News Hype!

THE LEAD IN.


{in a tense and powerful voice} Tonight on actions news! A local airshow act goes horrifyingly wrong! The pilot loses control of his aircraft and impacts four buildings traumatizing the building occupants! Complete film at 11:00











THE REALITY:

Talk about being scared shitless! AR!

Tall Tales

I have ALWAYS loved telling stories!

That is why my friends encouraged me to start blogging... so they would not have to actually listen to my stories anymore!

Switching to written storytelling from oral you lose a lot of the tools of good story telling, tone of voice, body language maybe even some accents thrown in here and there.

Friday night I had a chance to get all oral again and it was GREAT.

A buddy of mine wants to go to this party but I don't know anyone there. As a nerd I HATE going to a party period but to a party where I don't know anyone? Oh the horror! 

(Also bear in mind from my last post that I wrenched my knee pushing a boat and am using a cane for 10 days. )

So we walked into the front room and right off there is a weird situation, there were 3 people comparing scars, and one of them was a pretty hot blond. I have seen guys doing "scar competitions" before but outside of the movie Lethal Weapon 4(?) I have never seen women play the game. But here it was in living color!

So I said Ooooo- can I play?

Sure.

So I lifted my shirt and showed them my stomach surgery scars, I was wearing shorts and I have a nice double scar above my knee where the propeller of a radio control plane got me and then I have several good misc hand scars from farming and mechanizing.

Now I am telling YOU where the scars came but that is not what I told them.... for them I just pointed them all out. The Surgery scars are the best of course but the others made nice "accessories"

So they asked where did you get all those scars...

Well during the first Persian gulf war I had to eject from my crippled F-15 fighter deep over enemy territory!

"Oh man! What happened to you!?"

Well, there I was deep over Saddam's stronghold, flying high cover on a moonless night, moving nearly as fast as a bullet 10 miles above the earth. At that altitude, on a moonless night, the stars looked like diamonds scattered on black velvet. So crisp, so close, you can easily convince yourself you have in fact left the planet and are in space. It was gorgeous! It was so ironic to experience such beauty deep in a war zone!

Suddenly my reverie was shattered by a flashing master caution alarm!

With no warning at all a fan belt had broken! You want to talk about fear! Fear that grabs you deep in your gut and won't let go!

Still, I tried to salvage the situation but when the fan belt on #1 broke apparently it flew off into #2 engine and took out its fan belt too. I was hosed! I had no hydraulics! (Power steering) You simply can not fly an F-15 without hydraulics! I had no choice but to eject!

It was during the ejection sequence when I snagged jagged pieces of the canopy and got the belly and leg scars I showed you.

More people are gathering around now, it's getting quiet at this party.

So I went on about how hard it is while drifting down in your parachute to judge when you going to contact the ground in the dark desert and I misjudged the landing and to this day I have this cane to remind me of it.

I managed to evade capture for a few days but they finally got me. The scars on my hands are from the interrogations...

Finally, one guy, challenged me, "What? Those scars are not from torture!"

With a grin I said, "Dude! You mean you bought the fan belts breaking but you are NOT buying the interrogation scars?"

People are looking a each other and the blond with her own scars asked me if any part of this story is true?

With my grin growing wider I answered "Helllllll no! But its a good story huh?"

Everyone laughed and suddenly I was not at a party of strangers anymore.

Another Military Story (sorta)

So one day I was working on the rudder (foot) pedals of a fighter. The ejection seat was out so I was laying on the floor where the seat would be with my head up under the "dash"

Climbing into a fighter is much like mounting a horse, you swing a leg up over the canopy sill and step down into the cockpit. So the crew chief, a rather portly fellow, decides to climb in. He did not check to see if *I* was there first though so he swings a leg up and over the canopy rail and plants a boot right into in my groinal arena!

Oh my descendants!

I set up fast and wanged my head on something under the 'dash'.  Then I laid back down and moaned for a minute. We all had a good laugh at my expense and went back to work. You know, both heads were injured in one accident ha ha ha ha! I was moving slower than before though.

About 15 minutes later I had to use the restroom. When I peed it was pretty dark. Blood in the urine, uh oh.

Long story short some blood vessels were ruptured in the sackal region and one side flooded with blood and distended.

Oddly enough, I came to learn this is a VERY common condition in the Air Force but its generally happens to pilots under high g loads.

After a few more follow ups it was confirmed that I was, in the words of my doctor,  rendered sterile.
 
So fast forward about 7 years. My wife gives me the supposedly happy news that she is pregnant. She is confused that I am not happy. "I'm sterile ya know. So who got you pregnant?"

