U.S.
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U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel John Marks has retired after 37 straight years flying the A-10 Thunderbolt II. He has logged more than 7,500 flight hours in the A-10, which is more than anyone else ever has, or probably ever will.
Here he is last month after his final flight, and then at the very beginning of his A-10 career, which started in the 1980s.
https://theaviationist.com/2024/09/07/highest-time-a-10-pilot-retires/
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by
“Near the end of Air Force initial aviation training, students list their top choice for aircraft they would like to pilot. Marks put down the A-10, and he got what he wanted.
‘From talking with the other students in my class, I was the only one who put it number one on the list, so maybe that helped,’ he said.”
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/air-force-a-10-most-experienced-pilot-john-karl-marks/
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by
The above reminds me a bit of my father's story of joining the Air Force, which he did back in the '60s.
New recruits are given a "vocational aptitude" test to determine what kind of job they get. And these tests are famously arbitrary. The military is more interested in filling seats than your self-actualization.
Based on my dad's test results, they let him choose from three jobs: military policeman, short-order cook or computer programmer.
He had no idea what a computer programmer even was, but he figured it had to be better than being a short-order cook or military policeman. So that's what he spent his entire career doing.
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by
And of course him spending his entire career being a computer programmer kind of led to me becoming a computer programmer, which I have spent nearly all of my own career doing.
Sometimes I wonder what I'd be doing now if he'd decided to go with being a short-order cook.
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Matthijs De Smedtreplied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by
@jalefkowit Hah! Wrong choice.
- Lifetime computer programmer
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Matthijs De Smedt last edited by
@anji The Bob's Burgers path was RIGHT THERE