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Old 11th Dec 2006, 16:54
  #83 (permalink)  
chuks
 
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Germany
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I'm with him!

Binoculars, that is, when he states that there's a close connection between alcohol and aviation.

It starts in the military, I think, which is where a lot of my generation got their start in aviation. You have a lot of young guys, bored out of their skulls most of the time and scared half to death a little bit of the rest, with money to burn, time on their hands and not a lot to do but drink (given that most young men choose not to curl up with a good book, nowadays).

A macho, heavy-drinking sort of culture naturally comes from that and follows one along through the rest of the aviation career. I don't think your average banker knows how to perform 'The Dance of the Flaming *rseholes' or how to drink an 'Afterburner' but plenty of pilots do!

Most of us tend to grow up and move away a little bit from the heavy drinking but more than a few do become alcoholics. I am not aware of any statistics for this, and I agree that plenty of businessmen also drink to excess, but my best guess is that aviation has more than its share of heavy drinkers. It is pretty rare to meet a tee-total pilot or engineer, certainly.
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