You have missed my point.

Kevin,

I am reasonably confident that I understood your point. However, your
reasoning is flawed, and therefore your conclusion is wrong

They (or you) are not out there merely boring
holes in the sky on a day-to-day basis.

Again, I am well aware of the reason that I strapped Air Force fighters to my
posterior. I suspect that you're indulging in hyperbole here.

They are sometimes going low,
sometimes carrying and dropping live ordnance, often flying at night and in
adverse weather, often conducting ACM (note the number of air-to-air
collisions each year in such training), often flying in formation, etc.

Yes, just as I stated in my post.

You seem to have a different frame of reference than I do. You mentioned a
firecracker--OK, having spent a fair amount of time blowing things up with
devices considerably more powerful than a firecracker, I can tell you that
part of what you say is correct--all too often, accidents are the fault of
mistakes, or even incompetence. But not 100% of the time.

Indeed, I do. I include "expectation of outcome" in my definition of danger.
In other words, where do you draw the line. More of my Academy classmates who
became fighter pilots, died from non-flying causes than did from flying causes.
Many died in automobile accidents. Some died from health/diet reasons. Some
died from other reasons. People die in jet fighters every year. The rate of
people getting sick or dying from food borne pathogens every year is greater
than the rate of people dying in jet fighters. The rate of people getting
injured or dying in automobiles every year is higher yet. However, I don't
consider eating food to be dangerous, and I'm not giving up food. I don't
consider driving automobiles to be dangerous, and I'm not giving up cars. I
don't have a reasonable expectation that I'll die when I eat food or drive a
car. I never had a reasonable expectation that I would die when I flew a
fighter sortie. All of the data and statistics in the world don't alter the
fact that we still "expect" to get up from the table after a meal and walk
away, that we still "expect" to arrive safely at our destination in a car, and
that as fighter pilots we "expected" to return alive from every peacetime
sortie.

Blowing things up would be very dangerous for me because I have no formal
training. It was not dangerous for you because you had that training. The
proper training, mixed with experience, reduces the danger considerably to the
point where danger becomes risk (expected outcome). If you tried to do all of
the things in a fighter that I said that I'd done, it would be dangerous for
you given your lack of training. It wasn't dangerous for me. Standard Air
Force fingertip formation is defined as three feet of wingtip clearance. I was
doing that solo in the T-37 in UPT. It was safe, not dangerous. While flying
in thick IMC, rather than go lost wingman (I'd rather die than go lost wingman)
I've closed that three feet of wingtip clearance to zero, and sometimes flew
with wing overlap just to maintain sight of lead. So has Dudley Henriques, so
had Walt Bjorneby, so has Ed Rasimus. It's common. Doing so, was not
dangerous. In and of itself, violating a rule does not constitute danger.
Doing so without the requisite competency does. The Thunderbirds are not
dangerous when they fly inverted five hundered feet above the ground. Yet some
people are dangerous just boiling a pot of water. I'm not. You're probably
not. So, is boiling a pot of water dangerous or isn't it?

I have come close to dying in a fighter twice. One time I was stupid. The
other time, somebody else was stupid. However, our aviation profession was not
dangerous. You should focus on ability, competency, and expected outcome,
rather than of the act itself. I refuse to patently attach danger to risk.
Again, despite all of the opportunities for harm and failure, we do things in
life every day with the expected outcome of success. Otherwise, absolutely
everything in our life is dangerous. I reject that type of flawed reasoning.



Kurt Todoroff


Markets, not mandates and mob rule.
Consent, not compulsion.