[Auth. note – for better context, these are the previous “episodes” in this series: AMST 1, AMST 2, AMST 3, AMST 4, AMST 5, AMST 6, AMST 7]
A Collection of Tales
Always remember, Kids! Even under the best of circumstances, it can all go to shit in an instant.
– One of my flight instructors, or my law partner shortly before oral argument in court (possibly both).
I. The Luck o’ the Irish.
Wally Adamchik, callsign “Angry”, tried out for – and won – the audition to be the mascot for Notre Dame when he was a student there in the ‘80s. If you saw him, you would appreciate that it was destiny: guy looks like the walking embodiment of the Fighting Irish tattoo you see on Southie boys. A red-headed, fiery-faced madman, with an impish smile was he.
Just days before I was leaving on deployment, Bill and I ran into Angry and another pilot at the ATM outside the base exchange. Wally had heard about our crash and now the gap between us didn’t seem as far as the differences in rank and time-in-service; he was just about to go on terminal leave and exit the Corps, and flying Snakes, forever. I had heard the rough outline from other people over the time I was in the squadron, but never from Angry himself. After I told him my view of our mishap, his came tumbling out.
Angry was in the front seat, just like I had been, with a very capable pilot in back known for being a good stick. He and ‘Box’ Matkin were on a night shoot on low light level conditions (less than .0023 lumens, for those who care about such things, or – as we frequently said in honor of an older pilot who coined the phrase – “it was darker than the inside of a coal miner’s ass.”) They were part of a section doing some training in the lead-up to the Gulf War – the first one, back in 1991. Angry had his head down “in the bucket” – looking through the telescopic sight unit (TSU) – while shooting at some sand dunes in the desert. NVGs are a technological wonder, but despite videogame depictions, they do not turn night into day. It’s shades of green and one of the biggest limitations is the loss of genuine depth perception. The other is the narrow field of view (about 40º), so it’s like looking through an empty christmas paper tube.
The desert, much like the ocean, is a seductive mistress. The human eye relies upon contrast and movement. The ocean, when calm, like the desert, can be deceptive because of the lack of contrast.
Wally said that as they were getting closer to the target, they hadn’t noticed that the ground sloped up underneath them, and at the last second he got some inkling that they were in trouble; somehow Box pulled power at the last moment as they impacted the ground, and miraculously they managed to fly away from the ground after striking it, the aircraft seemingly intact as they climbed out from near-death. It was a few moments before their wingan could catch up to them and, after a visual inspection, informed them that they were missing their skids. On a flyover of the impact site, Wally and Box’s skids were sitting in the desert sand, ripped off of the bottom of the aircraft, perfectly straight, and otherwise intact – but stuck in the desert sands below.
Thankfully, Box managed to fly them back to some airport in the rear where mechanics built a lash-up where Box maneuvered the helicopter into place until it could be stabilized and wouldn’t fall over upon shutdown. Voilà! They got to keep their wings! But no air medal for Box for some amazing stickwork… because you don’t get an air medal when you fly a perfectly functional aircraft into the ground in the first place, no matter how good the subsequent save is.1 Wally told of Box’s airwork best: “Barney, if he doesn’t hit skids perfectly straight – if there’s even a hint, one degree, of lateral drift, we fucking cartwheel across the desert floor.”
Maybe it’s the luck of the Irish, or maybe it’s just great basic airmanship by Box; I’ll raise my glass to either and both.
And the best postscript to any mishap, ever: after saving the aircraft, it was put on a truck to return to its base and get new skids. Unfortunately, the truck drivers didn’t quite get the memo about bridge height and the top of the Cobra: the rotor head smacked a bridge in transit, destroying the aircraft, proving again that in the Marine Corps, no good deed goes unpunished.
