their work. He knows he can sometimes be overly direct when speaking about such matters (something he’s working on), and at the same time, he knows that it’s important not to stay quiet.

éder truly is an airman who lives by his values.

Want to know more?

Follow éder on LinkedIn: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/edernavacerrada/

Follow éder on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edernavacerrada/

Check out éder’s blog: https://doxasticsafety.com/en/blog-2/

If you liked this article and would like to collaborate on telling your story, you can reach me at [email protected]