Speed that calls top gun pilots home

It's one thing to get somewhere. It's another thing to get home. Top Gun pilots know.

Hi, everyone-

Last week, I talked about speed and time. This week, I’m covering the topic of speed-weavers of the sky: Top Gun pilots. And not the movie version kind. Real ones. 

Mostly because, as I got older, I see speed differently. And I want to know more about it. Particularly given our hunger for it in the US. I’m curious as to why:

Speed seems almost like a bus that always beeps whenever it goes backwards. 

Signaling everyone to get out of the way and plowing onlookers as it bumps about. 

So this week—in between teaching my children the quadratic equation, shoveling snow, thumbing through archival materials, and writing at four in the morning—I spent fourteen hours studying and researching real-life Top Gun pilots and US Navy fighter pilots. 

What I find was curious. But what’s even more curious, was what I didn’t find: