I obtained my private pilots license in February this year and while I'm not a commercial programmer (anymore) I apply many of the wider lessons I was taught as part of my PPL to the running of my businesses.

Flying is said to be incredibly safe, and indeed it is. However it's equally unforgiving and mistakes are usually punished by a gruesome death - so they're to be avoided.

One key element of flying is checklists. Before you get in the plane, you use a checklist to verify that everything on the plane is as you want it to be for a safe and uneventful flight.

Suffer an engine failure? There's a checklist for that.

About to perform a manoeuvre that isn't simple straight and level flying? There's a checklist for that too.

If you thought there was lots of acronyms in IT, flying is equally as acronym heavy. There are catchy (and less catchy) acronyms for everything. For example, when you're thinking about coming in to land you perform a CBUMFICH. I know, doesn't sound catchy but it'll stick and before you know it you've memorised all the important things you need to do ahead of attempting to land a plane:

Carb heat hot

Test the brakes

Undercarriage down

Mixture - is it as you want it

Fuel - got enough for a go around?

Instruments - as you want them?

Carb heat cold again

Hatches and harnesses - is everybody strapped in?

That's just one of the many acronyms, or shortcuts, that are ingrained in to you to remember shit when you're already under a heavy mental load.

Then there's other things like gross error checking. Mental tools you're equipped with that allow you to take note of a scenario and make sure you're flying on the heading, speed, height and so on that you should be on without doing the intricate maths that gives you a 100% accurate answer. Contrary to the checklist sometimes when you're already under a mental load in the cockpit you need to use gross error checking to get yourself 99% confident that you're flying how and where you want to fly.

Then there's the communication element. So many smart mechanisms built in to how you communicate with other pilots and air traffic control to reduce the risk of error (mishearing vital information can be fatal). Also, the way that elements of flight evolve after accidents. For example...

http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/842963.pilot_16_killed_in_pl...

This poor kid was a member of my club well before I started to learn to fly. He was overwhelmed by an instruction given to him by air traffic, lost situational awareness and stalled - re: my previous point about mistakes being unforgiving - he died. NTSB investigated and rather than try to apportion blame, they worked to ensure that this problem never occurred again. Their solution? When you're a student you always address yourself to air traffic control as STUDENT <CALL SIGN> <COMMUNICATION>. Simultaneously air traffic control were instructed to give students priority over all other air traffic. Such a beautifully simple solution and hopefully one that has prevented similar incidents occurring.

In summary - earning a PPL teaches a wide range of lessons, approaches, mental thought patterns, sensible communication strategies that can be applied to business and perhaps all areas of life.