Well needless to say this set off a marital crises. So it turns out sterile is a relative term. I am technically sterile but I still have some squigglers so a better term than 'sterile' would be "low probability". Of all people you would think doctors would use more descriptive language, right?

So when "the boy" turned up, there was no doubt what so ever that I was the father. He is my clone. The only thing he really got from his mother was his full thick facial hair. Wish I could grow a beard like that!

My manhood lost

This story is NOT about the first thing that popped into your mind when you read that title (however that does remind me of another perhaps blog worthy Air Force story)

In this case the manhood in question is metaphorical rather than physical.

When I was 11 my grandfather (Papa? Pawpaw?) went legally blind. His vision dropped to 20/400 corrected. He had a farm to run though and his financial future was at stake. I became his eyes and hands. He would sit next to me and tell me what to do but I was the guy! I drove him where ever he needed to go, I plowed the fields, planted the crops, fertilized and cultivated mid season then finally harvested in the fall and took the grain to be sold.

Small town  Nebraska ( population < 500) was a special place, there are no secrets. Everyone knew  I was driving cars and grain trucks, even on the interstate highways, but everyone also knew that I was all that was keeping Papa from bankruptcy. I worked hard and I received something I had never really received from adults before, respect.

I remember the one night we went to town for supper at the bar and grill and I was allowed to drink a beer, in a bar. I was 12. The local motto was "Work like a man get treated like a man." Little things like that made up for not being able to do the things my tween age friends were doing.

I did that for three years while I was 11, 12 and 13 years old. I thought I was going to do it for the rest of my life but property values got very high and papa sold all his land for 3 million(!) bucks.

I moved back to the city. After 3 years of being treated like a man suddenly, I was a child again.

Oh how that chaffed my soul. I oh so desperately wanted to be a man again. It was hard to ever be satisfied again. For example, getting a drivers licence? Pfffft. I was driving huge dump trucks loaded with grain 5 years "ago"!

So all that frustration combined with several other reasons saw me joining the Air Force when I was 16.

After basic training I was a man again! Yay! For a while at least.

After advanced training I reported to my first duty station. I was getting a tour of Hanger 1. The end if the runway was 500 feet from the hanger. An F-4 phantom started its take off run with full afterburners.

The F-4 is a fighter but it's take off weight was a full 30 tons. It is a BIG airplane with BIG engines.

F-4 Phantom Engine Exhaust. Big huh?

 Then lets mention afterburners; Afterburners are simply pumping raw fuel into the exhaust stream of jet engine where it combusts, expands and adds considerable thrust. A.k.a. heat and noise. That fuel is injected from a fuel line ring around the inside of exhaust tube. Each ring is considered a stage. Working from memory here the F-4 had 32 stage afterburners (times 2 engines). If the pilot moved the throttles forward slowly you could hear (and feel) each stage kick in individually. If he moved the throttles fast it was a single sound

It was not unheard of for formation take offs with full afterburners to actually break windows on base.



F-4 with full afterburners. Can you feel the power?


So here I am first day on my new base, walking through the phase docks in hanger one when the pilot a mere 500 feet away pushed the throttles all the way forward pretty fast. I heard and felt a tremendous rippling ba-ba-ba-ba-BOOM as the stages kicked in. I thought the all the tanks on the fuel farm were going  up in a chain reaction!

Damn my cat like reflexes! I ducked!

I was immediately a laughing stock. The fighter mechanic that was afraid of fighters. All respect and therefore all manhood was lost within hours of stepping on base. {sigh}


Then, just to pile it on, later that day someone coined my new nickname that would stick with me for years to come. No, not "killer", "tiger", "Ace" or any kind of even remotely cool nickname, nope, "baby face" was my new moniker. For one who ached more than anything to be a man to be called baby (face) every day was nightmarish.

My degradation was complete. {sigh}

However, here is a picture taken of me four years after I "earned" that nickname. So I guess maybe they were on to something.

Pilots and Weather Analysis

We Pilots are taught many different ways to interpret the vast amounts of weather data available to us. There are so many weather products right at your finger tips that the pilots real challenge these days is how to interpret and internalize the data and to use it effectively.

Then you get into the concepts of formal data and informal data. Formal data would best be exemplified by the weather channel. Informal data might be best exemplified by old sayings like "red sky at night sailors delight, red sky in morning sailors take warning."

Of course another example of informal weather analysis is when your passengers are praying with eyes clinched shut, this may be a good indicator that the ride is not too smooth!

