In a single seat fighter, you have uniform checklists and defined procedures for how to operate the systems, guide your task flow, and overall manage the aircraft. But even with the complex checklists and procedures to do the job, there is still so much left to the discretion of the pilot at the controls. How to manage his information displays, where to set their warning cues, how to set up their radios, use cockpit lighting at night, what to write on their kneeboards, what visual references to use, whether to write on the canopy (A-10 pilots only), When to configure for landing, how best to flare, and on and on. As long as the results were on target, a single-seat pilot didn't get feedback on any of these things. And I loved it that way.

But sometimes, I wanted to know how other pilots managed their aircraft, where they put their maps, which screen they used for what information, what best practices they were keeping inside their cockpits to make them so good at their craft.

In order to get feedback, I had to first review what I was doing, what was working and what wasn't, and whether it needed a change. The hard part was to know if, living in my bubble, anything I was doing was not as good as it could be. That forced me to ask difficult questions.

Next, I had remove my facade of single-seat pilot perfection to ask others how they did their jobs. Little bit of humility, little bit of pointed questions based on what I wasn't sure about regarding my own habit patterns and approaches. With enough skill, I could ask with feigned curiosity instead of earnest truth-seeking, where I would then consider their approach and make changes to my own habits if their ideas had merit.

The entire process is part of the integrity of searching for that perfect flight, to do my job as well as possible.

Each of us have responsibilities that we do single-seat, without input from others and often without the benefit of seeing how others perform the same tasks. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether we are willing to take feedback in a task that only involves ourselves, and have the integrity to admit it and embrace it if we find others' ideas better than ours.

Food for thought. I'd heat my frozen burrito on the right side the glare shield. That way I could fly with my knees, but still talk on the radio with my left hand. And with a left-hand hold, it got more sun than the left side.