>To me both are extremely similar in that they demand absolute
>attention. Pilots who dont pay attention, die...simply put.
Not entirely true. Military pilots have long characterized their
lives as "long hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer
terror". Most missions consist of flying both into and out of
military territory, some of which is over friendly territory.
Depending upon the situation in the theater, there can be either a lot
or a little relatively down time where basically you're just flying
the plane and regularly checking the status of things. The closest
equivalent in racing would be going down a straight uncontested and
relaxing your fists and enjoying the absence of heavy lateral G's.
For the most part, though, a racer is going to be in the equivalent of
a long sustained dog fight for a couple of hours, whereas most
aircraft missions are designed to get in, mix it up, and get out as
fast as possible, and then, of course, you have CAP missions have a
lot of flying around in lazy circles while you or your backseater keep
checking the radar to make sure no one is entering your zone.
Randy
Randy Magruder
http://members.home.com/rmagruder