Airplanes don't help bud! :)

This story is a couple of years old but I just thought of it recently. Well I thought of it because I was talking to another aviation nut and mentioned that all in the years I have owned an airplane I have never met a woman who was impressed or more than mildly interested by that. I mean there are plenty of women who would be impressed with say a Corvette yet my plane costs way more than a 'Vette and goes WAY faster than a 'Vette so you would think it would have a least a little sex appeal right? Nope!

Then that reminded of the one time that a lady was impressed by a plane and how fast it turned on me.

Two Januaries ago on a Friday night I was having a few beers at a nice place with a friend/client in Springfield. It was bitterly cold out. I mean sub zero cold!

There was a group of nurses a few tables over celebrating something. I bought a very good looking nurse a drink. I mean she was clearly out of my league but being the optimistic glutton for punishment I am I thought,  "What the heck, give it a shot, you never know..." To my surprise, it worked, she joined us. So the conversation turned to the cold and my friend chimes in with, hey, you ought to fly us all to Florida in your plane so we can get warmed up. (he was a great wingman! lol)

The hot nurse suddenly became VERY attentive, "You have your own plane?!" she asked with widened eyes as she leaned in closer.
"Well yeah."
"So you really could fly us to Florida?" Her body language is really broadcasting her interest now!
"Sure.", doing a little math in my head, "Depending on traffic we could be on the beach in 5 hours"
Oh! Now she is almost purring, "Could we leave right now?"
Oh Rob! You have hit the jackpot here!! (Thanks wingman!) "We could but I have been drinking and I don't fly when I have been drinking. We can leave first thing in the morning though."
"Huh, why don't you fly when you have been drinking?"
I thought that was a strange question especially from a nurse question but I answered, "Well I don't want to be operating a two ton machine going over 200 mph four miles above the Earth while I am impaired"
"What? You mean you fly the plane?"
I am a little confused but answer, "Well sure."
"You don't ride in the back?"
In all nerdy seriousness I answered, "What would be the fun in that?"
Click!
Just like that she was totally uninterested, thanked me for the drink and walked away.

So close and yet so, so far! :)

So that was the only woman I ever met that was at all impressed I owned a plane and as soon as she found out it was not a chauffeured airplane she could not care less anymore.

Damn!

You shore got a purty mouth

One time a friend of mine and I flew my plane from Dallas to Vero Beach Florida. I told the computer to find me the cheapest fuel half way between them. It popped up with Quitman Mississippi. Customer reviews for Quitman airport were good on the inter-net so that is how I flight planned it. I just now looked it up and in the last census the population of Quitman was 2,400 people.

The trip from Dallas to Quitman was great and I met the airport manager, his wife and their three kids while I was stopped on the way out to Florida.

A few days later on the way back there was some bad weather to the west of Quitman, between Quitman and Dallas, so I stopped at Quitman for the night to let the front pass. When I asked the airport manager to get us a cab he said no way, his wife would be glad to give us a ride into town. I asked her which hotel was the best and with a look that said “silly city people” she replied that there was only one hotel so it was sure to be the best! :)

I offered to pay her for the ride but she said not to bother, she took travelers to the hotel all the time and it was a nice excuse to get out.

That night in the hotel I remember watching one of the worst movies ever while waiting for weather to pass- “Speed 2”. That has to got to be one of the sharpest drop offs in quality between the first movie and the sequel EVER. I swear I could hear my brain cells screaming in agony before they commited ritual suicide while I was watching that abomonation.

Anyway, the “best” hotel in town did not have breakfast so Bill and I walked a few blocks down to the Burger King for breakfast the next morning.

At first it was subtle. As we walked down the street we noticed people seemed to be staring at us but we were not sure. Well, Bill noticed it. He kept asking me if I noticed and being the oblivious nerd I am most times I really did not notice. In fact, I thought Bill was being a touch paranoid.

When we got to the Burger King though there was no doubt. As we stood in line people were checking us out- no two ways about it- some people were even squinting their eyes as they stared at us- I am normally a very outgoing guy but this was freaking me out a little and I clammed up! Instead of my normal boisterous self I was as quiet as an alter boy in “special” training.

We sat down and started eating and this fairly elderly man sat down two tables over, turned so he could face us and just started staring at us. After a few minutes of solid staring Bill finally whispered to me, “This guy is freaking me out; I am going to ask him why he is staring at us.”
“Dude, don’t do that! He looks nuts and this place is like a f’ing Twilight Zone episode! Just eat and let’s get the hell out of here before puppets start stabbing us in the ankles!”
“No man, I can’t eat with him staring at me like that- I am going to talk to him!”

