PRAISE FOR YIKES!…

“YIKES!…is gripping. I picked it up and couldn’t put it down. Congratulations on writing such a highly recommendable book.”
–Captain Neal Schwartz, United Airlines

 “I read this book, cover to cover, in one sitting. It spoke to me in a little voice that said, ‘Remember when that was us?’ JJ writes beautifully about the places every professional pilot of enough experience has been. If you want to be prepared before you go there, read this book.”
–Captain Hans Yao, Southwest Airlines

“I find that your book really contributes to Aeronautical Decision-Making in the most effective way. Thank you for such a thoughtful book!”
–FAA Part 141 Chief Flight Instructor, James Aaron Modeste

“Pilots love to tell stories. Some of the best stories are when they tell on themselves. YIKES!…is a collection of the best of the best of those stories–thrilling, scary and flat out funny. YIKES!…is a page-turner, filled with stories that teach other pilots how to become better pilots and non-pilots just how hard it is to become a great pilot. “
–Captain Ben Pegram, PSA Airlines

WHY I WROTE YIKES!…

Pilots are some of the smartest, most detail-oriented, conscientious, deliberate people I know. That’s also why they take some of the biggest risks—because if you ask them, they’ll tell you they’re some of the smartest, most detail-oriented, conscientious, deliberate people they know.

Visit an airport and hang out with pilots. If you hang around long enough, you’ll hear somebody say—right after swapping a particularly harrowing hangar tale—“Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement.” Pilots love to quote Mark Twain.

Despite our abnormally high self-confidence, pilots are high also are coachable. We learn from our mistakes and from the mistakes of others.

This book is dedicated to all those smart pilots who’ve made dumb mistakes and lived to tell about them, so that the rest of us can learn from them and become better pilots.

ABOUT YIKES!…

The stories in YIKES!… are true, taken from NASA reports—the FAA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System database—where pilots voluntarily and anonymously share their moments of bad judgment with the rest of us.  Combining humor with insightful analysis, I examined their stories in my General Aviation News column, “Human Factors.” The chapters in YIKES!… are curated from my column. YIKES!… is humorous-yet-educational, entertaining-yet-inspirational for pilots and non-pilots alike.