II. Smells Like Engine Failure.
One of the highlights of my aviation career is that as the junior Cobra pilot in the Detachment, I got paired with the senior Cobra pilot as my combat crew – Major Nick “Festus” Hall. Festus had come to our squadron (HML/A-269) from the west coast, we’re he’d racked up at least three WestPac deployments. He was also a graduate of the helicopter test pilot school at NAS Patuxent “Pax” River, Maryland. Not only had he completed a tour at test pilot school, his project aircraft while there was ours – the Whiskey model Cobra. As I understand it, that is not the normal way of things for Pax River test pilots; usually you work on a number of different projects and might learn to fly several different aircraft types and models and work on various individual projects, like flight envelope or engine testing on one aircraft, or a weapons system test on a different one, etc. But Festus was “right place, right time” and had worked on much of the flight testing that made up significant chunks of our aircraft’s NATOPS Manual. It is no exaggeration to just cut to the chase and say he was the f***ing Man on the Whiskey Cobra.2 What it meant for me was flying day-in, day-out, while on deployment, and living just around the corner from, the most complete, most knowledgeable, best pilot I ever saw – period.
The problem was that he wasn’t exactly expansive on the subject – or any subject, for that matter. Festus was a taciturn guy by nature, with an engineering degree from Penn State. He had a capacious mind with an encyclopedic knowledge of flying helicopters and velvet hands to match. One time, we were both testing aircraft off the back of the ship3 and I had just landed ahead of him. I waited for him to finish – shut down, handlers to pull his aircraft off the spot and into the “bone yard” – so we could talk on the walk in. One of our mechs came up to ask about his test and he replied by explaining that there was a hydraulic line under a panel just aft of his seat that was vibrating. I had no idea what he was talking about…
I thought I knew my aircraft – all of the numbers, parameters, procedures, etc. – but I realized he knew all of that, PLUS he had seen that bird pulled apart, skinned, and put back together. He knew how it was wired the way you might expect a vascular surgeon to know your veins and arteries. (Of course I later followed-up with the open-mouthed mech and Festus was correct about the hydraulic line).
And then this happened…
…We’re doing an exercise on the island of Sardinia, Italy. I don’t even think we had live ordnance, it’s just make believe bombs dropping, but as part of the exercise, we’re going to “call in” – direct Harriers from out ship – onto a target on a very narrow plateau at the top of a mountain. Because of the terrain, there wasn’t any good place for us to be, so we find ourselves in – yes, you guessed – yet another high hover hold off the side of a plateau, with a cliff dropping off beneath us. Once again, on the absolute wrong side of the Deadman’s Curve. And it’s the kind of cliff that if our engines fail, we are going to be going on a very, very shitty roll 200′ feet to the base of this mountain. The “hill” that Bill and I stuck our helo to in 29 Palms (See AMST-6)? It doesn’t even deserve to be proximate to a sentence about the terrain we were hovering over in Sardinia.
Festus is sitting in the back, and flying, while I’m in the front seat just finishing my call with the Harriers as they pull off the target.
Harriers: Lightning Five-One and Five-Two are clear; returning to Mother. (“Mother” is our term for the ship’s navigational beacon. Frequently it gets used to refer to the ship itself.) Me (on radio): Copy, Five-One. Harriers: Switching. Me: Double-click of the mic to acknowledge. Me (over ICS): Welp, I guess those guys really are one pass, haul ass. Festus: Yup. [Pause] Barney, you smell something… burning? I might as well not have a nose for all I can smell. I boxed and played hockey as a kid and, given my mouth, the proboscis has been busted and reset a few times. Me: Burning? Festus: Engine.
The way he said engine made my eyes snap to the engine six-pack, which includes the temperature and engine oil temperatures for each. A lot can be diagnosed about the health – or sickness – of an engine from just the six-pack. I saw the temperature spiking on our #2, the right engine, climbing through the upper end of the normal temperature range of 867º C into the yellow. Normal (unrestricted) operating temps are 400º-801º, with short, transient spikes allowed into the upper 900ºs.
Now having been trained in the Old Fashioned Way to be truly paranoid, I looked at the other engine, momentarily ignoring the one rapidly over-temping, and I’ll be damned, but that sucker – our #1 – had rolled back to flight idle. It was causing #2 to overtemp.
