August 15, 2007

I was sitting at lunch thinking, caused mostly by a recent bout of dealing with para-god-it is… I.E. paramedics that think they are god and impervious like superman.

Not all paramedics suffer from this affliction and it is curable but a few of them I know to be suffering from it. Taking unnecessary personal risks out of convenience or to save a few seconds, they should know better.

That got me to thinking about the country song with the line in it “my heroes have always been cowboys”. A lot of people think I am conservative when it comes to taking risks, I don’t typically drive fast, etc.

People probably think that I wear cowboy boots because my heroes have always been cowboys. That isn’t the case at all. I got to thinking while munching down on my Mexican food, that my heroes have pretty much always been test pilots and given that Edwards AFB is in the southwest a lot of them wear cowboy boots, or at least the ones I grew up respecting did/do.

Test pilots are a different breed, the general population considers them daredevils but they are anything but dare devils.  Until fate has smacked your fingers in the door a couple of times one cant really have a solid respect for what the significance of something going wrong can cause.

Ground dwellers are the worst, a car throws a part and you just pull off the road. The chances of survival are pretty good. Those of us that fly, and especially those of us that actually have test piloted aircraft and yes I am one of them, not the bleeding edge tech Air Force stuff but things I have built or friends have built tend to hold the laws of gravity and physics with a whole lot more respect. Having engines quit, getting sprayed with hot coolant at altitude, flying a plane in that gets totalled, finding oneself unintentionally inverted, etc (been there, done that)  tends to wake you up.

So.. I want a T-shirt that says “my heroes have always been test pilots”

Bob