Cato

By lex, on January 10th, 2007

At the risk of offending the world I will share my conviction that there are essentially three kinds of pilots in TACAIR – tacticians, show-offs and engineers. Well, there are also plumbers and farmers, but my tale does not concern them.

Most of the engineers look at flying as an exceptionally complex mathematical problem. They know that if they could only control for all the decision variables and fully understand the constraints, that the linear application of force “x” will always result in desired output “y.” They get a distant, dreamy expression in their eyes when they talk about things like “mean aerodynamic chord line,” and the “Reynolds number.” Discussions on the implications of Bernoulli’s Law can send them into raptures, but they never quite understand why – despite their superior understanding of the machine and the fluid in which it operates – they so very often end up defensive in a 1v1, looking over their shoulder as their adversary closes to guns. Engineers pray at the altar of Test Pilot School.