In the moment it took me to key the mic, and say something like, “One’s rolled back,” Festus’ hands were already in action: I could “feel” that he had seen it, too, as he dropped the collective at the same time he pedal turned putting us nose down the cliff so we could essentially fall/glide down the ridge, requiring no power, letting the temperature come down on the right engine because there was no load, and his voice came on at the same time he executed the pedla turn, calm and collected:
“One’s at idle; locking out one,” he was using a procedure that would “lock out” our Engine Electronic Control Unit (EECU), a shiny silver box of computing technology that sat at the bottom of each engine and enabled the engines to talk to each other – “cross-talk” – and thereby share the power demands on all of the various systems of the helicopter. Festus bypassed the unit and, like they did in the old days of rotary-wing flight, controlled fuel flow to the engine by twisting his wrist on the collective as he pulled up or down, increasing or decreasing power demand. Number One came back on line as the mountain fell away under and behind us and it was immediately clear that the EECU had been the problem. With it removed from the equation, we had two engines back at full power, as Number Two’s temperature came back down into normal range.
Here’s the insidious thing: we had an emergency that in our NATOPS manual could very well be diagnosed as an “Engine Overheating/Overtemperature”. The schoolbook immediate action EP (emergency procedure) would be to cut power to the “affected engine” – that is, roll the throttle of the over-temping engine to flight idle. Had we done that without checking the Number 1 engine first, we would have had exactly zero fully operating engines, two at flight idle, and we would have been toast – right into that mountain. But Festus had smelled the #2 over-temping before it got high enough to be “shitty” – giving us an extra handful of seconds that were critical in diagnosing that the underlying reason that #2 was overheating – because #1 was at idle. I was proud that I had caught in an instant after he did; but never did it feel truly dangerous. He handled it so matter-of-fact that I can’t recall feeling a moment of fear.
After radio calls to our wing and then landing down at the beach, we called back to the ship, explained to our maintenance department what was up and that lockout appeared to have solved the problem, and then we flew the bird back to the ship. No fuss, no muss.
An engineering investigation (E-I) found later that the ceramic-insulated electronic cables that connected our engine EECUs, under high heat conditions (!!) could cause volt spikes that “look” to the EECU as erroneous data, which might explain the rollbacks. Messages at that time were coming in fairly regularly of single-engine rollbacks on the Cobra’s T-700 engines from all over the Fleet. When they were able to replicate the rollback on a bench test with our cable, I felt no small degree of professional vindication, though I don’t have conclusive “proof” that happened in Bill and I’s specific mishap because no one had thought to look for such a fault previously. After all, the cables were designed to operate in temperatures that ran to almost 1000º Celsius.
III. “You don’t wanna know.”
Shortly after the engine rollback with Festus, later on during this same NATO exercise over Sardinia, a small detachment of us were sent ashore, forward deployed with the British Royal Marines Four-Two (42) Commando Squadron. It was early May, 1995.
Jim “Jinx” Jenkins played linebacker at Cornell before becoming a Cobra pilot. This was his second deployment; he would later go on to command our squadron from 2007-2009. We came within a second of dying together one night in Sardinia.
Sardinia is a large island north of the top of the boot of Italy, more like off of Italy’s knee, just south of the island of Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea.
Jinx and I were flying together, with Mike “Woodman” Wood and Clark “Swab” Cox as our wingman. It was a late night launch and would be a low light level NVG flight. We were supporting 4-2 and an infantry assault of NATO forces near a place called Stagno de San Giovanni – St. John’s Pond. It’s an inlet on the western edge of the island and the NATO forces were moving north, from the south, headed towards a canal outside of a small town. Within the exercise, that canal was acting as a limiting feature for the NATO troops and fire support control measure for us, allowing us to pretend to shoot (no live rounds on this one) north of the canal. At the time, I was going through a phase where I was recording flights using a voice-activated walkman with earphones under my helmet.4 This particular flight seemed interesting, and, at the least, would allow me to record all of our NATO allies and their funny accents so we could poke fun at them later back on the ship.
