Let the shockwave topple monuments

[sovay]

I felt much more ambivalent about the development of the Bell X-1 after I learned the history of the Miles M.52, but I still recognize the loss of Chuck Yeager. I grew up building and launching model rockets; one of my childhood talismans was a Matchbox SR-71. I can't remember not knowing about him.

Comments

[phi]

No! I hadn't read elsewhere, which is a testament to how far I've drifted from my career beginnings in aerospace. But gosh, some childhood heroes are supposed to be immortal. Even recognizing how problematic the whole test pilot culture was, it was also fucking cool and I imprinted on it young. I'm fairly certain that my desperate childhood desire to be a test pilot (in a corps that was still de facto all male) was a significant contributing factor to my gender dysphoria.

[sovay]

No! I hadn't read elsewhere, which is a testament to how far I've drifted from my career beginnings in aerospace.

I found out because spatch saw it on Twitter!

But gosh, some childhood heroes are supposed to be immortal. Even recognizing how problematic the whole test pilot culture was, it was also fucking cool and I imprinted on it young.

Amen on both fronts.

I'm fairly certain that my desperate childhood desire to be a test pilot (in a corps that was still de facto all male) was a significant contributing factor to my gender dysphoria.

*hugs*

I think it was a very reasonable desperate desire to have. I recognize that my own relationship to things like physical endurance and injury is still kind of in need of unfucking, but I would also have taped my ribs and kept my mouth shut rather than miss my shot at supersonic flight.