Quote

Robin Olds is very famous in the fighter pilot community. A hero from Vietnam, he's regarded as one of the "wise men" of fighter aviation. I read this quote the other day again and thought that it might explain some of my weird tendencies--as well as that of some of my co-workers:

Fighter pilot is an attitude. It is cockiness. It is aggressiveness. It is self-confidence. It is a streak of rebelliousness, and it is competitiveness. But there's something else - there's a spark. There's a desire to be good. To do well; In the eyes of your peers, and in your own mind.

I think it is love of that blue vault of sky that becomes your playground if, and only if, you are a fighter pilot. You don't understand it if you fly from A to B in straight and level, and merely climb and descend. You're moving through the basement of that bolt of blue.

A fighter pilot is a man in love with flying. A fighter pilot sees not a cloud but beauty. Not the ground but something remote from him, something that he doesn't belong to as long as he is airborne. He's a man who wants to be second-best to no one.

- Brigadier General Robin Olds, USAF.