Everything was going along fairly uneventfully, although the water was unusually calm that late night/early morning hours. As a result, if you looked at the land, you could see and sense altitude, but if we happened to be turning toward or facing the water, there was a distinct illusion that we were flying in space. The stars above reflected below on the water made the sea disappear – it was impossible to see where the sky ended and the water began, like flying in space.
As we came in from the west over the San Giovanni’s stagno at 300 feet AGL looking at the land, we were south of the canal trying to locate the NATO troops while talking to our British ground controller, a forward observer who was going to practice calling us in using a 9-line format. This produced a funny exchange where he was trying to talk our eyes onto the advancing troops who were carrying infrared chem-lights on the back of their packs.
Me: Did he say look for the violins? Jinx: (laughing) He said ‘Cy-illumes.’ Me: Cyalumes? Jinx: Chem-lights. Me: Ohhhh… Limey bastards! Speak ‘Merican! Jinx: You see ‘em? Wai- there they are. Me: Tally! Looks like we’re about a click-and-a-half south of the canal. Jinx: Coming left.
We were behind our own troops running perpendicular to their line of advance, so we needed to get back out west and make another run in just in front of the canal. Jinx did a 180º turn back towards the water. As we headed out the dark glass, stars were everywhere above and below us. I looked over my shoulder to check on Clark and Mike and ensure they were with us, then I looked back down at my map to re-orient.
As Jinx did another 180º to the right to get us lined up with the canal, I had a sinking sensation and looked at my barometric altimeter, where the needle was moving down through 100 feet. The front seat in the Cobra did not have a radar altimeter, but given our proximity to the water, the “bar alt” was pretty close to the rad-alt, with a little lag.
Me: Altitude.
I felt the aircraft buck as Jinx pulled the nose back and grabbed an armful of collective.
Me: Whoa.
Jinx: Sorry.
We continued on our run-in across the forward edge of the troops, just north of the canal simulating a gun and rocket run with our wing right along side covering our pull-off.
After that we hurried back to refuel and sit to await our next call for air support. On the way back to our refueling point, I was curious about Jinx’s power pull.
Me: How close were we to the water?
Jinx keyed the mic for a second and there was just static, then after a long pause, his voice came back flat and serious: You don’t wanna know.
After the mission ended, we returned to the ship. Our other 2 Cobras and Hueys would replace us and we would get some sleep, then rejoin the exercise in the morning. Back on the boat, after we shut down, Clark and Mike came by our room for a quick debrief.
Clark: What did you guys see in the water?
Me: What’s that?
Mike: Did you guys see some dolphins or seals or something in that inlet, that pond?
Me: Dolphins? What are you talking about?!
Clark: When you guys were air-taxiing over the water, as we turned back in for that simulated gun-run…
Mike: …Yeah, we could see the salt-spray from your rotor-wash on the water.
My eyes met Jinx’s and he stared at me.
Me: We weren’t air-taxiing…
Mike and Clark got somber in an instant, as they realized what had happened. We had gotten to within 10 feet of the water, maybe less, so close that our rotorwash had thrown up mist and spray.
Coda: The definition of an optimist.
Flashing back to “The Crash” – A few days after Bill and I had crashed in the desert, a bunch of us were out for our daily run in the desert. Someone was training for the Marine Corps marathon in the fall and most of us took up running with our mate out of solidarity. Wouldn’t hurt to keep us in shape, either.
Right after we finished running, A. R. “Rick” Lyman, a Huey pilot and Naval Academy graduate who looked like Steve McQueen, pulled out a cigarette and lit up.
We were all still catching our breath from the 8-mile run and someone in the group couldn’t contain their surprise.
“Jesus, Rick!”
“What?” Rick said as he took a long drag on his Marlboro.
“You’re not worried about lung cancer?”
Rick Lyman took another, extra-long haul, held it, and looked at me, his cigarette between his fingers. Then he turned to his questioner:
“Well aren’t you the fucking optimist – a helicopter pilot who’s worried he’s gonna die of lung cancer from smoking,” and he turned to me as he said it to catch my eye. All of us, including the CO, started guffawing.
