When little things start piling up, it’s time to listen to that inner voice telling you to step back and troubleshoot the situation.

By Bill Straw

We all have had a life experience or two in which we "should have known" about the results of a decision and could kick ourselves for not heeding our instincts. When it comes to flying safely, the need to follow those internal alarms is all the more important. For example, there is a big difference between instrument flying where we need to faithfully heed the data on the panel in spite of our inner ear sensations and the attention we should pay to our "sixth sense" of self- preservation when we get hints from the aircraft systems that something isn’t right. …