Flight Experience
Thuot graduated 30th in his class from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1977 and commenced Naval Flight Officer training in July 1977. He received his wings in August 1978 and then reported to Fighter Squadron 101 (VF-101) at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia, for initial F-14 Tomcat training as a Radar Intercept Officer (RIO). He was then assigned to Fighter Squadron 14 (VF-14) and deployed to the Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas aboard the USS John F. Kennedy and USS Independence. While assigned to VF-14, he attended the Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN). He was then selected to attend the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in May 1982. Upon graduation in June 1983, he worked as a project test flight officer at the Naval Air Test Center flying the F-14A Tomcat, A-6E Intruder and the F-4J Phantom II until June 1984 when he returned to the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School as a flight instructor.
He has over 3,500 flight hours in more than 50 different aircraft, and has over 270 carrier landings.
Read more about this topic: Pierre J. Thuot
Famous quotes containing the words flight and/or experience:
“In all her products, Nature only develops her simplest germs. One would say that it was no great stretch of invention to create birds. The hawk which now takes his flight over the top of the wood was at first, perchance, only a leaf which fluttered in its aisles. From rustling leaves she came in the course of ages to the loftier flight and clear carol of the bird.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Technology ... the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it.”
—Max Frisch (b. 1911)