Before I could say anything more Bill stood up and said “Can I help you sir?” to the old man.

The old man furrows his brow and says to Bill in a suspicious tone, “Where are you two from?”
My internal alarms are really ringing now! Bill tells him we live in Dallas and we are heading there from Florida and just stopped here for the night.
“Did y’all you ever live ‘round here?”
“Nope, just traveling through.”
The old man starts nodding his head and says, “I knew it! I knew you boys were not from around here! I know every one around here but I thought you might be related to the McDorman’s - you bear a striking resemblance to old Roy – and I was trying to figure out which of his kids you might be."

At which point he started talking about the time he went to Florida and now that the ice was broken a few other people joined us and we all had a real nice morning conversation.

THIS was more like the small town America that I know and love. Hell I thought we were fixing to get lynched or that they were children of the corn or something but it just turns out they are off the beaten track and are just not used to seeing strangers so we were freaking them out a bit. We had a mutual freak fest going there!

Good old Bill broke the silence though!

So, the airport manager’s wife comes to pick us up and I told her about it and how odd that whole thing was. She laughed and told us how she and her husband were from upstate and how it took years before people did not stare at them anymore.

Then she kept on laughing and then she said, “As far as living in a small town goes that is NOTHING! I am always the subject of gossip around this town!”
“Why”, I asked, “because you are an outsider?”
“No, because I am a married woman and I am always seen coming and going to the only hotel in town with strange men in the car. Depending on who you ask I am either a big league prostitute or a nymphomaniac who just can’t get enough.

It's a nice place to live though.”

I Owned a $36 Million Jet Once

…for almost an hour.

I used to be a mechanic at a place called Falcon Jet. We customized big expensive luxury business jets. Mechanics are paid by the hour.

I worked on the Falcon 900 line which at the time was the biggest and best Falcon Jet available.

Pretty huh?

Check out the inside...

At one point we were way behind schedule and we were working 12 hours a day 7 days a week. We got time and half over 40 hours and double time on Sunday. So with all the overtime my 40 hour base pay was just over a third of my total pay on that schedule!

So along comes pay day and I have a check for 80 hours of straight time. So I called payroll. I talked to this snotty woman who clearly could not care less that my check was roughly 1/3 of what it should be. She told me that the shortage would be added to the next check. Still, I was insistent that it was payday and I would like my pay now and not in another two weeks. She gave me a snotty song and dance about how the computer can only cut checks on scheduled days and she can not cut another check until next pay day. After a little more debate on my part she told me if I did not like it she heard that McDonalds was hiring and hung up on me.

Grrrrrrr. Boy was I ticked but bureaucrats hold all the power so I grumbled a lot but that was about all I could do.

So the next payday rolls around and this time I should have had a huge check with base pay plus a whole month of overtime. It was straight base pay again! So I called payroll again and got the same snotty lady which immediately made me snotty (which never helps when dealing with petty bureaucrats- live and learn) and keeping the long story short her answer again was “Tough- the computer will not cut a check today even if I wanted to so you’ll get it next payday- end of story{click}”.

Oooooo, I am seriously angry now. I know people can see blood vessels pumping on my forehead as I am sitting in the cafeteria ranting! My buddy tells me I should get a mechanics lien. A what? He explains to me he used to work at a garage and if someone does not pay their repair bill you can put a lien on their car and even repossess it! It was a quick and easy process at the county courthouse and since I was not getting paid I should put a lien on one of the jets!

I still had 45 minutes of lunch left so I headed for the court house!

I paid $4.50 and put a lien on a 36 million dollar jet that I had been working on for the last month. I also knew the customer was coming to pick it up in a few days and we had really been busting butt to have it ready on time. That plane would put the most pressure on them! Bwuh-ha-ha-ha!

So I come back from lunch with a neat little packet of paper that explained I had the right to repossess and auction off the vehicle but I could only keep what I was owed and any proceeds above what I was owed net repo and auction costs must be returned to the original owner. Down at the bottom in bold print it said “For any assistance in repossessing the vehicle call the sheriffs department at 555-1212 ext 1234.”

I got back just as everyone was getting back to work after lunch. I went to the bay “my” plane was in and explained to the lead man (my boss) what I had done and that he needed to get everyone off of “my” plane. Since he had heard me whining about my check for weeks he knew why so he said, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
I tapped that paper work where it told you how to call the sheriff and I said and with a big grin on my face “Bruce, don’t make me call the sheriff!”

Bruce laughed and said “Okay tiger!” and started getting everyone off my plane, he closed and locked the door and handed me the keys with a big ol grin on his face. Then he went and called the plant production manager.

