Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters

by Chesley B. Sullenberger III

I love that flying is an intellectual challenge, and that there’s mental math that needs to be done all along the way. If you change the angle of the nose versus the horizon by even one degree while traveling at a typical commercial airliner speed of seven nautical miles a minute, it’s enough to increase or decrease your rate of climb or descent by seven hundred feet per minute. I enjoy keeping track of all the calculations,

staying aware of the weather conditions, working with a team—flight attendants, air traffic controllers, first officers, maintenance crews—while knowing intimately what the plane can and cannot do. Even when the controls are being manipulated through automation, pilots have to back up the computer systems with their own mental math. I like the challenge of that.