Accomplished Humans

High performing teams

Admirable leaders


Accomplished Humans

High performing teams

Admirable leaders


About us

Can ANY organization create fighter pilot attitudes at the workplace?

YES!

Our consultants and speakers are former Air Force pilots. Our pilots have coached human performance and leadership to fighter pilots and Air Force pilots in risky, unforgiving and hostile environments. Our pilots understand the stresses and eye-watering standards of precision required to perform flawlessly at high speed and sometimes very close to the ground, whilst keeping a cool head and allowing their students to make errors so that they can learn from their own mistakes.

Instructor Pilots possess a certain rare balance between confidence and humility; risk and safety and; assertiveness and obedience. We can bring some of these attributes into your workplace. We reveal the real attitude of fighter pilots and aim to help propel your workforce to new heights by sharing some of the universal truths of being a human in the cockpit of a powerful and lethal machine.

Engage Us

why

Training a fighter pilot revolves around three aspects. Knowledge, skills, attitude. The knowledge required to be a pilot can be obtained at the Air Academy or flight school through books, online training, live classes and lots of study. The skills required to be a pilot can be obtained in an airplane, a flight simulator, or even on a chair at home doing chair flying- pilot talk for mental preparation for the mission simply sitting on a chair and imagining the entire mission whilst moving hands fingers and feet in a make-believe rehearsal of the real flight. The most important thing of teaching fighter pilot and also the most difficult thing to teach a fighter pilot is the attitude, also referred to as airmanship. Airmanship is an understanding of those human factors at play when people in small teams in harsh dynamic and challenging scenarios have to perform at their peak.

Now, it might come as a surprise that training a fighter pilot is rather similar to many other walks of life. Many jobs around the world also requires knowledge skills and attitude. In order to be successful and safe. However we at Cockpit: Be the Pilot have no intention of teaching you the knowledge and skills of your profession. However we strongly believe that the attitude required to fly a fighter jet, Military Transporters, or Air Force helicopters, known as the airmanship required to fly successfully and safely, can be exported to industries like yours. These techniques also work around the office and even right up into the boardroom. We can tailor a specific agenda for our engagement with you. You can choose items from our topics menu that suit your needs. Or heck, choose them all, and we’ll spend as much time with you and your people as you require. Our promise to you is that you and your people will have a great and memorable time learning pilot skills like communication using real radios, fighter tactics applied to business, but most importantly how to be truly human under stressful and demanding situations, utilizing proven techniques based on scientific knowledge used in the cockpit by some of the world’s best pilots in aerial warfare, air rescue and airline operations.

PRODUCTS

Keynotes

Interactive motivational speeches

Team building exercises

Corporate retreats

Multi day immersive courses

Apparel

Clothing line

Flight suits

Flight jackets

Shirts

Pants

Patches

Jewelry and watches

Pins

TOPICS Menu

Pilot KNOWLEDGE

  • aircraft recognition - competition
  • aircraft performance - card game
  • who wants to be a pilot - aviation knowledge quiz - watch TopGun and you’ll Ace this quiz.

Pilot SKILLS applied to BUSINESS and LIFE

  • Altitude vs height. Know where you are.
  • Vertical speed indicator (VSI). Trust your pressure instruments.
  • Graveyard spiral. Wings level THEN pull up.
  • Bullet holes. Inductive vs Deductive thinking
  • Breathe. Put on your own oxygen first
  • Being human. Threat and error management
  • Being human. Positive Psychology
  • Being human. The strongest link in the safety chain
  • Being human. Psychological safety

Pilot ATTITUDE: AIRMANSHIP

  • Perception & cognition
  • Attention & awareness
  • Culture in the Cockpit
  • Communication (on Real radios!)
    • Deliberate, clear, paced, closed loop leadership & followership
  • DODAR, caenefin, bullet holes: inductive vs deductive thinking
  • Emergency Handling
  • Safety
    • Stages 1-4
  • Individual differences- self knowledge

PRICING

Small group keynotes

From R18 000

Larger group keynotes

From R35 000

Interactive Engagements

From R25 000

Half Day Teambuilding

From R30 000

Full Day Teambuilding

From R50 000

Like airline seats, our products have varying prices. Depending on the demand, availability of facilitators and time of year.