Now, I knew this scheme was going to get some attention- I mean that was the goal after all, I figured that since we were already behind schedule and the customer was going to be there soon the account manager or the salesmen would throw a fit and get me my paycheck before long.

I was right but it turned out I was way too right! Within 10 minutes there were upper-level managers hovering around the dock. These were people I had never even heard of before since they never got around the “dirty people”! This had already gone much higher much faster than I ever thought it would! A couple of theses guys in suits were screaming at me about the schedule! Even though I had an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach I was mad and I stuck to my guns and just kept saying, “Cut me a check and everyone can get back to work.” Finally I said to one guy who was screaming at me, “Hey! I am working in good faith here by not taking the plane out of the hanger, keep screaming at me and I’ll tow the damn thing out of here!” That shut him up!

Then the CEO shows up! Oy Vay! This was NOT what I had in mind when I started this adventure! Until now I had only seen this guy’s picture in the lobby and now he is asking me questions in an unfriendly manner! Not good, not good!

I explained to him what was going on and I could see in his face that he was getting extremely angry and I was thinking oh man- you did it now Rob you have seriously ticked off the head honcho!
He growled, “Come with me.”
Oh crap! We started heading to the front offices where none of us mechanics ever went. I thought “Uh, oh, we are going to HR, I am fired now! Oh well, ya gambled and lost Rob!”

However, we walked right past HR and went in to the accounting area. The CEO says in a loud voice, “Who does payroll here?”
I recognized the snotty voice when she said “I do sir”

The CEO and I walk over to her desk and he asks her in a pleasant tone was she aware that the company owned me a month of overtime pay?
In her snotty tone she replied, “Why yes sir, I heard what he did and there was no need for him to get a lien, I had already explained to him that it would be on his next check since the computer…”
Interrupting her, in a low, controlled but icy tone he asked her, “Do you need help with this job? Is it too much for you?”
“Uh no sir, it’s not too much, I …”
He cut her off again and now he is shouting! “Well obviously it IS too much for you since you have not been able to pay this man for a MONTH now! I agree though it seems pretty simple to me, they turn in their hours and you write them a check. Since he has been coming to work and he has not been getting paid then CLEARLY I do need to hire someone who can handle this job.”, silent lingering pause, “I want this man paid right here, right now or I will find someone who can. Do I need to find someone else?”
“No sir.”, she said without a trace of snottiness in her voice.
“Good”
He turns to me and says, “Will you trust me for now and let me have the keys so people can get back to work?”
Handing him the keys, “Here you go, thank you sir.”
He said, “If you don’t get a check in 15 minutes let me know.” and walked out

Whew! I had thought I was a goner for sure! I wish I was big enough a person that I did not enjoy watching snotty payroll lady getting raked over the coals but I can admit it, I am not that big because I. Loved. It!!

And hey, what do you know? The system could cut a check after all! Amazing huh?

Teacher was right!

Jules triggered this memory so gotta give her credit… One time I was flying my plane from New Orleans to Dallas. As usual, I went to the restroom right before take-off which is usually good for at least three hours which is about how far it was so I should have been good to go. For some reason though today I had to go again before I even got out of New Orleans airspace.

Being a man though there was no way in hell I am turning back so I’ll just have to tough it out! By the time I was half way to Dallas though it was bad! I really had to go! I mean we are way beyond the pee-pee dance stage at this point, now it hurts! I need to break the man code and land so I can pee!

Ever look at a map half way between Dallas and New Orleans? Know what is there? NOTHING! There was nowhere to land and I had to GO!

In desperation, I was looking around the cockpit for something to go in. The only thing there was a nearly full bottle of Windex.

To use it though I had to dump the Windex out first, so I cracked the window and started pouring it out the window.

Well, at 160 mph things tend to splash back and it was getting all over the back seats and side panel. So I stopped when about half the bottle was gone figuring that would be enough room and to stop the carnage to my pretty back seats!

Here was challenge #1. Ever try to pee setting down in regular chair? I never had and I figured out real quick that was not going to work! Especially with a half full bottle of Windex! So I set the autopilot and slid the seat all the way back then knelt in front of my seat. Ok, the geometry is better now!

Challenge #2. The neck of the Windex bottle was too small! I did not want my plane to smell like an old folks home or New York City so I was worried about my aim! However, the engineer in me figured out that if I just pressed against the bottle opening that made sure it went in and made a seal against any splash back plus any bumps in the air would not throw off my aim!

