A couple of months ago on our Afterburner Club call and newsletter, we talked about the importance of a thorough preflight.

In the video below, I give a pretty good example of just how important that is: the fact that it is only a six inch bolt that holds the hook in place to stop a multi-million dollar, 30,000 pound airplane on an aircraft carrier’s flight deck, a space not much more than a football field in length.

This is why I say that NO detail is insignificant, especially in a fighter jet. If a certain small component in your car breaks and the car cannot drive any farther, it isn’t that serious of a situation. Sure, it’s annoying and inconvenient, but nowadays especially the solution to the problem is readily available: just call Triple-A on your cell phone and get it towed and fixed.

If a small component breaks in a fighter jet and you can no longer perform the flight as planned, it’s a much more serious problem, especially if your out in the middle of the ocean and/or in bad weather conditions.

Take for example the bolt on the tail hook that I talk about below. If you attempt to land your 30,000-pound F/A-18 on a carrier and that little fella breaks off from the snag of the cable, it’s going to turn into a really bad and really expensive day. And that’s even assuming that you come out of it okay.

So, before you even go into a recruiter’s office to make that plunge into the career of your dreams, I want you to learn the value of attention to detail. I want to make sure that you are the safest pilot you can possibly be by taking nothing for granted.

Can you think of any other seemingly small aspects of life that could cause major problems if broken? Think of things like discipline while driving (and others)… Tell your fellow subscribers why you feel attention to detail is so important.