penetrating intelli¬gence. There was something else too, the most vital attri¬bute a test pilot can have: a perfect, natural integration of the two sides of his brain.
Soviet medical studies had shown that the best pilots were artists, because handling a plane at three times the speed of sound was primarily a function of the intuitive right side of the brain, the side that provides the instincts, the seat-of-the-pants judgment. The left brain, in contrast, handled a pilot's rational functions—it was his data man¬agement system, his computer.
Flight instructors for tactical aircraft at the Ramenskoye Flight Test Center south of Moscow knew that a pilot lost his edge when his brain started getting its signals mixed, when it was no longer sure which side was in control. They called it the biology barrier. The result of information overload in a stress situation, it could lead to a total break¬down. The brain went haywire.
Yuri Androv was one of the