"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 11:40:56 -0800, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .

There was an old saying in the military, "if the minimum weren't good
enough, it wouldn't be the minimum." I'll confess, reluctantly, to
graduating from college with a 2.01 GPA (2.00 required for
graduation.) All I needed was an undergrad degree to get a commission
and got to USAF pilot training. (That was when there were a lot of
requirements and a low number of qualified candidates--the situation
is reversed today.)

I'll add, however, that once given the opportunity to compete, then
job performance becomes a big factor. When I got the chance, unlikely
as it might have seemed based on my undergrad performance, to go to
graduate school, I got serious. 4.0 for first MS, 3.95 for second.

Pilots, despite what engineer Tarver says, are inherently systems
managers, not blue collar equipment operators.

In fact, under the law, pilots are equipment operators. An operator, as
legislated by the International Brotherhood of Operating Engineers.

I'm sorry, but neither military nor commercial aviators are members of
the IBOE. The membership may choose to call pilots whatever they wish,
but the IBOE doesn't make any "law" that describes nomeclature for
pilot skills.

IBOE has been around for over 120 years and ahve done a very good job of
making sure operating equipment remains a blue collar activity, under the
law.

While I was at
Northrop, the ex-mil aviators on the payroll where definitely "white
collar".

A delusion only, as militry pilots are inherently blue collar and in the
times Ed pretends to recall were a majority physical education majors.
Definately neither educated as "white collar", or skilled as managers.

What the hell do you mean by "the times Ed pretends to recall"?

If you truely remembered then you would also recall that most of your peers
would be junior highschool physical education instructors, were they not
pilots.

In the sixties, when I went to USAF pilot training and flew my first
combat tour, the "majority" of pilot candidates were graduates of
USAFA (fully one third of my training class came from AFA). All,
regardless of commission source were full four year college bachelor
degree, and most were engineering specialities.

That seems to be quite a select group you were with, Ed.

In the seventies when I was directing the Air Training Command
Undergraduate Rated Assignments office, we kept stats on input,
success rates, causes of failures and output. More than 80% during
that decade were graduate engineers and nearly 30% already had
graduate degrees on UPT entry.

Bull****, most pilots are not engineers. The only place here what you
writewas ever true was at the USAF flight test pilot school.

snip of fantasy gone completely over the top