Dear Freinds,

Our fraternity is consisting of seasoned and newbie flyers... ...I would like to start this thread to know the basic human nature of a flying individual by knwing the totam & Tantras used by them. This is something really interesting and personal of-course. Feel free to share the totams you are using or you heard others using.

So to kick start the simplest totam I have seen is
a) Breaking a coconut in front of an Aircraft before its maiden flight....

b) I heard many pilots beleive that every Crash follow 2 more crashes anywhere in the world. (Nevada Crash is followed by another crash of same Vintage.... ....yesterday I dont know how much its true but noticed this phenomeneon many times..... ....)

c) You should not Ask the pilot or the crew 'reaching time to the destination' while boarding an aircraft.


these were few, floor is open share your thoughts. 

some aircrafts  of kingfisher airlines have god photo below registration number in cockpit ! one of my friend told me this,who was working with KF !

may be you can have a look at some place in this video

Nice Vid praveen. The Lady pilot was sounding a bit rookie to me... wonder how much she scored in RT paper/practicals.

About the God's photo, here is how KF planes are inducted into the fleet.

 ...wow...keep going. I am wondering the fee charged by the Pandits .....for pooja done for a multi crore jet

I really wonder how one could figure out "the basic human nature of a flying individual" by their superstitions and/or conditioned beliefs.

And pardon my utter ignorance, but what is a totam? Asked a few people around me at the moment. Nobody seems to know.

but still i wonder how she has become captain ujjwal??

Could it be simply because she is a competent enough pilot?

True, it’s 'Totem Tantra'...which sometimes means 'belief', ‘philosophy’ sometime means ‘superstitions’, ‘magical words’, usage depends on the context and intention (That’s the beauty of this language)

We all knowingly or unknowingly follow traditions based on the experience & learning. Our Festivals are prominent example showing mass following to the traditions. 

Some traditions are trade specific like India Army at many places follow the tradition of “Shastra Pooja” or Film makes always have a ‘Muhurat Shot’ with a complete ‘Yagya’.


When these traditions start becoming individual specific, less logical and more fussy we start using a term ‘superstitions’ like ‘sneezing before a new start is bad’, ‘black cat cutting the way’ and the solutions to resolve this fussy belief  are known as ‘Totem Tantra’.
Knowing the ‘Totem- Tantra’ used/followed by an individual we can have a fair hint about his/her thought process and ‘personal belief’ which is of course of part of ‘Basic Nature’.

This thread is not there to point at an individual belief but an endeavour to collate trade specific (Flying fraternity/RC Flyer) Totems, which would help us to understand each other better and also help us to share some totems which may be really useful sometimes.

In my book, basic nature would be the fundamental character , like kind,rude,  selfish, helpful, etc., etc. And I have come across people who follow the most elaborate rituals or totam tantras, but are pretty nasty types, and vice versa.

So I still maintain that these things cannot reveal the "basic nature" and can, in fact, be completely misleading.

Accepted Sushil.... ......we are humans......most Unpredictable... .....still we love to pridict ourselfves and others. We have our own judgements based on our past experience with humans.

BTW do you follow any totem before any maiden flight  .... I am keen to know :-)

No. It's not in my "basic nature" !

And - this is not made up - the only time I put a "nimbu/mirchi" on a new plane because of a friend, I almost had a mid air collision.

 ....I am sure 'Nimbu-Mirchi' must be a good balacing weight added to correct the CG of the plane vis-a-vis saving it from evil spirits...

May be.. but recently many pilots were caught to have procured certification without giving test/flying the actual planes. So anything is possible. anyway, with so much automation, (ILS/FBW/AP) it won't be a surprising that  DGCA starts giving concession to good RC pilots in flying hours required to SPL/CPL!!!. Flying is no longer that tough in normal situations. In Bad situation you have incidence (number of skids from runway reported last month)

Possibly true. Unfortunately, we have become - understandably - very cynical about anything to do with the government.

I agree that a pilot truly earns his keep in case of an emergency. And that too a real one, unlike the "miraculous escape" news reports for even a tyre burst, whilst landing.

I read recently that actual manual/stick flying per flight is about 4 minutes these days.  The rest of the time pilots spend are just either watching the systems, or programming the route details into the flight computer.  The interesting part is that newer regulations deem this as safer, as things like the needed separation between flights etc are being lowered, and automated systems work better under such tight tolerances.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/02/06/352727/industry-sounds-warnings-on-airline-pilot-skills.html

does anyone follow any ritual before maidening his bird?

See #10 above.

 ...Nepal Crash.....is totem proving right? Third major crash in this month!!!!

Thats unbelievable but proving to be right. Now if every crash follows two more crashes then it will start a chain reaction. when does it stop?

about point c, I never asked the pilot or crew time for reaching destination cuz the pilot himself announces the time. is that also a bad omen?     

well not a chain reaction...after three crashed it stops, they say 1 will follow two... not a good thing to beleive or happen but I myself personally watching this happening from any years (try to see Mangalore Crash in that month there were two more major crashes happened).

Yeah....asking time to reach destination is also not considered good.... ...

REmoved as duplicated by error

We had two consecutive mid air collisions between same to planes (Easy Star and AXN floater) at our field some time back. May be aerial rival between two planes. Both planes survive today in different flying condition due to wearing from flying hours.

Here is another, Nimbu Mirchi on Tx seems to work for him