The Right Stuff

[HagarTheHorrible]

Have you got it ?

 

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

Reckon not.  Sport, alcohol part, and hands is all I got.

[J2_Trupobaw]

Wow, just wow.

I wonder how any of these Albert Ball fails? (or Gynemer, Fonck, any von Richthoffen, Boelcke...)
Looks like Goering and Nungesser were the only two aces with characteristics of succesful aviators.

[SeaW0lf]

Well, back in the beginning the Tour de France athletes used to smoke cigarettes along the course to "open their lungs" or something like it.

[JGr2/J5_Baeumer]

Until Lance Armstrong came along and showed everyone how chemicals are the way to ride the race.?

[76SQN-FatherTed]

"...under 25".  Can't believe that applies to many here.

[HagarTheHorrible]

I’ve been on the cusp of 28 for a long lonnnnnnnnnnnng time.  Occasionally, my wife, thinks I haven’t even got that far yet, indeed, she will remind me in no uncertain manner, usually when saying something like “ Try and avoid that flying object, yer stupid b*stard”.

[J5_Adam]

15 hours ago, J5_Baeumer said:

Until Lance Armstrong came along and showed everyone how chemicals are the way to ride the race.?

 

You seem to be forgetting about Doc Ellis and the great LSD baseball game where he pitched a no hitter despite tripping balls on really good acid. This was back when illegal drugs were safe. ?

[JGr2/J5_Klugermann]

18 minutes ago, Adam said:

 

You seem to be forgetting about Doc Ellis and the great LSD baseball game where he pitched a no hitter despite tripping balls on really good acid. This was back when illegal drugs were safe. ?

 

Edited March 16, 2020 by J5_Klugermann

[76SQN-FatherTed]

5 hours ago, J5_Klugermann said:

 

Oh Jesus that was a horrible, er,  fillum.  "Down with this sort of thing"

[ST_Catchov]

Wrong. Excessive alcohol and a dashing moustache was always a prerequisite. I'm calling this article out right now as a fake. I'd urge Hagar to be more circumspect in future and thoroughly check his sources.

[HagarTheHorrible]

I thought they’d got it spot on.  “Possessing average intelligence, but knowing little or nothing of the details of his machine or engine, he has little or no imagination”.  I think that probably sums up the average flight simmer pretty well. ?

[SirFlappy]

"Lacking in imagination"  is a very good quality if you spend  only two weeks at the front, then plummet thousands of feet to the ground whilst burning to death!

 

Edited March 22, 2020 by SirFlappy

[HagarTheHorrible]

I think they probably had lots of imagination, but were made of sterner stuff, even then, nervous fatigue is evident in the photo's from the time, even the best pilots have a shattered, haunted look after several weeks or months of combat flying.  I think they knew, all too well, the fate that probably awaited them.

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

I believe what they mean in lacking imagination is similar to how in driving, if you think about all the things that can happen to you, you will inevitably be slower.

[SirFlappy]

On 3/22/2020 at 5:45 PM, HagarTheHorrible said:

I think they probably had lots of imagination, but were made of sterner stuff, even then, nervous fatigue is evident in the photo's from the time, even the best pilots have a shattered, haunted look after several weeks or months of combat flying.  I think they knew, all too well, the fate that probably awaited them.

 I agree with you totally, all ( well most !) of the high flight time Great War pilots & navigators knew full well the odds.

  They only had to look around at the missing seats in the mess hut  every week to tell them "it could be me next", and as you say the real courage is to carry on knowing this.

      What I mean is that the military in all the fighting branches prefer (callous though it may sound) recruits who do not have too much imagination of death.

   War when all is said and done is kill or be killed,thats why they like young people to join up.....you are immortal when you are young (so you think!) ,so they are more prepared to take risks.

  The pysical fitness of youth goes without saying,but this aspect of not thinking too deeply of your own mortality is what I feel they are getting at.

As you allude to yourself the more the constant drain on the nerves, the worse a pilot gets...leading to a state of apathy and loss of judgement ( at which point a good C.O should see this and take them off front line duties)...therefore the less a person is prone to too deep thinking the better.

  Dont forget this is from the Lancet ( a  medical journal ), and LMF was an issue in both world wars, of course they would never call it that now ....we now say PTSD,but  this was a serious concern for the military and medical people to deal with. The less chances of a pilot going out with LMF, is from a medical point of view directly associated with the rather light hearted reference to "imagination".

Edited March 23, 2020 by SirFlappy