A close friend has a daughter who went through the Naval Academy and wanted to
go to flight school. She barely cleared the physical requirements (height and
arm length, believe it or not) but ended up in Pensacola to be trained to fly
something prop-based.
Unfortunately, she washed out. Why? She told me that her reaction times just
weren't up to snuff. She said that all the guys who had played video games as
kids (and adults) blew everyone else away in training. They had far better
manual dexterity and could multitask better and quicker than those who did not.
She ended up spending a year at Monterey (the foreign language school) learning
Farsi. She's now in Naval Intelligence (insert oxymoron joke here) somewhere
in the middle east.
Dan
--- On Sat, 4/17/10, Wonko the Sane <don.b...@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Wonko the Sane <don.b...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT Blue Angels
To: "Mercedes Discussion List" <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
Date: Saturday, April 17, 2010, 11:55 PM
They are good. They are very good. My point was that much of what they do is
taught in primary flight training in Pensacola (including aerobatics and
close formation flying), and the satisfactory demonstration of these
maneuvers is absolutely required to earn the wings of gold, even if you are
going to be flying helicopters. (That is not meant to be a slam at the helo
guys -- they have a whole different skill set that I'd not want to have to
learn, such as hovering in white-out conditions during ugly winds.)
Look, the Blue Angels are simply good fighter pilots who are selected to do
a PR role for one tour. There are dozens upon dozens of Navy fighter pilots
who are at that skill level at any given time. You don't earn your wings,
and you certainly don't get to strap on a Navy fighter, unless you are a
very, very good pilot. Some of them are assigned to the Blue Angels. Some
others are sent on to Top Gun. Others are sent back to Pensacola as flight
instructors.
Interesting trivia point. One must achieve a grade of 65% in ground school
to be sent on to actually fly. "65 and fly" was our mantra. Upon graduation
from primary, the top grades go jets, the next batch goes props, and those
at the bottom of the class go rotary wing.
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