Comments on: Me and My Sharpie

By: BigDumbDinosaur

BigDumbDinosaur — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 05:21:03 +0000

“Most pilots don’t bother writing much down aside from the flight number and maybe the departure fuel. But I’m a touch OCD, and, I don’t know, I’m just more comfortable this way.”

Doesn’t sound as much OCD to me as organized. Also, I’ve never known pen and paper to suffer an electronic malfunction and lose its information. 🙂

By: Barry Duel

Barry Duel — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 22:27:19 +0000

I’m learning to fly (apologies to Foo Fighters). One of the first things my instructor taught me is even though we all fly with IPads now, you absolutely 100% do not get into a cockpit without an actual writing instrument and a small pad of paper or notebook

By: wilson

wilson — Fri, 25 Nov 2022 20:13:25 +0000

“What I’m not letting go of, on the other hand, is my beloved red Sharpie.”

Looks like super-whack superstition or fetishism, which, of course, the pilots deny at their health screenings. I mean, dogs at the county animal shelter get more challenging scrutiny. Concerning …

By: Eric Auxier

Eric Auxier — Sat, 19 Nov 2022 18:24:50 +0000

Great article, Cap’n!
I enjoyed this so much, I’ve written a spinoff of your take for my blog. It’ll post this Monday, and will link to your article here. Thanks for a great post!
Eric “Cap’n Aux” Auxier ;o)

By: Dr. T

Dr. T — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 19:15:36 +0000

I should also say, lifelong aviation buff but not a pilot. Doctors who try to fly airplanes have a horrible safety record. I’m happy to leave that to the professionals. Love your blog Patrick. Avid reader since you were on Salon.

By: Dr. T

Dr. T — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 19:11:20 +0000

I’m an emergency medicine physician, and am constantly struck by the parallels between your profession and mine. We both have jobs which are grossly misrepresented and glamorized in popular culture, but which in reality are largely dictated by data-driven protocols. No one in my business ever uses the word “STAT” because it’s become such a TV cliché. I’m OCD as well, and have a blue sheet of paper on each patient, divided into sections for current and past history, pertinent physical exam findings, lab/imaging orders, and a blank section for any other relevant information. Not every ER doc does this, but I like things organized. In recent years medicine has been implementing checklists, following commercial aviation because of your incredible safety record, and our abysmal one. I said that once to a patient who was an airline pilot. His response was “that’s because you have bad airplanes!”

By: Andy Nash

Andy Nash — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 14:05:17 +0000

I’m trying to understand the times in “C”, if you are flying from Europe shouldn’t the local time be one hour ahead of Greenwich time? So 11:10 in Rome, say, would be 10:10 in Greenwich? Sorry, I’m probably missing something …

I love these detailed descriptions too!

By: Larry Horack

Larry Horack — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 03:36:51 +0000

As always Patrick, interesting insight! I appreciate your detailed explanation of your unique system.
Thank You!

By: Gail F

Gail F — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 21:57:03 +0000

While not a pilot, I’m just geeky enough to have LOVED this post!

By: J. Miner

J. Miner — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 18:43:52 +0000

About the “writing it down” part: “studies have shown” that handwriting engages the brain in a different way than typing does, for starters. (A few teachers, myself included, disallowed keyboarding for taking lecture or reading notes, unless an IEP required a keyboard.)

Handwriting to note ideas and “factoids” on paper is especially useful as it produces a “mind map” of information in a way that can’t be done from a keyboard. You know instantly where on the page to find what you need in the moment.

Someone here commented about looking at someone else’s horizontal scheme for notes and finding it odd, as he organizes “vertically.”