There is a huge difference between pilots and which plane they fly.  By the nature of the thing, a fighter pilot is all alone in the plane.  There is only one seat. He can be supersonic. He is in charge of everything he does.  Those guys just think different.  Them, and the plane.

They sit around in the living room at your house with their hands in the air, palms flat, (representing the plane) moving both hands in tandem showing each other how to flip, and end up behind the enemy.  Or a million other maneuvers. And then challenging each other to a dog fight to prove who is the best--which was a normal day for them. Trying to show them exactly how  you do it with your palms--until you get the plane in the air.

They are all of them the “Greatest Fighter Pilot in the World.”  And they have all done something they shouldn’t have done.  Like Ken breaking the sound barrier down main street Pryor--trying to impress me.  “They couldn’t get the number on my plane,” he said.  “I was on the Tulsa runway in a couple minutes.”  They all have a streak of crazy.  The people in Pryor were saying, “Marry him so we can all get some peace.”

Fighter pilots are a thing of the past for the most part.  They tore up too many airplanes...drones are cheaper than planes.  Ken retired and never flew a plane again. He said that everything there was to fly outside of the Marine Corps had too many seats.  “I’m not interested in flying a bus.”  

The manuvers I saw in the movie “Top Gun” was what they did every day.  Mach 10 was just one more pull your guts out level of Mach.