How intelligent/smart must you be to be a pilot??

[Wesb737fo]

Good Question.

I don't think I am any smarter than the next guy. I multi-task well, I have confidence in my abilities, but most of all, I enjoy what I do. May be it's the view from the office. I have an engineering degree (I am currently studying "Fundamentals of Astrodynamics" just for the hell of it), but that and $5 bucks will get me a cup of coffee from Starbucks, and it certainly won't help me get a good landing on RNWY 22 in LGA.

A good deal of mental agility is required. You have to be able to perform under pressure, but, also, it is probably development of motor skills and hand eye coordination that makes a good pilot. If you are like me, you probably played too many video games as a kid. I couldn't tell you how many quarters I pumped into arcade games (Pole Position, Galaga, Galaxian...old school stuff)

Imacdog, that was funny...what's the story at com-air?

 

[Lead Sled]

There is an old USAF saying that goes...

Given enough time and bananas you can teach a monkey to fly.

Actually there was a program on the Military Chanel series Legends of Air power recently which documented the life of some USAF fighter pilot pack in the Vietnam era. He was the one who came up with the battle strategy adopted my the military and implemented so well in the two gulf wars. The guy had an IQ of 90 (ninety).

I guess that it all just goes to prove that it doesn't take a lot of "brights" to lay out $100K+ to get an education and a bunch of ratings then stand in line for a low paying job flying RJs.

'Sled

 

[imacdog]

Good Question.
Imacdog, that was funny...what's the story at com-air?

Voluntary Furlough for me. I can't hold my current base and will not move to, or commute to, JFK.


To answer the original question fairly though, pilots need to have certain spatial reasoning skills that are not required in other fields. However, they do not need to have the persuasive ability of a salesman, imagination of an author, or intuition of a detective. It's all relative, I guess.

 

[GVFlyer]

There's a lot of anecdotal evidence that suggests that it helps to be bright to be a pilot. All the services have an aviation aptitude selection process which excludes many. The USAF prefers that you have a technical degree; for years the Army required that you have a higher General Technical score (a test that is roughly equilalent to an IQ test) to go to Warrant Officer Flight Training than to go to Officer Candidate School.

In Air Force UPT, generally the better you do on academic and flight evaluations, the more likely you are to be FAR'd (Fighter, Attack, Recon) and go to aircraft with more complex missions.

As an interesting aside, there was a time that all the services believed that some simply were not meant to fly and eliminated those that failed evaluations or couldn't keep up with their peers. This is not currently the case. Due to the great expense of creating a military pilot, all the services now practice a kind of false economy - these pilot candidates are now provided additional training or are recycled. This saves money in the short term, but often costs more in both treasure and lives latter on.

My service's Safety Center thought this was a foolhardy practice. When I was assigned there as an accident investigator, the guys in Technical Research and Applications did a study following these pilots that failed evaluations but were given their wings anyway and later had major accidents (Class A Mishaps). They found that in a striking number of cases, the accident pilot made precisely the same mistake s/he had made in pilot training.

GV











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[PolarTwins55]

"The Killing Zone" by Paul Craig contains an interesting chapter towards the end on pilot personality that's an interesting read. His premise is basically that most pilots are smart, messy, spontaneous, independent, prideful, macho, and otherwise generally obnoxious jerks.

Check.

Describes me to a tee! No wonder I'm such a good pilot.imp:

 

[MissKittyKat]

There are various ways to get your iq tested. OMG, I would hope pilots are intelligent, the guys I have flown with over the years are smart guys! and I knew a smart lady flying a b-727 as well! She was the smartest lady!

 

[semperfido]

go for it

http://www.iqtest.com/

 

[GVFlyer]

go for it

http://www.iqtest.com/

Fido, you are an evil man.


GV

 

[MissKittyKat]

Thanks semp! I did mine on-line just for the hell of it!

Now semp, put a christmas bow on that dog! She/he is beautiful!

 

[pilotyip]

Direct Correlation

There is direct correlation between intelligence and the ability to succeed in flying. It may not predict the motor skills to fly an airplane, but a pilot with a higher intelligence score will most likely be more successful in the Captain's seat. I reference the Navy's AQT/FAR test. A 5 is the mean score, it goes up or down 1 for each standard deviation up or down. A 6 is one std div above the mean. A 9 is 4 std devs above the norm. There is marked difference in training a pilot who has a score of 9 versus a score of 5. 8 & 9‘s seem to get the picture quicker. We give a similar test in our screening process; it has a high level of predictability of success.