From that moment on our squadron had a new, Ambrose Bierce-like definition of “optimist” – “a helicopter pilot who smokes and thinks he’s going to die of lung cancer.”
1 Ed. note – Wally and Box were both great guys and pilots. Box was my instructor for my first Fleet boat landings and he did have “silky mitts,” to borrow a hockey term.
2 As further proof of this, I note that he would go on in his career to make Colonel and become the “Class Desk” for the AH-1W, the duty matter expert in the Marine Corps for our aircraft.
3 One of the more risky things we probably do is testing off the back of the ship. Aircraft require maintenance and after you’ve done as much as you can do while chained to the deck, at some point, you have to have confidence that the aircraft can be flown – you go to the back of the ship, in its wake, and then conduct all of the your “hover checks” off the back, in case you go swimming, you’re at least in the ship’s wake and they have a better chance of finding you. I’m not kidding about this.
4 I would tell anyone I flew with so this wasn’t surreptitious to capture anything in particular. It was mostly boredom – something funny or interesting would happen and I would have a recording of it on cassette. The group of us would then have something to laugh about until I recorded over one of the three 90-minute cassettes that I had.
only 500km from Pianosa !
Oh wow. I had to look that up – what a tiny little bit of paradise just to the northeast.
Am I wrong in thinking people should already know Sardinia?
Or have I played too many strategy games set in Europe?
Ukraine is game to you?!
Crimea River.
We’ve got the AH-1Z now. Was there another iteration after the W?
Nope – the “Yankee” for the Huey (UH-1Y) replaced the venerable November model, and the Z replaced the W on the AH side.
From that moment on our squadron had a new, Ambrose Bierce-like definition of “optimist” – “a helicopter pilot who smokes and thinks he’s going to die of lung cancer.”
Amazing. Thanks, Ozy!
Any time for hockey these days?
Absolutely! KC (South) got a new rink and I managed to weasel in on one of the 50+ teams at the new rink, plus I’m playing “C” league with the kids. I’m subbing in tonight, in fact, in an hour, for another team in the 45+ division – one of their guys got hurt.
Fuck yeah!
Playing in a high C league with my son and his buddy. Won the championship last night, so I have a few weeks to heal before winter season lol. It’s weird being the oldest guy on the ice.
Actually, scratch that – Game just cnx’d on account of no goalies available. Open ice – so I’m staying home.
B’s are on.
You don’t mean Bruins?
(ew)
They are not good this year. Made a bunch of signings that are just… meh.
One of us! One of us!
(Of course the Rhode Islander is a B’s fan)
QUAHOAGS (THAT’S CAW-HAWGS) FOR ALL MY FRIENDS!!
Although, you’re of an age:
The Mighty Whale or The B’s?
Oh, hardcore B’s fan. My grandfather was a Canadiens’ fan, like his Canuck family, but my dad – born and raised in Johnston, RI, was a diehard B’s fan and I was born right in the beginning of the Bruins’ magical 69-70 cup-winning season. So, yeah, #4 is still the best evah as far as I’m concerned.
You may appreciate what’s hanging behind my desk, Ozzy:
https://ibb.co/NTYQ3wv
I had a feeling before I clicked. I got him to sign my sports law book in 1999 on the page that talks about the Draft – as a legal concept – and has a footnote about how the Bruins’ bought the entire league that Orr was playing in just so that they would have his rights.
He loved that he was in a sports law book footnote.
As in you wrote a book on sports law or just that you owned one?
See below – misthreaded my comment for you. I didn’t write a sports law book.
Ghey.
Although I used to go to the baby Bs in Providence.
Another great story.
Thanks, kinnath.
I was very fortunate to fly with Nick “Festus” Hall. Just an unbelievable pilot and good human. Once I got to know his sense of humor, funny as hell, too. Dry as the desert was his humor, but wicked.
I cringe when I read these stories.
I have not worked any rotary wing projects. I imagine a lot of the new technology helps with situational awareness. I hope we are helping to make these stories less common.
No.
well shit.