I started to let go and thank God because it was hurting pretty bad at this point!

Challenge #3. By pressing against the neck of the bottle I did make a good seal and there was no chance to miss but on the other hand I was making a good seal. I was inflating the bottle! The sides were bulging out! Before long pressure equalized and the flow stopped. Uh oh! With a little trial and error I discovered I could ease up on how hard I was pressing against the neck of the bottle then air could escape! Things started flowing again! Whew!

Oh finally! The pain was starting to ease off! This was working!

Then Challenge #4 reared its ugly head. That bottle was filling up FAST. Turns out that my bladder is bigger than half a Windex bottle after all. After all of that effort I had to pinch it off just as that bottle was getting full!

That was difficult to do! In fact it may well have been the greatest act of self-control I have ever exhibited. Things were feeling goooooood and I did not want to stop! Only thoughts of a “New Yorkey” airplane were enough to get me to stop! It hurt when I stopped too, it was like my bladder was saying, “Dude!? WTF? Why did you do THAT for? Oh yeah, well just for that I think I will STAB you! Take THAT!”

I screwed the lid back on the full again Windex bottle thinking that maybe I had let enough go that now I could make it home now. Turns out I had.

After I landed and got out of the rest room I was throwing my bottle of “Windex” away. Apparently I caught another pilots eye because as I chunked the bottle in the trash he remarked, “Green Windex? When did they start making Green Windex?

I had not really thought about it until then since I had had pressing issues on my mind until then but my kindergarten teacher was right, yellow and blue do indeed make green! I had a bottle of Green “Windex” so I told the guy it was a test product and I did not like it so I was chunking it.

He grabbed it out of the trashcan and said he would give it a try. I was too bashful and embarrassed to say what it really was so I let him.




KIDDING! I am not that bashful!

Be nice!

When I first got out of the Air Force the economy was having a rough time and the airlines were not hiring. I ended up taking a job at a little FBO. FBO’s are basically service stations for airplanes. I was officially a mechanic but since I was the most junior guy I was also the designated line boy; the gas pumper. “Check your oil sir?” and wash the windshield, you know?

Now, airplanes can get pretty pricy and frankly some (not most) pilots are pretty snobby, stuck up jerks. I would run into them now and again pumping airplane fuel and it was never fun. They could be very much like Merrill Streep's character in "The Devil Wears Prada"

So years later I buy my first plane. This is her, this was my baby. She was old and she was cheap but she was just what a first timer like me needed to learn with. We spent over 600 hours together in the air and she taught me a lot. Sadly, I traded her in for a younger much faster mistress who really eats at my wallet. :(

Anyway, once I became an aircraft owner I vowed I would always treat the line guys right since I remembered well the shit I had to take on occasion. Really, I just treated them no different than any other human. I don’t look down on many people. I would always laugh and joke with them and at Christmas I gave them all gift cards from the sports bar down the street. Nothing big though, just enough for a cheeseburger and a few brews.

So one hot summer day a sudden and violent storm just sprang up out of nowhere as they sometimes do in the hotter part of the Great Plains. The storm only lasted about 15 minutes but it was a doozy. I was on the 31st floor and I could feel the building swaying in the wind. I looked out the window and the trees were bent over and the hail was pummeling the cars on the street below!

My building was pretty close to the airport so I drove over to the airport real quick to see how my darling came through the storm. I pulled into the parking area and my plane’s parking spot was empty! Oh crap! My baby got blown away! Where was she? So I was looking around desperately and right then the supervisor of the line guys comes out in his golf cart and says, “Looking for your plane Mr. Johnson?”
“Yeah! Did the storm get her?”
“Oh no. We saw the storm coming so we put your plane in the big hanger”
Since this place had LOTS of customers and I probably had the oldest, cheapest plane there I was surprised, “Well thanks Don! I really appreciate that bud! How in the world did you ever find room for her in there?”
“Uh…see that blue and white Lear Jet there in front of the big hanger?”
“Yeah”
“Well”, Don drawls, “that guy is a huuuuuuge asshole so we pushed his plane outside to make room for yours. By the looks of all the hail dents he won’t be flying for a while, huh?”

Wow, what could I say?

Karma dude, Karma.

The Right Stuff

I watched the movie “Space Cowboys” this weekend. Watching Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones flying the space shuttle reminded me of the time I got to fly a shuttle simulator.


Several years ago I loaded the family up in my Cessna and we flew down to NASA’s Johnson Space Center outside of Houston Texas. You know, the “Houston we have a problem” place! Hallowed halls! We stepped into the front door of the museum and in an alcove off to the left they had about a dozen Space Shuttle simulators set up. I immediately veered left as my son rolled his eyes. Even he knew that was as far as we were going until I got my fix!

