Darker Shades of Blue: The Rogue Pilot Paperback – January 1, 2006

It is a shame this book is out of print at this time. I am a commercial pilot and a physician. This book was introduced to me as a part of my recuring flight training. Ultimately, the themes made me redefine my medical practice as well. I have shared this book with dozens of people, pilots and non-pilots alike. Tony Kern has touched a fundamental theme by defining rogue behaviour, including rogue behavior by individuals and by organizations. Fellow pilots understand the themes easily. Other people, including fellow physicians, have privately told me that they fundamentally changed their practice procedures as a result of reading this book. One non-pilot told me that I had "saved his life" by suggesting that he read this book. Contemplative people, involved in aviation or not, will do soul searching as a result of reading this book. Rogues will be angry (as could be expected from the basic tenants of rogue behavior). Almost all will recognize rogue tendancies in their own behavior and will confront a decision to make corrective actions or to continue. This is not a book with a lot of confusing technical jargon. I highly recommend that you read this book if you get a chance.I hope that demand will bring a new printing.

Highly recommend this book for pilots, air crews, aviation safety aficionados, aviation investigators and other safety minded individuals. Brutally honest, accurate and highly intellectual. Deals with some mindset (psychology) and bureaucracies that can lead to unsafe situations. I've noticed similar problems in other technical fields. The lessons learned can be applied to other professions.

Excellent book and a useful outline for self evaluation. Stories used to illustrate the points are, for the most part, well written and also appear to be well researched. I gave it only 4 stars because it seemed to suffer from a mild case of political correctness. Examples - According to other sources the F-14 loss of control on departure accident which took 5 lives had a tie to the push to get Carla Hultgreen and her fellow F-14 pilots thru training. The doomed pilot of this airplane was rated below standards, but above the female pilots in the same squadron and thus allowed to continue. The discussion of the Ron Brown crash places a lot of blame on the squadron leadership for sending the aircraft on a mission in violation of regs. However, the major breakdown was the failure of Air Force leadership to tell the State and Commerce Dept that if you expect us to fly with this primitive nav equipement don't expect service to all these airports and the President and Congress who in their rush to cut defense spending put these aircraft on the line. Perhaps a discussion of the fact that the female officer in command may have felt some special pressure to complete the mission was warranted. Another minor complaint is that more details would help in understanding the issues surounding some of the crashes . For example if the reported weather is included then stating the applicable minimums, rather than just saying the weather was below minimums would have been helpful. Beyond these few issues this is an excellent read.If you are a pilot it is an excellent gift to a younger pilot.

Excellent for aviation and safety aficionados and some of the psychology of rogue individuals and rogue organizations. Love how the analysis also applies to other professions.

A bit pretentious, draws alot of hard lines. Definitely forces you to be introspective. 100% prefer Colin Powells secrets of leadership"

Dr. Kern explores the depth of human misbehavior that is often just one decision away in all of us. Well written and a challenging read - challenging as it makes you truly look at the man in the mirror. Well done!

This book was recommended to me during my Air Force career, even though I was not a (military) pilot. It plainly describes how many people in many roles ignore common sense, ignore mandatory procedures, ignore deadly situations. This book caused me to take a fresh look at my flying, at my actions, and has made me a better leader.Everyone wants to think of themselves as "too smart" to fail or thinks that they can get away with doing dangerous things "just this once". And most people do get away with all sorts of dangerous stunts, leading the next person to take the same chances. But if there is a 98 percent chance that you will get away with doing dangerous things, that means that 2 percent of the people that take those chances are going to get caught. This book gives us many examples of people who's luck ran out and this should cause us to reflect when we next consider taking a big chance. I just wish that the book had had interviews with the family members left behind when someone is risking their life - and gets caught.There are MANY examples that could be added to this book, I was a NASA Safety engineer for a few years and could add several more examples.Chapter Nine, in my opinion, is the most significant since it talks about why organizations and people take unnecessary risks. But the entire book is excellent and sobering. It tells us that EVERYONE should be alert for attitudes that could cause a disaster and work against letting them develop.

I've always enjoyed Tony's philosophies, and Darker Shades continues my appreciation of his ability to distill what makes the essential Airman or, in this case, the non-essential Airman. Reviewing several cases of blatant out of control pilots, he sets the scene for what unacceptable behaviour is, then subtly moves on to discuss less obvious rogue traits in a way that gets you to look at yourself for an honest self-assessment of whether or not you too have theses traits, and if can control them.The book is easy to read and leaves you, as all Kern's book do, challenging yourself to become more of a complete and perfection-seeking aviator.