I understood the look.

I’d worn it once, at their age, gazing up at the pilots who seemed carved out of something the rest of us weren’t.

What I wanted to give these students wasn’t the myth — the myth had nearly killed me, the idea that a pilot is a lone hero whose skill stands between order and disaster.

The truth is quieter and harder and more useful than that.

The truth is that the best pilot alive cannot save an airplane by being brilliant and alone.