Maverick Thinking – Perspective The weather in North Wales was awful and flying solo, alone in my jet, I was deeply worried.

As I tore through the dark valleys in my sleek and agile Hawk T1, at 500 miles per hour and just 250 foot above the ground, the menacing clouds were only just above my aircraft. I was desperately trying to follow my instructor, DB, in Serpent 1 only 500 metres in front of me as we attempted to attack our second target, in a sweat inducing hour-long mission, training me to be an operational fighter pilot. I was on 74 Sqn at RAF Valley, in the final phases of Tactical Weapons Training, and I was working hard as the gradient of learning just kept on getting steeper and steeper. The physical, emotional and cognitive demands on trainees was brutal and many people washed out or got "chopped". On this wet and windy November day in 1998, the rest of my course had planned for, briefed and walked in front of me for similar sorties but we all held little hope of successfully completing the mission. However, the Boss and Chief Instructor of our "Tiger" Squadron, wanted to stretch us and flying at 7 nautical miles per minute (8 statute miles per minute or 216 meters per second) in bad weather can stretch anyone. It is a brilliant, ruthless classroom for being out of your comfort zone - it is also very dangerous and particularly so in a formation.

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All of my friends on Victor 37, our training course, had launched in front of me, taking off in pairs from the cloudy and windy North Walian airfield on Anglesey at the top of the Welsh mountains. We were being trained to operate in formations where we could protect each other from surface to air threats like missiles or anti-aircraft artillery, as well as enemy fighters trying to shoot us down. The idea, in these early days of self-escort techniques, where that we could fight our way into targets and fight our way out again. The only problem was here, the weather was our biggest enemy. Flying really quickly, by this stage in our training, had become second nature. It was now an unconsciously competent skill set where we young pilots did not have to expend much of our (very) limited chunks of conscious mental capacity on the mechanics of flying. Up, down, left, right, faster slower; pitch, roll, yaw, thrust, drag, airbrakes, G Force, aerodynamics and hydraulic actuated aircraft control services – they had now all blended into one system. When you strap on the ejector seat, the aircraft becomes part of you; you think about what you need, and it just happens. It is a wonderful and amazing experience to fly fast-jets operationally and it had been my ambition since I was eleven years old.

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The rest of Victor 37 had tried and failed with their formation attacks that morning, all had attempted to get under the bad weather and fight their way into their targets only to be forced into life-saving emergency aborts pulling 4-5G into a 30 degree climb to get away from the steep, fatal mountains, punching up and above the clouds, only to recover to RAF Valley disappointed and worried about the next attempt. As DB and I tore through the jagged, rocky valleys as Serpent 1 and 2, we were heading north-east. We were in fighting wing formation, and I was about 60 degrees swept right and back from my leader in a cone from about 250 to 600 metres away - depending on how hard we were manoeuvring as a pair through the winding turns of the valleys. As I looked ahead, through DB's jet, I could see the cloud base getting lower and lower. Legally, we needed a few hundred feet of cloud above us to continue to operate in Visual Flight Rules safely or otherwise we were in danger of pushing the limits and smashing into the granite of a mountainside or worse still into the public. Sadly, a year later, two amazingly talented and good friends of mine did exactly this while they flew at low level, killing them instantly. Aviation is an unforgiving business, and it can take a small moment of inattention, or a loss of concentration, to put yourself into a potentially fatal position.

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DB was a consummate fighter pilot with a no-nonsense attitude. He was astonishingly good at flying. As he led us further into the bad weather, he had already assessed that the final part of the high ground, at the end of this particular valley, would open up towards our target area in the Northern Plains of Wales, allowing us to hit our target and recover victorious to Valley. DB was not a cowboy; he was highly trained and highly competent. He knew that as the cloud lowered to the end of the Valley there was a window of clear air for the formation to fly through and on to the better weather ahead near our target area. He had already assessed the airspace above us, the radar control station we would call if we too needed to conduct a low level weather abort, how he would fly that abort, how he would calmly direct me to avoid him by 30 degrees if we had to climb through 10, 000ft of cloud together, what the safety altitude was so that we did not hit "cumulo-granite" (a mountain) and much more beside.

