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Calm in the chaos
Training for the moment everything changes.
By Brian Dickinson
My eyes were closed as I pushed off the side of the 15-ft.-deep training pool at Navy Aviation Rescue Swimmer School in Pensacola, Florida. Somewhere in the water, another swimmer played the role of a panicked survivor. I couldn’t see him, and that was the point. I was to tread water and wait for him to attack. When he did, I had to remain calm, gain control of the situation, and execute the proper rescue procedures. I didn’t have to tread long.
He hit me hard from above and drove me underwater. The air left my lungs as he grabbed at me, simulating the desperate reaction of a panicked drowning person. My heart rate spiked, my body wanted air, and every instinct told me to fight my way back to the surface.
That’s exactly why we trained this way. The navy wasn’t trying to teach us how to eliminate fear. Fear is a normal response when you’re underwater, disoriented, running out of air, and another person is fighting you. The training was designed to teach us to keep functioning while that fear was present.
That’s an important distinction. In aviation, calm under pressure isn’t the absence of fear or stress. It’s the ability to think clearly and keep functioning when both are present, and that ability is built long before you need it.
Building a Trained Response
As navy rescue swimmers, we were repeatedly put into situations designed to make us uncomfortable. We trained in high-sea states, worked underwater, escaped simulated aircraft crashes, dealt with panicked survivors, performed advanced medical procedures under stress, and practiced rescue techniques in increasingly difficult conditions until we could rely on the fundamentals when it mattered.
There was a reason for it: The first time you experience that level of stress shouldn’t be when someone’s life depends on your response.
We trained knowing that when something goes wrong, it rarely unfolds exactly as practiced. The goal isn’t to re-create every possible situation. That’s impossible. It’s to build a foundation strong enough to adapt when the situation suddenly becomes something else.
That takes repetition, attention to detail, situational awareness, and communication. Sometimes it takes something as basic as controlling your breathing long enough to keep your mind on the problem instead of letting your body’s stress response take over. We can’t control the adrenaline, but we can train ourselves to keep functioning while it’s running.
When the Plan Changes
Aviation has a way of reminding us that a routine flight can stop being routine in seconds.
Years after I left HS-2, the naval squadron in which I served, the late Jesse Hubble found himself in exactly that situation. During a nighttime combat search-and-rescue training mission off Southern California, one of two HH-60H helicopters suffered a tail-rotor failure and ditched in the Pacific. Jesse entered the 63-degree water and spent roughly 45 minutes helping rescue seven people from the downed aircraft.
He later explained that his team trained every day, physically and mentally, for situations that might happen. They hadn’t trained for that exact night, but they had trained for the moment a routine mission became something else.
That’s where the value of training under pressure becomes real. Procedures give us a foundation, while repetition gives us something to fall back on when the situation no longer resembles the plan.
Sooner or later, every one of us will face a moment when the plan disappears and our preparation is put to the test.
When things go wrong, there’s a natural tendency to move faster. Sometimes that’s necessary, but moving with urgency doesn’t mean abandoning discipline. As the situation accelerates, the fundamentals matter more, not less: Control your breathing, communicate, maintain situational awareness, solve the problem in front of you, and anticipate what’s coming next.
Calm under pressure is staying disciplined when everything around you is chaotic.
What Will You Fall Back On?
Years after leaving the navy, I climbed Mount Everest alone. After reaching the summit, I became snow blind and had to make my way back down without being able to see. The environment couldn’t have been more different from the high seas, but the response was familiar: Stay calm, control what I could, focus on the immediate problem, and keep making the next decision. Most importantly, find a reason to survive.
Most of us will never descend Everest blind, and most aviation professionals will never fight a panicked survivor underwater. But sooner or later, every one of us will face a moment when the plan disappears and our preparation is put to the test.
It may be a warning light, a mechanical failure, weather that deteriorates faster than forecast, a rescue that changes as you arrive on scene, or a carefully briefed mission that starts unraveling the moment you launch. When that happens, the time for preparation is over.
So, ask yourself now: Am I checking the training box, or am I practicing until I can rely on the fundamentals under pressure? Am I only preparing for what should happen, or have I prepared for when everything starts going sideways? When it does, what will I fall back on?
Calm is built through preparation and revealed under pressure. Fear and stress may still be there. That’s human. What matters is whether your training is stronger than the instinct to panic.
You don’t train until you’re no longer afraid. You train until fear no longer gets to make the decisions.
Brian Dickinson is a former US Navy aviation rescue swimmer, an author, and a keynote speaker whose experiences span military aviation, a solo summit of Mount Everest, and leadership under pressure. He is the author of Calm in the Chaos, Blind Descent, and Bloodline of Redemption and host of the Calm in the Chaos podcast. Learn more at BrianDickinson.net.