There was a pretty good line in front of each simulator so I got in the shortest line. All told there are well over a hundred people in all the lines, it was popular attraction. (of course it was, this place is Mecca for nerds!)

Over each shuttle simulator they have a big screen TV so you can see how all the other people flying are doing while you are in line. I was watching and EVERY ONE was crashing! The computer would flash in big red letters “YOU DIED!” I kept watching to see if anyone could pull it off. Absolutley every one was crashing so I vowed I would be the first to land this thing in one piece. After all, I am a pilot I told my self without a trace of humility! :)

So I finally got my turn. They start you off at 20,000 feet and you have to fly the approach to the field and land. The flight director will tell you where to go and if you are on track or not. (just like a standard plane with the right equipment) So I was able to fly the approach very well because other than the glide ratio it flew just like my Cessna. I am getting very close to the runway and I am already mentally celebrating! No one else I watched made it this far! HA!

I was over the end of the runway but still at 200 foot and the flight director started telling me to pull up for landing. Planes almost always land with the nose in the air. I was thinking, no way! 200 foot was too high to get into landing position. I did not want to pull the nose up, run out of airspeed and stall it now! I’ll pull up in a few more seconds!

So, a couple of seconds later I did start to pull the nose up and then WHAM! I hit the “ground”! Since I did have the nose up and we were on the runway the computer said we lived but the shuttle would never fly again. So I was crushed that I did not land it successfully but I could take a little solace in that I did not get the big red YOU DIED message.

I figured out what went wrong pretty quick. In my Cessna I sit about as high off the ground as you would when you are in a pick up truck. However in the shuttle you are like 30 foot above the ground at rest and when the nose is up for landing you would be like 70 or 80 feet above the ground at touchdown. So the flight director was right! I should have started getting the nose up at 200 foot. I work on computers, so I don’t trust them at all but it was right this time!

Ok, I am getting back in line and with that tidbit of knowledge I WILL land the shuttle next time by God! I was still watching and no one else had landed without a YOU DIED yet so I still had a chance to be the first to make a landing where they could use the shuttle again!

I worked my way back to the front of the line and this time I pulled up at 200 foot and I set her down nice and dainty! The big screen flashed “PERFECT LANDING” in white over and over! I was looking around to make sure people noticed my perfect landing!

HA! I was feeling good! I was feeling cocky! I was doing a little celebration dance! Yeah buddy! I am the only one here who can handle this piece of equipment. I am the pinnacle of evolution! Yes, I have the Right Stuff! Yeee haw! (I am the alpha geek!) I can’t wait to hang out with Chuck Yeager!

Then a little reality set in and I told my self, “You know dude, you probably should not be too cocky. I mean, seriously, you are probably the only pilot here.... Well, OK, face it dude, you are the only adult here.

Who cares! IN YOUR FACE KIDS!

What was I thinking?

How in the heck did I think my camera was a perfect example of the conflict between my inner nerd and my inner redneck? Granted it was a good example but perfect?

Melek telling the tale of her car held together with primer made me think of the true perfect example of how my high tech and redneck halves conflict.

I built a plane a few years ago. It was a very futuristic swept wing "backwards" airplane with uber cool gull wing doors. All it really lacked was a cool DANGER emblem!



(Click any picture for a larger version)

It had a 540 cubic inch (8.85 liter) fuel injected engine with a custom throttle body and forced air induction system I had designed and built myself. This was driving a very high tech carbon fiber composite propeller I had ordered from Germany.



I had all these great plans about all leather bucket seats, suede headliners, excellent carpeting and the coolest paint job around.

Then I ran out of money and patientce, so I ended up flying for a year with the barest of essentials. I covered the seat frames with foam then bought four slip over seat covers from Wal-mart, you know, the ones intended to hide the tattered original covering on your seats? I was not hiding the covering that WAS the covering! :)



The interior was just bare ugly fiberglass and the outside was all in primer! But just look at that cool 16 channel digital engine monitor. Mmmmmmm.



Look at that glorious white primer! Hey, I did splurge on epoxy based white primer instead of the normal one part grey primer! Unlike the former Melek-mobile water would not hurt the epoxy based primer so maybe, just maybe I am not such a big redneck after all?

What the heck am I saying?!

If I could have thought of a way to use red rags for gas caps without them blowing off on the take off run I would have done it just for the effect!

