DECIDE is a six-step structured decision-making model from the FAA’s Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (PHAK, Chapter 2). It’s designed for situations where you have time to think — not snap reactions, but enough margin to work through a problem deliberately.

The six steps:

D — Detect. Recognize that a change has occurred. The weather worsened. The engine roughened. The fuel gauge isn’t where you expected. Detection is usually the hardest step because it requires you to notice something while you’re already focused on flying.
E — Estimate. Evaluate the significance of the change. Is this minor or critical? Does it need immediate action, or just monitoring?
C — Choose. Pick a desired safe outcome. What do you want to achieve — divert, return, continue, declare an emergency?
I — Identify. List the possible courses of action that would achieve your chosen outcome.
D — Do. Execute the chosen action. Commit to it.
E — Evaluate. Did the action work? If not, loop back to Detect.

DECIDE is most useful for in-flight scenarios with some decision time — deteriorating weather en route, an unexpected fuel state, a passenger getting sick. For sudden emergencies (engine failure on takeoff, stall recovery), pre-trained procedures and muscle memory take over first; DECIDE comes after you’ve stabilized the immediate threat.

The hardest step is almost always the first one. Pilots get tunnel vision, miss the signals, and stay locked into a flawed plan. “Press-on-itis” exists because of this — once you’ve committed to a flight, every cognitive bias pushes you to keep going. DECIDE forces a structured pause that interrupts the drift. Use it when you feel that nagging “something’s not right” — that is the Detect step calling.

First Name	Channing
Last Name	Prichard
Nickname	cprichard

Channing Prichard