There's nothing like kids smiling and laughing and playing because if they're having fun, we can do a lot with them.

Educate them, we're going to inspire them, we're going to show them things that they weren't quite aware of.

There's a big sign in the front of the Air and Space Museum that says, enter here for fun.

Hello and welcome to the Fighter Pilot Podcast. This is episode 166 and today we are discussing the San Diego Air and Space Museum

and whether aviation museums as a thing are kind of dying off or if there is a place for them.

We will get to that in a moment, but before we do, like we talked about on episode 165, we're bringing back a little bit of the announcements and listener questions in that part of the show.

If you are listening to this on release day, then I am just wrapping up my wife and I.

Our week-long vacation in the British overseas territory. We'll call it southeast of the Bahamas.

We are spending our silver anniversary out there. We're just about to leave, but as you listen to this, we'll just be getting back.

So yeah, 25 years. Wow, went quickly. Thank you, honey. Love you. In case you're listening, I don't think she does.

Anyway, regarding, I think it was our discussion with Ken Katz on pilot and backseater pairing.

I did receive an email from Charles Burleman who said, having spent many years doing post-flight maintenance debriefs of A6 intruder crews,

I can say that it was common practice to establish permanent crews as the squadrons get ready for deployment.

As the crewing experienced the belt, the two bodies became two well-aligned mines.

It was not uncommon to see a pilot and bombardier navigator in which one would start a comment only to be finished by the other.

They tended to pull liberty together and their families became close.

As a maintenance guy, I noticed the well-aligned crews had better luck when dealing with systems problems.

Well, that's pretty cool, Charles. Thank you for that. He's dating himself a little bit.

The A6 has been retired for a while, but good to know that I think we hit close to the mark on pairing and sounds like that's what they did back in the intruder days. Good stuff.

Now, we just have one quick question from Cedric who says, as you know, you and your guests delve into interesting facts about military aviation.

The enemy is also listening, and I feel they could easily put two and two together and make a holistic idea about what the military does and may incorporate or copy some of these things.

What is your plan against that? Well, Cedric, to your point, my plan against that is nothing. I have no plan against that and not because I think it's a problem and I'm just not willing to solve it.

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