Then, your friend characterizes what we used to refer to as an "Ego
Driver"--someone filled with the hubris of flying a pretty good
airplane who erroneously considers it superior to everything else.

Actually, he has anything but an ego. The most laid back pilot I know. That is
one of the reasons he left the Eagle community...he couldn't stand most of who
he worked with.

If he had checked more closely (maybe he did, but I doubt it,) he
would have found out that the Italians produced and flew the "S" model
which had added AIM-7 capability to an already excellent interceptor
with great gun and all-aspect AIM-9. A pretty good airplane and, like
most, one which needs to be flown in its own best corner of the
P-sub-s charts. It wouldn't have been a bad airplane at all to take
into combat, and it would have been even more formidable if he went
with those Italian pilots who typically had a couple of thousand hours
in type and who had flown with each other for a decade.


He researched the hell out of it. He liked the fact that in the Eagle he pretty
much saw anything before they saw him. He used to really enjoy plinking Vipers
before they even had a clue they were about to get shot because they didn't
even know the Eagles were there.


-John
*You are nothing until you have flown a Douglas, Lockheed, Grumman or North
American*