I suppose I can retire then.
😉
I hope you will stick around through the end of this series when I delve into my “aircraft procurement” story. It’s the last two pieces, about 7 or 8 more down the road. I’ll be curious to hear what you think about it.
I am fascinated. I’m not going anywhere.
I joined a team that was just finishing up a project with the AFRL. They were fly testing a highway in the sky solution on the HUD.
They were flying Speckled Trout on complex, curved flight paths at 200 ft AGL with terrain just off the wing tips. The pilot flying could not see out the window, but the pilot monitoring could.
They were flying lower that helos operating in the area. They had multiple calls from the public that a plane crashed in the desert because they saw the aircraft descend over terrain and never come back up.
This was 20 years ago. As far as I know, it’s still not out in the field.
I’m an aviation enthusiast, but here’s two things I learned flying helicopters, and explains what keeps them relatively in the dark ages technologically: (1) no matter what they do, they just can’t get dampen the “rattling” or the “bumping” (vibrations) of the rotor heads and drive shafts out of helicopter frame, and it’s tough on sophisticated electronics. I know of no piece of electronics equipment that functions “well” while being shaken up and stirred like it’s in cookie batter with the electric blades beating it. (2) The cost in weight for super-cool electronics and the required dampening cuz of #1 means “this is why we can’t have nice things.”
No, I was a 3L law student art the time, in early 99, and it just happened to be in this brand new textbook we had for this first of a kind “sports law” course taught by an alumni who was a lawyer working as a lobbyist for the MLB players union. Complete serendipity that Orr would be signing autographs at a Bess Eaton doughnut shop across the river in S. Portland while I was on my way home from class one night. My wife called and told me and I waited in line to shake his hand and spend a minute or two with him. Just an amazing human as I’m sure you know.
“Well aren’t you the fucking optimist – a helicopter pilot who’s worried he’s gonna die of lung cancer from smoking,” and he turned to me as he said it to catch my eye. All of us, including the CO, started guffawing.
From that moment on our squadron had a new, Ambrose Bierce-like definition of “optimist” – “a helicopter pilot who smokes and thinks he’s going to die of lung cancer.”
I like it.
When Rick said that I almost split a gut laughing. One of the wittiest comebacks in the moment that I’ve ever seen.
He looked like the reincarnation of Steve McQueen as a Huey pilot; that dude was simply too cool for school.
It’s witty as fuck. I certainly see how being a helicopter pilot could bring out the inner Silver Screen Steve McQueen out in a man. (Oooh. Say the capitalized bit five fast.) Mostly the sexy swagger, for all good and ill. (I also admire McQueen for his love of racing and just being for show.)
Shit just looked up his racing. Didn’t specifically know he also flew. And a damn biplane! Fits the bill nicely.
Yeah… there is kind of a ‘type.
OT – There’s a nifty animated episode on the new “Secret Level” series on Amazon (by some of the development crew behind Love, Death and Robots) – based on the LT Titus from the Warhammer 40k Space Marine games. Episode 5. (I might check out some of the other eps later). Good stuff. Pretty authentic with the lore, etc.
Also, some good news updates from Henry Cavill today about Amazon and Games Workshop making progress with an upcoming series or two.
I know he’s a Warhammer junkie, and I’ve been hearing about this for some time, so I’m curious to see what they spin out of it.
I don’t know the game, but his mania is intriguing.
I’ve loved these, Ozzy.
Were you particularly unlucky or is flying helicopters just that dangerous?
(Like motorcycles – “there are two kinds of motorcycle riders – those who have crashed…”)
It is just that dangerous.
If you talked to most guys who did a full 3 year fleet tour, each would be able to recount a batch of stories like mine – maybe not all, not some of the bigger ones – but any guy could string together 10-12 “holy shit that was close!!” kind of stories.
“Basically, it’s a maniac’s job”
I had a friend in college who had been an instructor pilot during Vietnam. He was full of stories of his students experiences in Vietnam. At least, he only told me the stories of the students that walked away from their mishaps.
sb – None of that really gets fleshed out in “Top Gun” and by the time you – the frog – start to recognize the reality of the H2O temperature, it’s kinda too late.
