monkey wrote:

"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message

"We're supposed to sit here awestruck at the Fighter Pilot Fellowship".
Since I really don't want people to be "awestruck" by my use of the term
"fighter pilot", and since I am a civilian, I will allow myself a friendly
response to this since it does show some ambiguity and could possibly be
confusing to those not familiar with me and my "history".

Sorry, as far as I'm concerned, you shouldn't be in any "Fighter
Pilots Fellowship" unless you are or were indeed, a fighter pilot.

Just my 2 cents,

A fighter pilot.

As mentioned by another, there could be a lot of gray area in the
definition. It also depends on how the organization wants to define
itself.

A person flying a fighter is a "fighter pilot" in the most general
of ways, so that doesn't seem a conflict to me.

Obviously, a unit based organization, especially one that might have
seen tough times in combat, wouldn't want members who "weren't there",
but a generic sort of organization could have a range of types that
have flown fighters over a broad range of circumstances.

I personally see no reason why a broad based "fighter pilot fellowship"
wouldn't want people with combat, aircraft test and development, general
operations and even air show circuit (entertainment???) backgrounds.

If you saw combat experience in a certain type of aircraft, wouldn't
you be thrilled to have a Bob Hoover or what's his name (famous P-38 test
pilot) be a member of your organization?

Heck, why not even throw in some of the maintenance types that kept
those fighters in the air?


SMH