Many years ago, a wise aviator heard me comment that the airplane we were standing next to wasn’t cool. He quietly told me that any airplane that gets a person into the air and back down again safely is very cool because what’s truly matters is being able to rise off the ground and fly.
It took years for that to sink in because I was terribly guilty of all sorts of aviation snobbery. Along with many of my fellow pilots, I looked down my nose at airplanes that I didn’t consider to be fast enough for their power, or didn’t meet some undefined aesthetic standard or, heavens, had a nosewheel. As with most of the pilots I knew, I was guilty of aviation snobbery.