You’re “pot committed” for sure. (HA!)
slumbrew – I’m responding to your “It’s a maniac’s job” comment out here because it does touch on the theme that I started this whole thing with re: guys like Bud Holland and how you get shit like the Fairchild crash. Now B-52s aren’t Snakes and that’s part of what I was trying to convey – in Holland you’ve got a mismatch between personality type and aircraft type (and concomitant mission). A guy like Holland probably kills himself in any airframe, but then again… it may be that flying actually close to the ground and quick would have bred in him the proper respect to go with his ego’s “need for speed.” But then again…
In any event, it’s a “maniac’s job” in the same way that underwater welding is a “maniac’s job” – except with lower pay. The risks are manageable, but the demands are such that you’re operating in a regime in which the margins for error are very small, like racing motorcycles in the TT or being an F1 driver.
Thanks, Ozzy.
The comparison to underwater welding is a good one (I sorta know one of those); those guys don’t have the “showboat” gene that some military pilots seem to have. Showing off gets you killed, regardless of your age.
(as an aside, that line is me (probably misremembering) a quote from a bad movie regarding firemen – “Building catches on fire, people run out of the building, you run into the building – basically, it’s a maniac’s job”)
There’s one other psychological aspect to this, too, which works all across the armed forces and has since time immemorial: “The Other Guy” phenomenon. This is where soldiers – or risktakers more broadly – manage to convince themselves that no matter the riskiness of the profession, they are immune to the kind of idiocy or “bad luck” that befalls others – it’s always “The Other Guy.”
When I was at CrossFit, we used to tease Andy Stumpf about this exact phenomenon, back when he was a very active wingsuit guy and still doing a lot of skydiving. Dave or someone would hear about the latest tragedy in which dude-in-a-wingsuit died hitting a bridge abutment, or the side of a mountain, etc. Andy would have a detailed explanation of the mishap and why he would never have made such a mistake and then we would all laugh in his face. I recognized it immediately because of how much it sounded like me from decades earlier when I’d been flying helicopters. So there is that, too.
“I’m not a dumbass like _that_ guy”.
A smart-person disease.
Marginally on topic:
“Patient’s anxiety has been well controlled […] patient’s migraines have been well controlled.” […] “Patient switched jobs.” […] “No longer working in the school district.”
No cause and effect there. Nope. Not at all.
Ha… I can’t thank big bro enough for disabusing me of the notion that teaching might be any kind of profession for me.
What portion is the students and what portion is the other teachers/district?
In his case it was the administration.
I’m sure that would have been the same for me but I would probably have had to add the students too, knowing me.
Interesting as always Ozy, mahalo.
The SecArmy fires a GEN for improper command influence….finally.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/army-fires-general-for-improperly-influencing-subordinate-s-selection-for-command/ar-AA1vCiRA?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=5aa4fe3b87ca41caae0456451a3a79e2&ei=66
Let’s see if they have the guts to go after a star or two.
Mahalo, DE. How’s the sailing?
The stargazing out your way this time of the year is some of the best on the planet.
That link is awful. Doesn’t seem like they’re going to take a star. He’s getting praise for “all of his years of dedicated service” (Oh, also, we couldn’t “definitely prove” that there was a sexual relationship. That’s double-speak for “we have emails that show they’re fucking, but we don’t actually have pictures or video en flagrante delecto.”) Glad my watch is done.
Bullshit all the way down. Coed US Army fuck party continues.
Really enjoyed this batch of recollections. This might be the best one so far. And having driven (cars) in some pretty foul conditions (like a fool) I can appreciate the ‘oh shit’ moments. Reminded me of some of my dad’s war stories when he was a B-17 bombardier/navigator/radar man.
My one question was I’m not certain I understand the slang term ‘collectives’. From the context I figured that it was a ‘stick’ with all the manual controls/override controls on it. is that so.
