The 5 Hazardous Attitudes in Aviation, and the Antidote for Each

The FAA identifies five hazardous attitudes that interfere with sound aeronautical decision-making: anti-authority ("Don't tell me"), impulsivity ("Do it quickly"), invulnerability ("It won't happen to me"), macho ("I can do it") and resignation ("What's the use?"). Each has a specific antidote you are expected to memorize and recall in the moment.

Almost everything written on this topic assumes you are sitting in a cockpit with a checklist on your knee and, often, another pilot beside you. The remote pilot's situation is different in ways that matter. There is nobody in the seat next to you to raise an eyebrow. The person applying schedule pressure is frequently standing about ten feet away holding a check. And the aircraft is cheap enough that losing it starts to feel like an acceptable price for finishing the job, which is exactly the calculation that gets somebody hurt.

What are the five hazardous attitudes?

The FAA's Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge defines attitude as "a motivational predisposition to respond to people, situations, or events in a given manner." Five of those predispositions have been repeatedly identified as degrading pilot judgment. Here they are with the antidote wording exactly as the FAA publishes it.

The handbook is careful about anti-authority in a way most summaries are not. It describes the attitude as regarding "rules, regulations, and procedures as silly or unnecessary," then adds that "it is always your prerogative to question authority if you feel it is in error." Questioning a rule is not the hazardous attitude. Dismissing it because you resent being told is.

Macho carries a similar footnote. The handbook notes that while the pattern "is thought to be a male characteristic, women are equally susceptible."

Why the antidote has to be memorized word for word

This is the part that looks like busywork and is not.

The FAA's process is three steps: recognize the thought, label it as hazardous, then state the corresponding antidote. The handbook says antidotes "should be memorized for each of the hazardous attitudes so they automatically come to mind when needed."

Look at when you need them. You need the antidote at the exact moment your judgment has already started to slip, which is the worst possible moment to be reasoning from first principles about risk tolerance. A memorized phrase survives that. A vague sense that you should probably be careful does not.

It also explains why the knowledge test asks you to match attitudes to antidotes rather than to reason about scenarios. The FAA is not testing comprehension. It is checking that the phrase is in there.

How each attitude actually shows up on a drone job

The textbook examples involve scud running and pressing on into ice. Here is what the same five attitudes look like when you are the one on the ground.

Anti-authority is the roof inspection where the LAANC ceiling is 100 feet and the client wants an overview from higher up. The rule feels arbitrary, because from where you are standing it plainly is safe. It is not arbitrary. That ceiling is derived from the facility map for a reason involving arrival paths you cannot see from a parking lot.

Impulsivity is launching before finishing the preflight because the light is going. Section 107.49 lists six things you must do before flight, including assessing local weather, airspace and flight restrictions, the location of persons and property on the surface, and other ground hazards, and briefing everyone participating on emergency and contingency procedures. Impulsivity is what turns that list into two of the six.

Invulnerability is the one that thrives in this industry, because most flights are uneventful and the aircraft mostly comes back. Three hundred clean flights build a strong and entirely false sense that fly-aways happen to other operators. They do not.

Macho does not always look like showing off. On a paid job it usually looks like agreeing to a shot you have not flown before rather than telling the client it is outside what you do. The audience is one person, and the temptation is to look capable rather than be careful.

Resignation is the quiet one. It is the operator who decides the airspace rules are impossible to keep track of, the app will tell them if anything is wrong, and it is all a bit beyond them anyway. Section 107.19(b) does not care. The remote pilot in command "is directly responsible for and is the final authority as to the operation of the small unmanned aircraft system."

The checklists the FAA expects you to use

Advisory Circular 107-2A names three tools by name and expects a remote pilot to use them. They stack.

IMSAFE is the personal readiness check: Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue, and Emotion. One wrinkle worth knowing before the exam. The Pilot's Handbook and the FAA's Remote Pilot Study Guide both give the final item as Emotion ("Am I emotionally upset?"), while AC 107-2A's version of the same checklist gives it as Eating ("Am I sufficiently nourished?"). Both are FAA publications and both are current. If a question offers only one of them, take the one on offer.

PAVE sorts the risks of the flight into four buckets before you launch: Pilot in command, Aircraft, enVironment, and External pressures. AC 107-2A's version of the External pressures question is unusually direct for a regulatory document. It asks whether there is pressure to complete the flight operation quickly, whether you are dealing with an unhealthy safety culture, and whether you are "being honest with myself and others about my personal operational abilities and limitations."

DECIDE is the in-flight loop, and the acronym is the answer: Detect, Estimate, Choose a course of action, Identify solutions, Do the necessary actions, and Evaluate the effects of the actions. You will also see the 3P model in the handbook, which compresses the same idea into Perceive the circumstances, Process their impact on safety, and Perform the best course of action.

Use IMSAFE and PAVE before you leave the house. Use DECIDE once something has gone sideways.

Where CRM fits when you are the entire crew

Crew resource management is on the list of aeronautical knowledge areas the test covers, which puzzles candidates who fly alone. AC 107-2A defines CRM as a component of ADM in which the remote pilot "makes effective use of all available resources: human resources, hardware, and information."

