What makes a good fighter pilot?

[Kitty]

its true. We can multitask whereas men can only think of one thing at once or their tiny ickle brains go into melt down.

[Antipodean Andy]

Just read this in Ron Cundy's excellent A Gremlin on My Shoulder. Derek Gilpin-Barnes, IO on fighter sqns:

Certain attributes were essential; airmanship, motivation, guts, aggressiveness, good eyesight and the ability to shoot straight. When you are with him you find that the "hero" is a myth. He is armed with no callous disregard for life and death. He is not fortified with some peculiar toughness of the body or spirit. Behind the glamour of their daring and devotion lie their personalities, which to my thinking are more fascinating still. Nor do their great deeds lose in stature if we regard them as performed, not by heros, but by ordinary men. The fighter pilot then is an ordinary man - as scared of death as the next.