Tell Me About a Time (TMAT): Helicopter Interview Questions — Part 2
TMAT Question: Tell me about a time when you had a disagreement with a crewmember.
Situation
While attending a mountain flying course at the Army’s High Altitude Aviation Training Site (HAATS) in Colorado, I was paired with an instructor pilot who was a Vietnam veteran with over thirty years of helicopter experience. He had an exceptional depth of knowledge, and I was intentionally approaching the training as a student—listening closely and absorbing as much as possible.
During one sortie, in which he was demonstrating wind behavior inside a mountain bowl, showing how winds wrapping into the terrain could be nearly 180 degrees different from the prevailing winds, he maneuvered the helicopter to different positions and headings within the bowl, highlighting changing torque requirements.
Task
As the student pilot, my role was to observe the demonstration, maintain situational awareness, and raise any safety concerns I perceived.
Action
As the instructor hover taxied the helicopter around the bowl, I felt a distinct yaw kick accompanied by a vibration amid a pedal turn. Given our proximity to terrain, my immediate concern was that the tail rotor may have contacted something.
I raised the concern to the instructor pilot who initially assessed that we had not struck anything. Based on what I had felt, I respectfully disagreed and recommended that we land and conduct a visual inspection before departing the area and transiting rugged mountainous terrain.
At that point in my career, it was challenging to be firm with someone so senior and experienced. However, I was respectful, explained what I felt, and advocated for the inspection. The instructor ultimately agreed, and we landed to inspect the aircraft.
Result
The inspection revealed that the tail rotor had contacted soft vegetation. We followed the appropriate maintenance and release procedures and, after confirming the aircraft was safe, returned to the field without further issue.
That my initial concern turned out to be valid, reinforced the importance of speaking up—even in a cockpit with a pilot who has significantly more aviation experience. In addition, I learned that professionalism and advocacy are respected when the approach is calm and considerate. The instructor later acknowledged that it was the right call to stop and check the aircraft.
Today, as the more experienced pilot in many crews, I regularly share this story to encourage junior aviators to speak up, trust their perceptions, and prioritize your fellow crew members and passengers over hierarchy. This experience shaped how I approach crew interactions and how I work to foster an open, assertive, performance culture.
The Real Deal – Additional, discretionary information
Before flights—especially when I’m flying with more junior crew members—I regularly brief what I call the 3 D’s: Different, Dumb, and Dangerous. It’s a simple framework designed to encourage everyone to speak up.
If something feels dumb or dangerous, we pause, regroup, and either stop what we’re doing or find a better way forward.
If something is different—outside our “community norm”—we articulate why we’re doing it that way. And if the logic doesn’t hold up, we bring it back into the norm.
In the tail rotor scenario I described above, I owned the feeling outright: I would have felt dumb if we had had a chance to inspect the tail rotor, chose not to, and later found ourselves autorotating over mountainous terrain because of a preventable malfunction. My hope is that the 3 D’s continue to strengthen crew coordination and reinforce a shared mental model.
