During my time in the Air Force, I attended the USAF Flying Safety Officer School. The name is a bit misleading, as it’s actually a course on air accident investigation. While the NTSB covers civilian air crashes, each military service investigates its own mishaps. It was a really interesting school, covering engineering, aerodynamics, physiology, and human factors.
The highlight of safety school is applying what you learn in the “laboratory” which is basically a few acres where the wreckage from actual crashes has been brought in and laid out exactly as it was found in the field.
I relied heavily on what I learned in this course to write my Jammer Davis series—a hybrid police procedural and thriller centered around various air crashes.