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Jonny Kim solos the T-6

Swanee said:
Yeah. I don't know anything from the inside, but it seems that if you want to be an astronaut who comes from the military you're a jet pilot. I'm sure there's the exception that proves the rule.

Maybe it's a left over from the Mercury Seven era where everyone was a test pilot and they were all flying jets. Maybe it's because jet pilots exist in an environment where they think in 8+ miles per minute, see the world well beyond what everyone else does, and has the culture to brief and debrief everything is excruciating detail. "You were 3 seconds behind timeline and you looked left instead of looking right- that's why you're dead" doesn't really work in the big wing community yet is expected in the fighter community.


Maybe you'd like to argue that Jet grades shouldn't exist anymore in flight school? I don't know. There has to be a cut somewhere, right? People far smarter than me have figured it out. Helo guys don't become NASA pilots. Jet guys do. I didn't write the rules.
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FWIW, I think you’d be surprised to see what a helo debrief looks like these days in both HSM and HSC.
 
Kate Spies (H-1), Jasmin Moghbeli (H-1) Marcos Barrios (H-60), Suni Williams (H-46), Ben Bailey (H-60)... I'm sure I've missed a few.

NASA has an interest in us low-n-slow types when it comes to the human landing system (HLS) and controlling its dusty descent.

IIRC, for years the Navy had language in its astronaut application instruction limiting pilot applications to pointy-nosed people, but I'm not sure that's still the case.
 
It definitely goes back multiple decades, at least if you include mission specialists who were once Navy/USMC RW pilots selected to the astronaut corps. Personal 6-degree of separation person, but Wendy Lawrence was an early one. Her stepfather was the minister at my childhood episcopal church. She was a helo gal in the Navy, and did several shuttle missions. Looks like she was astronaut class of ‘92. I’m guessing there were dude RW pilots selected before that.
 
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