?He was “aviating, navigating, and communicating” like a professional. He knew that as he climbed up the final valley wall that he would have to roll rapidly, invert his aircraft and fly upside down, pulling 4g, to stay visual with the ground, avoid flying into the cloud and then weirdly "pull" into the valley below him - just like Maverick in his latest film - before righting his aircraft in time not to smash into the deck and continue to his target. Except, this was for real and for DB it was business as usual. If he kept the aircraft flying upright, and well – normally – he would have to "push" the aircraft nose down as he crested the steep ridge, only able to push minus 1 or 2G which would result in him ballooning way above 250 feet and into cloud. He was trained to do this kind of flying manoeuvre and I am very glad to say the RAF now teach this kind of ridge-rolling as a matter of course to students today. Sadly, for me, I had only read about it and watched it in a BBC film from the 1980s called Fighter Pilot, a series following a group of trainees, just like me, through training.

?As I hurtled towards the end of the Valley, I too could see what might happen and I simply assumed that DB would low-level abort like my friends earlier on in the day. Little did I expect my flight lead to turn upside down at 250 feet and crest the ridge pulling 4-5G, vapour pouring off his wings! What the hell? In my mind I had only one option, I had to follow him and do the same as DB. By this stage he was descending rapidly in to the plain below and rolling the right way back up, in other words, I could not bump into him. Because I was already climbing up the Valley and trying to get closer to DB as I had been a little stretched on him, my throttle was already fully open, rammed forward into the top left of the cockpit. The Rolls Royce Adour jet could give me no more thrust leaving my left hand largely redundant. I pulled my jet up the ridge and just before my nose came over the top I copied DB, rolling to the left, and turning my aircraft completely upside down, as I did so, I pulled hard back into my ejector seat and stomach with the stick, pitching 5G INTO the mountainside so I could stay below the cloud and with my formation leader. That is when it happened.

To make sure I did not fly into the ground I clearly had to look directly up, out of the top of my cockpit and into that streaking mountainside that could reach up and kill me. As I pulled the stick back, my brain was assessing how well I was maintaining my flightpath 250 feet from the peak of the mountain ridge while also making sure I was not ballooning into the dark clouds above me.

On top of that peak there was a small car park. A young family, no doubt led by a father who assured everyone the weather would get better, were on a walking trip in the Welsh mountains. They were just getting out of their blue car, doors just closing, as they looked up at the flash of a jet in the sky and the roar of a jet engine as DB streaked past them. Two seconds later, I flew directly over them. The man and his wife, stared up, mouths open wide. They did not look impressed nor happy. Their hands were already coming up to their ears to avoid the second blast of jet engine noise. The boy was no more than ten and he was doing no such thing. He had the widest grin I have ever seen, and he was waving.

?As I flew past, the meta-cognitive part of my brain was assessing how I was doing, while I was doing and was registering with my frontal cortex that things were going exactly as they should. I was not going to hit the mountain, I was not going to fly into cloud, the Valley was dropping away and my roll back upright was going to be fine, I was visual with DB and we were still in good formation. So, unconsciously, I did something stupid. With my throttle hand, no longer being needed, I waved back! I was looking up through my cockpit at a ten-year-old only 250 feet away, as he was looking up at me through my cockpit and merrily waving at a Hawk flying at 7 nautical miles a minute, upside down. It was not something I chose to do - waving just seemed polite. And then it was gone.

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This flash of conscious memory was about five seconds long, I hardly registered it at the time. My poor brain was full, and I simply moved on to the next problem, regaining battle formation with DB and preparing for my attack profile. The funny thing is that when I landed and debriefed, I had a cup of tea in the crew room, enjoying the satisfaction of doing something I had only dreamed of for real, successfully, and achieving our mission by hitting our targets. Yet, those few seconds were incredibly vivid. More vivid than when I was actually in the cockpit, well, almost.?

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The main point of this introduction is the various perspectives into the world of fast jet fighter pilot training, the insights it inevitably gathers, the experiential learning in constant, imperfect naturalistic, decision making (Klein - Sources of Power is brilliant), the understanding of the famous Boyd Cycle or OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act) and the psychology of high performance under pressure.

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Al Pepper and I strongly believe that by unpicking the stories of some amazing fighter pilots and decision makers, we can unpack the psychology behind some of those perspectives and provide insights into your everyday life. Our hope is that may help you fuse these ideas into what you do to make your life better or more meaningful.

?So, why is our prospective book called Maverick Thinking? Well first there is the obvious, Maverick is to fast jet flying what Rocky is to boxing, but secondly and more importantly it means trying to develop a new way of thinking where we understand the imperfections of real life, and our own mind, and learn how to think more laterally and more successfully under pressure in this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world.

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