Whole lot af ArmChair quarterbacking going on here.
Do you think there are pilots who stick strictly in the guidlines all the time? Now having asked that, if you do think there are pilots like that then, are they among the best pilots? I am not saying there aren't lesser levels of hot dogging that could have been more approriate. But you fight as you train and if you are training always to be super-safe then you may be erroring on the side of caution.
This guy was on the other side of the perfect balance.
Yeah he may not be flying for the US Military again...in uniform. KBR need pilots
I take exception to the "armchair quarterbacking" bit, but anyway; there is a difference between 'flier' and 'pilot'. Often the very best 'fliers' make terrible 'pilots'. The best pilots are the SAFE pilots. The best fliers rarely become leaders in the Military because they don't like to follow the rules, and have a hard time training others to do so.
The rules are there for a reason, and to be a good pilot, one must follow them. It is a misconception to assume that 'fighting as you train' means being unsafe; it does not.
Fighting as you train, means to train under near-actual conditions, where trust is paramount. You have to know that the other guy is going to do his job, while you do yours. There is no 'perfect balance', that is TopGun(the movie) crap. Safety is always #1. You cant do crap for your country with your multi-million dollar training , if you die.