Friday Ephemera
“You’re going to need a bigger boat.” || A guide to how it works, one and two. || A mindset, revealed. || The thrill of hoovering. || Illegal Lego building techniques. || When school discipline is something to “disperse across ethnicities.” || Smaller than is normal. (h/t, Things) || Stealth mode. || A brief history of linoleum. || A brief history of the digital watch. || I’m not entirely sure what’s happening here. || Too much pleasure. || Parenting of note. || Congresswoman, pronouns. || Put-put-put-put-put. || The speed of Martian sounds. || “Scientific” American. || The world of tomorrow. || “We’ve decided to transition.” || It’s wafer-thin. || Forbidden love. || A sci-fi favourite. || And finally, tastily, a tempting offer.
I started out in psychology in college […] I decided it was not a real science
One of my first psychology profs was a neuropsychologist, and he had no truck with the rest of the discipline. One of his favourite factoids was the percentage of people suffering from psychological problems who eventually get better doesn’t differ between those who undergo therapy and those who don’t; there’s little evidence that therapy does much of anything.
Personally I take a fairly Saszian view of psychology: I think most psychological ailments can usually be traced to either physical damage or a neurochemical problem, often exacerbated by environmental stressors. I’ve known too many people who conquered mild-to-moderate depression simply by hitting the gym, getting a ton of sunshine, switching their diet, and improving their socialization.
@WTP
someone here indicated more familiarity with the subject of fighter pilot experience.
That may have been me, though I was a navigator not a pilot. I must add a rider that that was back in the 1960s/70s and I know that more recently in the RAF at least there have been cost restrictions on the amount of flying.
40 hours a month in my experience would have been unusual, though of course, it would depend a lot on aircraft type and precise role/s. In my low-level strike days, sortie length was typically 2h30m and I averaged generally between 20-30 hours a month. In my operational fighter period, again my average was around 25 hours a month, with typical sortie lengths on Sea Vixens (Royal Navy) 1h30m and F4 Phantoms 2-2h30m. As an aside, for the single-seat Lightning interceptor a long sortie would be 30m but the possibility of several sorties a day would keep up the average to around 20hrs.
As I say, my experience is just a wee bit dated and as I understand current matters, there is less flying time available – maybe down to a half but, on the other hand, more actual combat experience.
Re Chinese capabilities, my guess reading between the lines it is similar to the Russian and E German with monthly hours barely (if at all) maintaining currency. As an example, the commander of the Chinese first manned space flight was reputedly a leading fighter pilot/squadron commander but only had less than 1000 flying hours including initial flying training.
Thanks. I thought 40 seemed kinda high but having no current reference…which is why I asked. Though as you say different roles would impact that number. Simulators are much better today as well. Test ideas/tactics on the ground repeatedly before wasting time, fuel, and energy/stress in the air on ideas that don’t play out. I’d be real curious how good Chinese simulators are relative to ours.
@WTP,
Yeah (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War), although I wouldn’t trust Wikipedia since the subject is political. I don’t have better sources after seconds of searching. 🙂
One of my West Point classmates opined on our class email list after one of my comments that China stopped because China got the response that it wanted. I had found that claim risible, since North Vietnam had been fighting continuously for at least 20 years by that time and China’s last major conflict had been almost 30 years earlier. YMMV.