Courtland Savage never expected to fly fighter jets.
Though he had served in the Air Force Reserve before transferring to theNavy and knew his way around a C-17 Globemaster transport, his test scores weren't the highest and the demanding, elitist culture of fighter aviation seemed beyond his reach.
And then there was the thing everyone knew about fighters, at least in the Navy: It was a homogeneous community of white men, with little diversity to be seen anywhere.
"I never thought about flying fighters, because people that look like me don't fly fighter jets," Savage told Military.com.
But then he got his Navy Standard Score, or NSS, used for placement in aviation training. He'd managed a 50.9 -- a hair over the score of 50 needed to qualify for fighters. Soon after, Savage was in the training pipeline to fly the F/A-18 Super Hornet. He'd earn the coveted wings of gold, marking him as a naval aviator, in December 2015.
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4 comments:
'While he acknowledges he struggled in some disciplines,"
That says it all right there. If you want to fly a fighter jet you have to be Top Notch in everything. End of statement. It's not about your skin.
Naval Aviators (which includes both Navy and Marine Corps) especially the fighter pilots are the best of the best. The fact that he was struggling anywhere is the primary reason for his dismissal from that occupation! The intent during this training is to find any weakness that could be exploited in combat and eliminate you for it!
Some make it through and still fail later in their careers - costing lives in the air and on the ground!
I would rather listen to you whine here on the ground than get overrun in a position while waiting for you to support me from the air when you screw up (just this much - pinched fingers!).
Retired Marine Master Gunny!
Long article and many comments; some well formed and others a bit less.
Naval Aviators are the sharpest military pilots because their airport is moving, pitching, yawing.
Salute the guy for trying, but that's it. Was an enlisted USAF loadmaster for C-17 so the jump to officer status in different branch was a leap even before pilot training. Blew his canopy off in flight, which a commenter said cost about 160K; would have been on payroll deduct for years if not for Uncle Sam! Think they saved his life by not passing him.
Hired many pilots; skill is not race or gender based. Hired the good ones; passed on the inferior.
"Diversity" shouldn't be the first consideration in every human endeavor. Or even the second, third or fourth.
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