Fighter pilots are in constant proximity to their own mortality. All servicemembers face these thoughts to some extent—but pilots are unique in that they usually face them alone.
The physical dangers of flying a fighter jet are well-documented, and in many respects quite obvious; a pilot is suspended miles over the Earth, moving at supersonic speed, in a machine in which many different things can go wrong. Fortunately, careful and redundant aircraft design and regular maintenance help to mitigate these dangers. But the fighter pilot endures a battery of psychological dangers, too. Indeed, flying a fighter represents a crucible for the mind, stemming from the overlap of extreme responsibility, sensory overload, and constant existential risk.
Pilots Regularly Experience “Cognitive Overload”
While modern fighter cockpits have made strides to simplify the interface between pilot and machine, the cockpit still offers a torrent of information: radar displays, weapons systems, radio chatter, heads-up symbology—all of which changes every second. Pilots are tasked, every moment of every flight, with filtering the torrent of information, deriving priorities, and acting in accordance with those priorities.
The mental bandwidth required of a pilot is therefore very high—and pilots are screened for high mental bandwidth. Even so, the prospect of cognitive overload lingers; when a pilot’s mental bandwidth is saturated, mistakes happen, often in cascade. Wrong switches are thrown. Threats are missed. Tactical decisions degrade. Accordingly, pilots are trained to push through cognitive overload in simulations designed to make them forge ahead, making decisions while overloaded—so that in a true emergency situation such as combat, the brain responds in rote pre-trained fashion, rather than in panic.
Pilots Have an Extreme Sense of Responsibility
The fighter pilot is faced with the stress of life-or-death responsibility. This is to be expected. After all, the fighter jet is, in its purest form, a vessel of death and destruction. Every mission is implicitly about causing destruction, where miscalculations can result in death to the pilot themselves, their wingmen, fellow service members on the ground, or innocent civilians. And even if no miscalculations are made, and a pilot’s mission is executed perfectly, the result will typically still be death to a target—a point of friction with the capacity to compound over time. The pilot knows, each time aloft, that every weapon released has the capacity to determine the fate of dozens, sometimes hundreds, of people on the ground. Such moral responsibility can manifest in anxiety, sleep disruption, or worse.
Similarly, fighter pilots face constant proximity to their own mortality. Whereas most professions face abstract risks, the fighter pilot is constantly confronting death itself—operating at supersonic speeds, relying upon a complex machine that is prone to failure, often over mountainous terrain or open water, and sometimes against enemy missiles. The specter of catastrophe looms—often compartmentalized, but a form of low-grade stress nonetheless.
All branches of the military face this issue on some level. But among Army and Navy personnel, they have squadmates, “battle buddies,” or fellow sailors to rely on, forming intense bonds of kinship. The cockpit, on the other hand, is usually a solitary place, where the pilot must face dangers alone—and bear the consequences of each decision alone.
The Air Force Emphasizes Pilot Mental Health
Training is structured to address the psychological risks of flying. Pilots learn about stress inoculation, or controlled exposure to chaotic environments to build familiarity and resilience. Pilots learn mental checklists, breathing exercises, and visualization techniques. But training can only take the mind so far. The psychological risk inherent with operating a fighter jet, a machine performing at the extreme of human physical and mental thresholds, cannot be eliminated with training, only reduced. Ultimately, the pilot must simply endure despite the hazards and stresses.
About the Author: Harrison Kass
Harrison Kass is a senior defense and national security writer at The National Interest. Kass is an attorney and former political candidate who joined the US Air Force as a pilot trainee before being medically discharged. He focuses on military strategy, aerospace, and global security affairs. He holds a JD from the University of Oregon and a master’s in Global Journalism and International Relations from NYU.
Image: Shutterstock / Dragos Asaftei.
