1/25/2024 0 Comments Becoming a fighter pilotAccording to NASA Technical Report 1304 the mean age for all selected pilot candidates is 39.90 years old. Since astronauts are selected from large numbers of candidates and have short careers typically, it is a safe assumption that their average age is what NASA considers to be ideal. To investigate my basic assertion that optimal age for a combat mission (not air supremacy) pilot is 40-45 I investigated pilot astronauts. Therefore, the age 50-55 can be considered the maximum age at which experience and judgement can be used effectively in high speed combat situations. In general, once a person gets into their 60s, their mental ability deteriorates. Emanuel Lasker took 3rd place at Moscow 1935, a premier chess tournament, at the age of 66, which was practically a miracle. For example, at age 63 Vassily Smyslov was a candidate for the world chess championship, an amazing accomplishment for a person of that age. Nevertheless, experience can make up for it in some instances. Once a person hits about 60-65 years in age, their mental ability to calculate declines significantly. ![]() For complicated missions in enemy territory, it is better to have someone with long experience, rather than a young hotshot. Knowing when to attack, how to attack, how to make your approach, how to do your mission setup, and many other things become the product of long experience. In a dogfight your ability to think fast and calculate your next move is the critical factor.įor combat missions, however, 40-45 may be more optimal, because experience, judgement and knowledge becomes more important. At this age a person has lots of experience, but still maintains their full mental agility, ability to calculate and energy. It depends on what you mean by "optimal".įor a dogfight, the optimal age is probably 30. (I should add a small disclaimer that I know nothing about the military, so hopefully I didn't make any stupid mistakes in pulling or interpreting the data.)ġ To be specific, the search criteria I used were: Active Duty Air Force only (excludes Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve and civilians) officers only AFSC 11FX specialty (fighter pilot) only. But we can say that the USAF appears to consider 25-34 to be the 'optimal' age: 55% of their fighter pilots are in that bracket. Of course, this only applies to the USAF and it doesn't tell us anything about other branches of the military or about what other countries do. This isn't very fine-grained, but on the other hand we can immediately see that your example of someone over 50 is really at the extreme end of the curve: only 3.4% of fighter pilots are over 45. I used their report tool to get data on fighter pilots 1 and it shows this breakdown: 17-24 : 43 It’s been several years, and I’ve just gotten to the point where I can have a conversation about it.I can't directly tell you what's "optimal" because I don't know what that means, but the US Air Force does provide some basic demographic information so we can indirectly see what they consider to be a good age mix for fighter pilots. That’s my closest call, and something I brief the young guys and gals that come in now because it happens so fast. The pilot told me later that he thought we had actually hit because the exhaust from my engine shook his jet. The other plane had no idea until after we had passed. It was the only thing that kept us from colliding. I had to roll completely upside down and pull as hard as I could on the jet. I thought, “That looks weird,” and reacted. It was just by divine intervention that out of the corner of my eye I saw something. Somebody is always supposed to be de-conflicting from the other. We have contracts when we’re maneuvering visually with each other during flight. I had a 66-foot pass, or just 66 feet of clearance between another plane at 200 knots of closure, nose to tail. Oddly enough, not in combat, but in training. ![]() It’s combating all of those elements - the darkness and cold in winter are not only challenging to our crew, but also to the equipment.Ĭollins: Yes. I’ve also been on the runway when it’s hard to raise the landing gear because the hydraulic fluid is so cold. When it’s below 0, you have only 15 minutes otherwise pipes in the building will start bursting. When it’s below freezing but above 0 F, they can be open for 30 minutes. The real challenge is the big bay doors to the hanger up here. Now imagine it being pitch black at night on top of that. Any place else, I can look down and see all of that stuff. You can’t see a lot of switches in the cockpit, like the oxygen regulator. I didn’t have to wear special boots, thermals, a soft shell jacket and all kinds of other things that we had on today. James Collins: Anywhere else, say like, Guam, where I was a couple of months ago, I wear this simple flight suit I have on now, a vest, harness and G-suit.
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