Read that as three buckets rather than as "talk to your copilot."

Human resources means your visual observer, anyone manipulating the controls, ground crew, and the client's site contact who knows the building. The AC is specific that you should "utilize sufficient crewmembers to ensure no one on the team becomes overloaded," and that once a team member is overworked, "a greater possibility of an incident/accident exists."

Information means the weather briefing, ATC, local pilots and landowners. Hardware means the aircraft and the control station telling you things you should be reading.

When you genuinely are alone, the handbook's term is single-pilot resource management. The relevant point is the one it makes about self-assessment: the solo pilot "acts as his or her own quality control in making decisions," and a fatigued pilot asked whether they are too tired to continue will usually say no. That is not a character flaw. It is why the checklist exists.

What this means on a paid job

Two practical habits do most of the work here.

The first is deciding your limits before anyone is watching. Personal minimums set at the kitchen table are a different thing from limits negotiated in a parking lot with a client checking the time. Write down the wind speed you will not fly above, the battery percentage you land at, and the distance you will not exceed. Then treat them the way you treat 400 feet.

The second is saying the antidote out loud. It sounds ridiculous, and it works, because the point of the label-then-antidote sequence is to interrupt the thought rather than to argue with it.

One legal note worth keeping in view. Section 107.23 prohibits operating a small unmanned aircraft system "in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another." That is the section a bad judgment call gets measured against after the fact, and it does not require anything to have actually gone wrong. Section 107.17 sits alongside it, prohibiting anyone from acting as remote PIC, visual observer or direct participant with a physical or mental condition they know would interfere with safe operation. IMSAFE is how you comply with that one rather than merely knowing it.

How the exam asks about hazardous attitudes

Aeronautical decision-making and judgment, and CRM, are both named knowledge areas for the knowledge test, and they sit inside the Operations area, which is 25 percent of the Unmanned Aircraft General blueprint effective 29 September 2025. Questions take three shapes.

• Straight matching. You are given an attitude and asked for its antidote, or given the antidote and asked which attitude it counters. This is pure recall.
• A short scenario with a quoted thought. A remote pilot skips part of the preflight to beat the weather and thinks "I've done this a hundred times." You identify the attitude, then pick the antidote. Read the quoted thought, not the surrounding story.
• A checklist acronym. What does the S in IMSAFE stand for, or what are the four PAVE categories. The acronyms are the whole answer.

The trap in the second shape is that a well-written scenario contains evidence for two attitudes at once. Anchor on the quoted thought. "I can do it" is macho even when the operator is also in a hurry.

Worth pairing with the preflight checklist article, since 107.49 is where most ADM questions attach themselves. When you want to see whether the recall has stuck, the free readiness assessment mixes Operations questions in with the other four areas.

Frequently asked questions

What are the five hazardous attitudes and their antidotes?

Anti-authority ("Don't tell me") is countered by "Follow the rules. They are usually right." Impulsivity ("Do it quickly") by "Not so fast. Think first." Invulnerability ("It won't happen to me") by "It could happen to me." Macho ("I can do it") by "Taking chances is foolish." Resignation ("What's the use?") by "I'm not helpless. I can make a difference."

Is there an acronym for the five hazardous attitudes?

The FAA does not publish one, which is why you will find several unofficial versions in circulation. The handbook's own method is not an acronym at all. It asks you to recognize the hazardous thought, label it as hazardous, then state the memorized antidote, so the antidotes are what actually need learning.

What is the difference between ADM and CRM?

Aeronautical decision-making is the systematic mental process for choosing the best course of action in a given set of circumstances. AC 107-2A describes crew resource management as a component of ADM, specifically the part concerned with making effective use of all available resources: human resources, hardware and information.

Does CRM apply if I fly my drone alone?

Yes. The knowledge test covers it regardless, and the resources CRM manages include your weather briefing, ATC, local pilots, landowners and the aircraft's own telemetry, not only other people. Where a single pilot is genuinely alone, the handbook's related concept is single-pilot resource management, built on the same principles.

What does IMSAFE stand for?

Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue and Emotion, per the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge and the FAA's Remote Pilot Study Guide. AC 107-2A gives the final item as Eating instead, asking whether you are sufficiently nourished. Both documents are current FAA guidance, so recognize either form on the test.

Which hazardous attitude causes the most accidents?

The FAA does not rank them, and any figure you see attaching a percentage to one attitude is not from an FAA source. The handbook's position is that all five interfere with sound judgment and that recognizing hazardous thoughts is the first step toward neutralizing them, which is why all five antidotes are meant to be memorized rather than just the popular ones.

Want the whole Operations area laid out in order? The Part 107 study guide covers ADM, CRM and preflight duties alongside the regulations they attach to.

Sources

• FAA Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, Chapter 2: Aeronautical Decision-Making
• FAA Advisory Circular 107-2A, Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (see paragraph 5.3 and Appendix A)
• FAA Remote Pilot – Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Study Guide, Chapter 10
• 14 CFR 107.19 — Remote pilot in command
• 14 CFR 107.17 — Medical condition
• 14 CFR 107.23 — Hazardous operation
• 14 CFR 107.49 — Preflight familiarization, inspection, and actions for aircraft operation