Is Mal a pilot?
POSTED BY: spock74
UPDATED: Friday, June 20, 2008 15:28
VIEWED: 10455
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I'm wondering if Mal could be considered a pilot. And, if he is, does that title then apply to Zoe and River and Inara? And anyone else that can fly if needed?
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Yup...Of course he's a pilot...Just that , most
of the time , he has Captain-y things to do...
He's not a 'pilot savant' on par with Wash , by
any means , but anyone who can bring an
aero/spacecraft to ground *more than ONCE* is a
pilot...Everyone else , we put in ANOTHER
category...We call THEM , 'statistics' ...
Hope that's a sufficiently River-ine answer for
ya ...
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yeah, I gathered he knew how to fly a plane...
so long as you weren't too concerned about having a smooth comfortable ride.
Wash was our man for doing things that were graceful and amazing with a tranport/freighter type ship (not built for speed and grace in the first place).
And I certainly got the impression at the end of 'Serenity' that River's training and instincts made her just as good as Wash ever was....
Although Wash will always be missed 
oh yeah: and nothing was ever said, but I'm guessing that Zoe cannot fly, which made her all the more impressed w/Wash's skills. Clearly Inara has no trouble piloting a shuttle, not only in atmo, but also in 'Out of Gas' I thought she was flying her own shuttle... but handling a big old freight/transport vessel might be a little difficult for her.
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For some reason I had it in my head that we saw Zoe fly a shuttle at some point. I know she drove the mule, though. I can't decide if that counts as flying or not. Anyone have an opinion?
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She flew the shuttle to barter for the life of Wash and Mal when she went to Niska's space station.
So she knows how to pilot the shuttles. Don't know about something bigger. She certainly knows how to work on something bigger... obvious in the closing scenes of the BDM. *sob*
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I don't think that Mal could be considered a pilot at the beginning of the series, but I bet he and the other crew members of Serenity had to have learned the basics of flying in case something had happened to the pilot. Being that Mal was a military man and it is sort of considered good practice to have your people train the others on how to do their jobs so the unit could survive if the trainer were to die.
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Even Inara flew her own shuttle.
It is just a matter of experience. You notice Wash helped Kaylee a lot when repairing the controls in Mrs Reynolds and I do not believe Mal could do a Crazy Ivan. Of course the name crazy says a lot about anyone who does do it.
http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler
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I got the impression that any and most adults in Firefly could fly a shuttle sort of like our driving our cars.
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Well I would agree, but Simon probably end up crashing into the only tree on the planet if he tried to land a shuttle. Maybe not. But it would be funny to see.
http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler
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Mal is just as much a pilot as he is a martial artist - that is to say that he really isn't. He can get by, and that's really all that matters to him, but flying is NOT his speciality.
I think one of the points of the last scene in the BDM was that River was the new pilot. If she hadn't had flying programed into her during her special conditioning, she probably absorbed it from Wash. It would tie into what Mal said before the payroll heist about her learning form Simon's shinning example and allow her to start pulling her own weight.
That would have several effects, including freeing up Simon to focus on him and Kaylee, and River getting her own cut of each job.
I’m never serious. Serious means something bad is about to happen.
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