........and he crashed several expensive aircraft before he was shot down & captured.
McCain was commissioned an ensign.[58] He spent two years as a naval aviator in training, first at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida through September 1959, and then at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas, during which time he was promoted to lieutenant, junior grade.[58][59] He earned a reputation as a party man, as he drove a Corvette, dated an exotic dancer named "Marie the Flame of Florida", spent all his free time on the beach or in a Bachelor Officer Quarters room turned bar and friendly gambling den, and, as he later said, "generally misused my good health and youth".[27][60] He began as a sub-par flier: he had limited patience for studying aviation manuals, and spent study time reading history books instead.[31][60] He was not assigned to the elite units flying fighter aircraft, and instead became a pilot of attack aircraft.[31] During a March 1960 practice run in Texas, he lost track of his altitude and speed, and his single-seat, single-pistoned-engine AD-6 Skyraider crashed into Corpus Christi Bay and sank to the bottom.[61]
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_and_military_career_of_John_McCain#Naval_training.2C_early_assignments.2C_first_marriage.2C_and_children
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