SAFETY SITREP WHO’S THE BEST PILOT YOU EVER SAW?


Safety-Related Information and Resources from the Vertical Aviation Safety Team


I graduated from high school in 1983, inspired to become a pilot by the popular books and movies of the time. Like Craig Thomas’, Firefox Down and Tom Wolfe’s, The Right Stuff and their movie adaptations. In The Right Stuff, Gordon Cooper, played by a young Dennis Quaid, repeatedly asks, “Who’s the best pilot you ever saw?” His predictable reply: “You’re looking at him.” It’s a memorable line, filled with swagger, charisma, and a little cringe. Most of us have flown with someone like that.


Over time, I came to recognize that same mindset in some of the “best pilots” I encountered in my own career. They were highly skilled and respected, but some drifted toward the very behaviors we’re trained to guard against. They displayed hazardous attitudes like anti- authority, impulsivity, invulnerability, and machoism. If you need a visual, think Nicolas Cage as an AH-64 Apache pilot in training, in the movie Firebirds repeatedly shouting, “I am the greatest!” That scene takes cringe to a whole new level while delivering a master class in how not to behave during a simulator ride.


Have you ever known or flown with someone like that? Genuinely talented, but a legend in their own mind, and often operating outside the margins. They skipped checklists, bent SOP regs, and gaslit all challengers? Yeah, we all can recall at least one person like that.


I knew a pilot who told our safety officer he was “smarter than the checklist.” Not long after that claim, that “smart” pilot had a gear-up landing. Predictable


18 Mar/Apr 2026


and preventable. That’s the pilot U.S. Navy Captain Pete Taylor described in the November 1989 issue of Approach magazine as suffering from “Best Pilot Syndrome.” It’s what happens when confidence replaces discipline, experience substitutes for SOP, and when repeated success (read luck) ushers in procedural drift or normalization of deviance.


In today’s environment, that risk is amplified 10X. We’re bombarded by click-bait videos of extraordinary flying we see in social media, movies, or at air shows. Stunt helicopter pilots performing impossible aerobatics. Other pilots post their crazy daily routines. I’ll admit, most are impressive, but easy to misinterpret. I once asked famous stunt pilot, Fred North, how long it took him to develop the skills he needed to safely perform his stunning aerial camera work. “20,000 hours” was his reply. So, perhaps the concern isn’t about the professionals performing high-level aerial work. It’s shared videos and follow-on impressions. Less experienced pilots see the stunning results, but remain clueless about the hours of preparation, deceptive camera work, and risk controls involved. The danger isn’t admiration; it’s attempted imitation.


Who is considered the best pilot in your organization, and why? Maybe it’s you? So, what safeguards are actively shaping your decisions? If you know a pilot who thinks or acts like they’re the ace of the base, what are you and others doing about it? Because there’s a fifth hazardous attitude we don’t talk about enough: resignation. The voice that says,


“What’s the point? They’re going to do it anyway.” Or worse, “They’re the best, so I trust them.” That mindset doesn’t just enable “Best Pilot Syndrome.” It completes it.


Professional pilots, the ones you should want to fly with, don’t try to prove they’re the best. They know that they are human with human frailties. They’re the first to admit mistakes and invite others to challenge them. When something goes wrong, they don’t hide it; they share it, so everyone gets smarter. That’s where Crew Resource Management (CRM) comes into play. Professional questioning isn’t confrontation, it’s just professional. Remember that inquiry invites advocacy. Speak up with unapologetic conviction when you need to. Just be clear and respectful about it. Because silence on the flight line or in the cockpit isn’t neutral. It either breaks the accident chain or feeds it.


The system we’ve built is tried and true. Checklists, SOPs, and CRM apply to all of us. Even the late, great Chuck Yeager acknowledged that


checklists are for


everyone, including him. Being the best pilot is a myth.


Doing the right thing, even when no one’s watching, is the RIGHT STUFF.


By Chris Hill, senior director–safety, Vertical Aviation International


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