Page 32 - InterPilot 2019 Issue 4

The Right Stuff,

Revisited

A PILOT’S PERSPECTIVE ON THE CLASSIC BOOK,

40 YEARS ON

By Captain Felix Chen

One book I will never tire of reading is Tom Wolfe’s The
Right Stuff. Published in 1979, it described the personalities
involved in the ambitious American space program; and the
circumstances which drove it towards the objective of ‘land-
ing a man on the moon, and returning him safely to Earth’. As
we celebrate the 50th anniversary of that momentous event, it
was fitting that I revisit it.

I shall not attempt to review nor summarize the book but
please allow me to share some thoughts from it which we
professional pilots should never take our eyes off.

PILOTS FLY THEIR AIRBORNE VEHICLES
There was competition between the space program’s astro-
nauts and another group of test pilots who were in the rocket
flight test program (pushing the sound barrier). Similar goals -
higher, faster - but different technology. Of course, the space
rocket program had the potential of going well beyond the
atmosphere (hence, the moon) where the usual laws of aero-
dynamics (lift, drag, thrust, weight, Bernoulli’s theorem, etc.,)
become secondary to Newton’s Laws of Motion.

The space endeavor had so much tech that the test pilots pre-
dicted, correctly, that, “they’d send a monkey up,” with obvi-
ous connotations against the Mercury 7 astronauts. Despite
that, the astronauts applied themselves diligently and eventu-
ally established that, “we still need to fly” these things. Using
thrusters, they literally had to learn how to fly all over again!
So, a pilot is still a pilot, whose primary responsibility is to
control the airborne vehicle.