Hey, as long as you are doing 200 mph (322 kph) who the heck cares what it looks like? Nothing epitomizes "redneck" more than that concept! Hmmmmm, in fact, as I think about it, on this project nerdyness was only a means by which to achieve perfect redneckedness.

Whoa, that's totaly deep! Suddenly I feel the need to meditate. Hey, rednecks can meditate!

Flying and talking.

Oh yeah, that reminds me!

On the very first flying trip I took with the family after I got my pilots license it turns out I said something stupid again.

Summer time in Texas makes for a lot of thermal activity. Flying through rising and sinking air can make for a rough ride. Another thing that can make a rough ride is the wind. Just like moving water hitting rocks in a stream and making white water, moving air hitting buildings and trees, etc make for turbulent rough air.

For our first trip as a family we were going to my in-laws. It is an 8+ hour drive and in my first plane it’s a 3 hour flight (I have a faster plane now and its only two hours now) My wife was terrified of flying. Her only incentive to get into this plane was to cut 6 hours off the trip to see her family. Of course, my then 10 year old son can not WAIT to get into the plane. He thought this was going to be way cool!

So we left at 6:00 Am on Saturday morning. It was cool and the wind was dead calm. As we departed the ride was like a canoe on a glassy pond or like a Cadillac on new asphalt; Smooooooth. My ex was digging it! The ride was so smooth she wondered what she was ever afraid of.

The plan was to do the same thing Sunday morning, leave by at least 9:00 am so we would get back to Dallas before it got too hot and the winds started kicking up.

But oh no! The in-laws made a breakfast spread fit for two kings and the coffee and the talk, talk, talk went on and on. I kept saying, "Honey we got to go, it's going to get hot and rough, I don't mind but you wont like it at all!"
"Just one more cup of coffee dear", and the gab-fest continued.

We did not get off the ground until 1:00 PM. That put us in Dallas at 4:00, the hottest time of the day. It was like 109 degrees and the wind was HOWLING at 25+ plus miles per hour. In the very small plane I had then the ride was comparable to off roading or white water rafting. It was ROUGH.

Predictably, the ex is terrified, she is sitting in the center of the back seat holding the grab handles above each door for dear life. Here eyes were closed and occasionally she would even whimper in fear. Meanwhile, my son, up in the front seat with me, is having a pretty good time. "Weeeee! Hit another bump Dad!"

We finally arrive at the home airport, it's almost over! I lined up with the runway and started descending to the runway for landing. I hit an updraft. A big mass of rising hot air. I am trying to go down and this is lifting me up. It's a glider pilots dream but I want down! I put in all the flaps (air brakes for all intents and purposes) and brought the engine back to complete idle but I still am not going down and the runway is getting closer. I am going to be too high and too close to make a landing.

This is where pilot training kind of bit me. Again, in training we are always talking out loud. If my instructor was sitting beside me he can see we are too high and too close and he is wondering if I know it. So I would say it when I realize it so he knows that I know.

This is a pretty standard situation. It happens all the time, you just put the power back in circle around and set up to land again- its called a "go around". As pilots we are told over and over again to never push a bad set up, just go around and set up again.

Anyone remember that Southwest Airlines flight that ran off the end of the runway in Chicago a few years ago? This was exactly the situation they were in. Too high and too close but instead of going around they pushed it and then they were going to fast to stop before the end of the runway.

So, as I am looking down seeing that we are too high and too close I decided that we were not going to make a landing on this setup. So talking to my "instructor" I said out loud, "We are not going to make it." and got ready to go around. Which I dreaded because everyone including me was ready to end this rough ride.

Maybe ten seconds go by and my inner self says to me, "Hey stupid, what words did you just say out loud? Did you just tell your terrified wife "We are not going to make it"?"
"Uh", I replied to myself, "Well yes, I did say those words but it should be obvious what I meant. Besides, they probably did not even hear me."
"Oh really? Why don't you take a look and see?"

So I looked over at my then 10 year old son in the seat next to me and I will never forget his big blue eyes looking up at me in complete terror! Oh, yeah, he heard me. So if the one who has not been scared is now terrified because of my big mouth what does the already terrified one in the back seat look like?

I look back and she had one arm looped though the handhold, both feet are braced against the back seats and she has one hand over her eyes. She may even be making peace with her God. I'm not sure.

OK Rob, pull your foot out of you mouth now! "No, no, no guys! That is not what I meant! We are fine, we are safe, we are just not going to make a landing this time around! It's OK I swear!"
And we did make a nice easy landing after all.

On the bright side, on all future trips, we always got out before it got hot! I never ever heard "Just one more cup of coffee" again.