Contact us for corporate retreats and multi day immersive courses packages tailored to your needs anywhere in central South Africa, the Republic of South Africa or international locations.
Fully inclusive packages available on request.

Contact us for special offers, discounts, referral credits, gifts, and specialized topics.


NEW BOOK

BACK

Returning to the task of analyzing the situation: the engine indications, and the by now bone-jarring vibration and ear-splitting shriek from the Rolls-Royce Viper jet engine leaves little doubt that I am experiencing a rare but serious total engine failure. Whatever caused this otherwise reliable engine to become so unhappy is now threatening to disintegrate it. Although I have never experienced this before, I know from various accounts and long hours of reading that when a jet engine disintegrates, it is not pretty. It throws off pieces of red-hot super-hard and heavy compressor and turbine blades from and axle that spins at thousands of RPM. This debris punches through the engine casing at high velocity and slices through anything in its path. I know that it is a matter of time until this engine fails catastrophically and in doing so severing high pressure fuel hoses, oil pipes, and hydraulic lines webbed around the engine casing. The highly combustible mist spewed from these severed high-pressure lines will come in contact with the red-hot exposed parts of the fractured engine and create high pressure blow torches, cutting through the remaining bits of airframe and flight control rods, leaving no more than 30 seconds of flight before the entire airframe may disintegrate. Worse even, is the possibility of flight control rods severed, rendering the aircraft uncontrollable as there would be no connection between the elevators or rudder and the control stick in my hand or the rudder pedals under my flight boots. If this happens, I know I will eject without having to make too much of a decision at all: Ejection is the only option if the pilot is no longer in control of the aircraft.

Returning to the task of analyzing the situation: the engine indications, and the by now bone-jarring vibration and ear-splitting shriek from the Rolls-Royce Viper jet engine leaves little doubt that I am experiencing a rare but serious total engine failure. Whatever caused this otherwise reliable engine to become so unhappy is now threatening to disintegrate it. Although I have never experienced this before, I know from various accounts and long hours of reading that when a jet engine disintegrates, it is not pretty. It throws off pieces of red-hot super-hard and heavy compressor and turbine blades from and axle that spins at thousands of RPM. This debris punches through the engine casing at high velocity and slices through anything in its path. I know that it is a matter of time until this engine fails catastrophically and in doing so severing high pressure fuel hoses, oil pipes, and hydraulic lines webbed around the engine casing. The highly combustible mist spewed from these severed high-pressure lines will come in contact with the red-hot exposed parts of the fractured engine and create high pressure blow torches, cutting through the remaining bits of airframe and flight control rods, leaving no more than 30 seconds of flight before the entire airframe may disintegrate. Worse even, is the possibility of flight control rods severed, rendering the aircraft uncontrollable as there would be no connection between the elevators or rudder and the control stick in my hand or the rudder pedals under my flight boots. If this happens, I know I will eject without having to make too much of a decision at all: Ejection is the only option if the pilot is no longer in control of the aircraft.

Chris VanderWalt

ABOUT THE BOOK

Join me in the cockpit of a training jet as I coach my students in the art of harnessing our universal human strengths. You will experience from the front seat what we go through in the unforgiving environment of fighter jet training. More importantly, I will help you identify your own human strengths and how to apply it at the office, around the boardroom table, on the sports field, on the road, at home and even in the air.


Life is our COCKPIT: Be the Pilot.

Pre-orders of e-book now selling for R149

*Regular published recommended price is R299

*Soft-cover paper option and audiobook available soon.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris is a former fighter pilot of the South African Air Force. He holds a Master’s Degree of Aviation Management, gained from the School of Psychology at the University of Newcastle in Australia. The Human Factors he studied and taught as flying instructor, forms part of the formal training every military and civilian pilot must undergo during certification. Some of this aviation human factors knowledge and skills have already found application in other industries, like emergency medicine, aneasthetics and nuclear power generation operations. Now, Chris delivers that knowledge to you in an engaging, useful package, where you will discover the real attitudes of fighter pilots. You will develop the same skills that helps fighter pilots focus, prepare for, and execute their daily missions. You will learn how to communicate effectively, develop your own risk competence and become a dependable team-player. You will also become more comfortable listening to criticism, dealing with conflict and working towards a common target.


Life is our COCKPIT: Who is the Pilot?

CONTACT

+27 82 760 8001

Info@sapiensatwork

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