Without a commercial ticket and thousands of hours of heavy multi-engine time, your anecdote, as described, doesn't pass the smell test.
He is.
Funny, I didn’t really expect to be called out on anything there, and it was a real surprise, and I had to laugh after I pressed the post button...”He is.”
It just struck me as funny, that I would just have that knee jerk reaction!
I have no reason to doubt the guy. Now, I didn’t go to the airport and follow him around, but there was nothing in-authentic about it to me. In casual conversation, I asked him what he was currently doing, and he simply replied and made a comment about his schedule.
Not a BS artist type of response to me.
He did say he was retiring from the ANG..maybe that would explain it. He wasn’t active duty at the time.
“.....who had just retired from the military and was now flying Boeing airliners to Japan.
Without a commercial ticket and thousands of hours of heavy multi-engine time, your anecdote, as described, doesn’t pass the smell test......”
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I think you should read and assess things more carefully before you jump to a judgement. The person in question apparently flew in Marine aviation on active duty and then, when he left the service, served in the AIR NATIONAL GUARD (ANG). I suspect that it was during his service in the ANG that he also pursued a civilian career as a airline pilot. And it was from the ANG that he retired. That’s all feasible (and, actually, quite common) and it definitely doesn’t fail my “smell test”.
He tells that story about once a week. It went well beyond the smell test a year ago.
The hell it doesn't. Virtually all of us who went through Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) got a commercial ticket w/instrument rating, etc. before even leaving the UPT base for your next assignment. Cost me a whopping ten bucks. Guarantee this guy has it, and probably an ATP as well.
I was a heavy driver (KC-135's), but if you think all airline pilots were former military heavy drivers vs. fighter pilots, think again.