MamboBaas wrote:
The late Bob Suggs must have been quite a guy. His observations on you seem to have been most perspicacious if the nature of your posts is anything to go by. I do have a degree, but never found it to have any relevance to my career in aviation.
The thing is, many helicopter pilots wear their lack of education like a badge of honour. It's like they're proud that they do this relatively complex task without having/needing the higher education to go along with it. They think that what they've learned on the street or in The School of Hard Knocks is sufficient and perhaps even comparable to the education received by what they derisively refer to as "college boys."
This is why many helicopter pilots are so myopic and narrow-minded. It's not that they're unintelligent, it's just that they wrongly think that because they've mastered a particular task that takes some unusual skill, it automatically imbues them with extraordinary deductive abilities, powers of reasoning, and comprehension. (And for those of you having trouble translating that paragraph, just read it thusly: "Helicopter pilots think that
because they know how to fly, it makes them *smart*.")
Uh-huh.
Most of the really arrogant pilots I've met (whether fixed wing or rotary wing) have eventually met their come-uppance as a result of their arrogance.
If that totally unverifiable thought gives you comfort or some smug sense of satisfaction, I will not deny you that. You're entitled to your opinion, as I am to mine. Perhaps I will crash and burn spectacularly soon. Perhaps the next 10,000 hours will be as safe and accident-free as the last. Time will tell.
Side note to CyclicRick: When I said "helicopter pilots like yourself..." I was merely connecting you to other pilots on the assumption that you are one. I do not know if you have in fact made an utter fool of yourself yet, but it would not surprise me in the least.