From 'Handle It by Referring to Past Practice' to 'Do It Against the Standard': Rectifying Inertial Thinking in Training Support

A Certain Regiment of the Naval Aviation University Rectifies Inertial Thinking in Training Support Among Party Member Officers——

Brand the 'Battlefield Standard' into the Mind

■ Wang Cunlei, Xiao Fan

The moonlight was dim, and the roar of engines filled the air. Some time ago, a certain regiment of the Naval Aviation University launched a round-the-clock flight training exercise.

"A certain communications system has malfunctioned—organize emergency repairs immediately." Upon receiving the order for a simulated special-situation (特情) drill, Deputy Regimental Commander Zhao did not rush to a conclusion as was customary, but instead convened communications, maintenance, and other specialist personnel for a rapid meeting. After a brief discussion, the group found that the situation did indeed present new changes, and so they conducted simultaneous checks from multiple directions—wiring, equipment, and others—quickly pinpointing the problem and restoring communications.

"Executing missions requires abandoning inertial thinking and breaking with empiricism. Only by measuring every link against the yardstick of actual combat can we ensure nothing goes wrong." Watching the warplanes climb into the sky, Deputy Regimental Commander Zhao reflected aloud.

During a previous flight training session, they discovered during aircraft maintenance preparation that the nose wheel steering angle had deviated. "It must be a problem with the differential device," said Deputy Regimental Commander Zhao, who was on duty at the time, and he led a team out to address it. With more than ten years of maintenance work experience, he considered himself thoroughly familiar with handling this type of fault.

Maintenance personnel moved on the order and carried out the response. The aircraft taxied onto the runway, but the deviation appeared again, forcing another halt.

After a more thorough inspection, the problem turned out to be a blockage in a concealed hydraulic line—unrelated to the differential device. In that moment, Deputy Regimental Commander Zhao felt a complex mix of emotions.

"In the past I always thought I was experienced, that I had handled many similar situations—but it was precisely that empiricism and inertial thinking that caused me to overlook the changes behind the fault." The atmosphere at the after-action review was somber. Deputy Regimental Commander Zhao took the lead in reflecting and analyzing: "The future battlefield changes in an instant. For a long time I had grown accustomed to 'doing it the way we always have,' yet rarely thought seriously about 'what is different this time.' Tracing it to the root, the thread of combat-realism (实战化) in my thinking simply was not pulled tight enough."

Using this experience as an opportunity, the regiment combined it with the deepening of political rectification training (政治整训), carrying out discussions and analysis centered on "breaking with empiricism and establishing the standard of actual combat." The regimental Party committee took the lead in identifying problems, reflecting item by item against actual-combat requirements: Had anyone let their guard down because "nothing went wrong before"? Had anyone overlooked hidden dangers because "everyone does it this way"?

"Experience is originally the most precious asset, but once you treat it as a fixed text and dogma, it conceals risks and hidden dangers"; "Maintenance and support work tolerates not the slightest fluke—any lapse in any detail could send a warplane into the sky carrying a hidden fault"; "Those ideas of 'close enough is fine' and 'we've always done it this way without incident' are, in essence, an irresponsibility toward combat effectiveness—a 'peacetime disease' (和平病) of the mind"……

Through repeated clashes of ideas, everyone came to recognize that formulaic practices and inertial thinking in training are not minor problems but a chronic ailment constraining the improvement of combat effectiveness, and must be rectified with great effort.

Following the discussions and reflections, they produced a series of concrete measures: in response to the reality that more new aircraft types are being fielded and past experience cannot be directly applied, they abandoned the practice of "managing new equipment with old methods," established an innovation workshop, and introduced an intelligent inspection system—letting data speak and letting standards serve as the gatekeeper. They refined risk contingency plans tailored to the characteristics of each aircraft type, improved the hidden-danger inspection mechanism, and sorted out and refined maintenance checklists, abandoning the fluke mentality of "close enough is fine" to ensure every maintenance check is thoroughly completed.

The shift from "handle it by referring to past practice" to "do it against the standard" appears on the surface to be an adjustment in working methods, but in substance it is a profound transformation in thinking and outlook. In the early hours of that morning, watching the warplanes return smoothly to roost, Deputy Regimental Commander Zhao felt ever more certain in his conviction: true confidence never comes from having "gone through the motions" as a matter of routine, but from having "done it well" with meticulous precision, measured against the "battlefield standard."