Mooney_Driver wrote:
I know why you are saying the French: English: Yes, ATC. But not only. I am a bookworm and LOTS of aviation books, manuals, e.t.c. are in English. Not my fault, not theirs,simply a fact of life that this many of them are in English.
English is the universal language – it has the role that latin used to have. Every educated person is supposed to understand it – and these days a much larger part of the population can be said to be educated compared to some hundred years ago. It’s certainly unfair as it given Brits, Americans etc. an edge and native speakers of non-indoeuropean languages a distinct disadvantage, but that can’t be helped.
RobertL18C wrote:
Conversely, I also know pilots from the Test Pilot community, who combine high IQ with exemplary airmanship. I suspect they are outliers and the weak inverse correlation prevails.
Well… I’m not so sure… What’s more likely true is that high IQ people eventually get bored with the regulated life of an airline pilot. (Being a test pilot is, of course, something different altogether.) At one point around the age of 30, I seriously considered abandoning my academic career to become a professional pilot. In hindsight, I’m, glad I didn’t.
We can agree that English is the universal language, but as for every educated person is supposed to understand it I think that is a very bold statement.
I know many people who are highly educated in their field and do not understand English. I also know several highly qualified Swedish professors who have no English.
Come to think of it I know several Brits who don’t understand plain English and I’m not talking here of North Wales sheep farmers.
Chuck Yeager did it all of it with barely high school degree, he trained astronauts but never was one as he never got into college, he later on finished his studies when he got a boring life, his boring college thesis was on STOL aircrafts
https://fairchild-mil.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=42077711
On languages, I had the impression you need to speak near native English & navtive Russian to be PIC on +10bn gadgets 
Maoraigh has a very good point.
Concurrent with my Brevet de Base, someone else was doing it at the minimum age of 15 and too young for qualifications Difficulty-wise, a non-complex tailwheel DR.221, navigation was landmarks plus VOR, avionics KX155 and KT76A. Everything we needed was covered by the (interesting) theory book and excellent flight instructors (both high school teachers). In hindsight we were lucky in this, and we also had support from the club and funding from the FFA. Being in that age group (I was 20) means you are still in a learning environment and easily assimilate new knowledge and skills, assuming you’re motivated.
I would say the correlation between education and being a pilot is the same correlation as between education and socio-economic background. You have to have the aspiration in the first place, the drive (social capital?) to make it happen, and the funds to pay for it. This is tied to the public perception of GA, which is highly country-specific.
Airborne_Again wrote:
At one point around the age of 30, I seriously considered abandoning my academic career to become a professional pilot. In hindsight, I’m, glad I didn’t.
A good friend of mine left IT career at age of 35 to become professional pilot. Prior to that he already had CPL and IR. Passed ATPL exams and started with cargo turboprop, switched to bizjets (right then left seat) and then to A320 as FO and later captain. Now, he’s back in IT after 6 months being unemployed.
My impression is that this thread says more about the members of this forum – esp. how they see themselfs and how they want to be seen by the outside – than about the requirements for flying.
I‘ve had the pleasure to meet exceptional glider pilots who barely passed middle school (and were later trained as butchers, carpenters,etc.) who had phenonemal flying skills, airmanship and situational awareness (including weather, etc.).
They math skills were clearly below the bar of passing the theory skill test even for glider pilots (but with a huge effort of the entire group we were able to make them learn enough tricks and remembering answers to finally make it).
Long story short: You can be (and there are) a great pilot w/o almost any ot the superior knowledge mentioned in this thread.
Totally agree with the last post from @Malibuflyer.
Off topic but to add to that I knew someone who is absolutely useless at maths and couldn’t spell to save his life, left school as soon as he could but when counting down on a dartboard or when working out a betting slip including the tax deduction his mind was quicker than you could feed the figures into a calculator or computer.
Last I heard he didn’t need to work for a living and took two or three foreign holidays a year.
If asked he said he attended the University of Life.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Long story short: You can be (and there are) a great pilot w/o almost any ot the superior knowledge mentioned in this thread
My instructor used to say “you are using all muscles to fly except the one that matters” :)
The top pilots I come across in military & civvy flying academies (who are now F16s pilots or B747 captains) are not necessarly the guys (from same school) who write C-code like poems, or went to theoretical physics, or did international mathematical olympiads, or make 6 digits salaries in SPX companies…
In a nutshell, there is some positive correlation between center of “top IQ/Academic distribution” & “top pilot/flyer distribution” but it vanishes quickly to zero in the tails, may even go negative deep in the right tail of the distribution !
On how to do things, there are analytic skills & art skills
There can be a huge gap between education and intelligence, especially if you count intelligence as what used to be called common sense.
