Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Different times, different technology. . . .
Back then you could go fly a new airframe after skimming through the manual and getting a few pointers from someone who had flown it before...today it takes about 18 months of fulltime training. . . .
The systems and procedures are so complex and the economic cost of failure so high that they need to hire proven learners.
There is a big difference between proven learners and proven performers. To be selected for then survive in the Aviation Cadet program, you had to be both..
THe last USAF Aviation Cadet to retire (2002) was Lt. General Russell Davis. There have been many Aviation Cadet graduates(without degrees) who went on to "complicated technical" aircraft operations. Some got degrees years after they completed flight training.
In the 1970s 50% of the USAF Generals were Aviation Cadet graduates. A short list of other notable graduates.
Chuck Yeager (Test Pilot - Started as an enlisted pilot)
Dick Rutan (Aviation Cadet in Navigator Training 1959)
Walter Boyne (Aviation Author)
Maj Gen Jerry Larsen (F111, F-16 and F-100 Thunderbird Pilot)
Col. Hervey Stockman (First CIA U-2 USSR overflight and POW in Vietnam)
Maj Gen Robert White (Astronaut X-15 Test Pilot)
William "Pete" Knight (173,000 ft flameout in an X-15, F-15, F-16)
Tony LeVier (Lockheed Test Pilot - first U-2 flight and others)
John Glenn (Naval Aviation Cadet / Astronaut, etc.)
Deke Slayton (Astronaut)
Mike Adams (X-15 Test Pilot )
Stuart Allen Roosa (Astronaut)
Gus Grissom (Astronaut)
Maj. Gen. Pat Halloran (SR-71 / U-2 Pilot)
etc., etc.