Neither pilot nor military but: Specifically to fly fighters you need strong cardio, strong core muscles, strong head/neck muscles. During high G maneuvers all

Neither pilot nor military but: Specifically to fly fighters you need strong cardio, strong core muscles, strong head/neck muscles. During high G maneuvers all the blood in your body wants to flow down to the lower parts of your body. You have to clench your lower body to mitigate that to an extent (the legs of the flight suit inflate too, to help) and do rapid deep breathing exercises to keep enough blood and oxygen flowing to your brain. You will also be keeping your head on a swivel to an extent while flying in combat, turning your head to see things around you, it's not just a matter of looking at sensor data. Imagine observing things behind you on a roller coaster (2-3g max IIRC) but now scale that up to potentially up to 9g when your body feels like it weighs 1,500lbs/700kg or so. It's a workout! While not as directly applicable to flying choppers, all military pilots in a given branch come from the same pipeline. You don't know your aircraft assignment (jet, heavy, chopper, whatever) until the end of flight school so everybody has to be pretty fit. Video of selections being announced during graduation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XF_VMwgaEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XF_VMwgaEI