I was talking about my weekend plans when my T-38 instructor interrupted me with a question I'd remember for the next 37 years.
We were in the traffic pattern after a formation sortie.
While scanning for traffic I mentioned my plans to go two-stepping that weekend.
He interrupted before I could finish.
"Hey, Urban Cowboy," he growled. "What's the correct airspeed for outside downwind?"
"250 knots,” I said.
"Then why are we at 253?"
Three lousy knots.
I remember thinking, Seriously?
I’d just flown a solid formation sortie. Three knots fast on downwind didn't seem worth mentioning.
During the debrief he handed me a training manual and pointed to a highlighted sentence.
"Read it aloud.”
Several classmates were within earshot, and I felt the heat rise on my face at what was rapidly becoming a semi-public berating.
I swallowed my embarrassment. “Aggressiveness is a persistent unwillingness to accept deviations."
"If you've got the free brain cells to talk about your weekend," he said, "you can maintain 250 knots."
That evening I was at the Officers' Club nursing my wounded ego when he approached carrying two shots of Jeremiah Weed.
He handed me one.
"Don't settle for 'three knots is close enough.'"
We clinked glasses.
Then he poked me in the chest. "You're better than that."
Thirty-seven years later, I can still hear his voice.
That afternoon he taught me the biggest mistakes usually don't begin with dramatic failures.
They begin when we decide three knots is close enough.