Great question. I think I kinda glazed over it, but the collective in a helicopter works in a very different way than the “power lever” in a plane does. To wit – in a plane, you push the power lever forward and you get power/thrust/more zoomies forward = more airspeed, which is more lift over the wings.
The “wing” in a helicopter, the blade, is spinning and so when you use, the collective lever, you pull up, raising the pitch on the blades in a synchronous manner such that the blades “bite” into more air, making them want to “climb” in the air, but that’s why we tilt the whole “disc” forward and then the body of the helicopter basically follows along on the back of the helicopter’s disc.
It is a very, very different thing aerodynamically, and basically “Fox-Mike.”
“FM” = F*cking Magic
Ozzy, one of us may be a mush and have to stop watching Bruins games…
Fuck. I know.
Sexually attractive nude women with unusually large breasts.
https://archive.is/eORpo/760c22465c1bbabd36c122bb91653168c653be8f.jpg
NSFW.
https://archive.is/fox40/a87f4e348af35f3ab1382e0f71ab55fb76c4347f.jpg
NSFW.
https://archive.is/CcCwD/cb569725410147a36f49d0fae899725a6e154b6c.jpg
NSFW.
https://archive.is/jRVb8/5cc9c24259bbf0206a4b0048e69378e2c17b561e.jpg
NSFW.
https://archive.is/jzb7M/644ce5d38fbb6115cf69b7cfb9a258ec40208a39.jpg
NSFW.
2
Good [whatevers] get lucky. Great [whatevers] make their luck.
Been busy, missed this.
https://x.com/elonmuskaoc/status/1866285929473970349
What’s Wendy’s corporate stance on reporting wanted fugitives?
Depends on if the fugitive is a Bad Boy who gets leftist hearts fluttering.
I’m hoping the BK screenshot is fake…
It is.
Yeah this is truly sickening. Two boys will have Christmas without their father because some loon has a grudge against an unpopular industry, and the ghouls on the left think it’s great.
I’m with Suthen: lefties are the same no matter the time or place, these assholes would fit in perfectly in Stalinist Russia.
I mentioned in another thread that it feels like the hate being ginned up against this CEO is a lot like the hate ginned up against landlords. That latter hate has of course led to terrible policy such as rent control.
It’s also the same sort of hate that leads some people to think “greedflation” is a real thing.
In a separate point, it’s interesting how the Mangione manifesto has been released (or at least something purporting to be his manifesto), but we still can’t get the so-called trans Nashville shooter’s manifesto.
It’s almost like the media is curated to push a narrative.
They might not snitch but their burgers taste like shit and you’ll burp fake charbroil flavor for the rest of they day. Duly noted though, if I’m ever on the run for murder 1 I’ll consider eating there.
It’s twue
Don’t get me started on their “onion rings”.
Winston’s Mom says, “Piker.”
I do and do not feel very badly for this girl. On the one hand, she’s a product of her milieu. On the other hand, she thought there wouldn’t be any consequences.
Well, sometimes, the consequences are just a divot out of your soul.
She’s a whore realizing she’s a whore. If she mends her ways and gets a real job I’ll feel bad for her, otherwise she’s just selling pussy for money.
In and Out brand competition
Good morning all you fun people!
😋☕
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vN7HQrgakZU
🎶🎶
Whycome you discriminate against us unfun people?
Good morning, Sean, U, EfE, Ted’S., and Stinky!
Morning.
How goes?
Pretty good! I actually felt not rushed at work yesterday, so I was able to catch up on a couple of things. At the end of the day, I remembered, “Oh, yeah – I think we have some new hires starting Monday. I’d better set a reminder for tomorrow to make sure I have all their paperwork.” Put it on my mobile phone calendar on my way out the door.
How are you?
I made it to the office.
There’s no parade of minor irritations to recite. Still don’t know what I did to my toe or what I need to do to help it heal. Nor what I did to my finger or what I need to do to help that heal. I don’t want to start getting expensive diagnostic tests for minor pains, but they haven’t gone away.
Oohkay. Gotta price my plasma, Phleb skills by Sat. Gonna be a pokin’ focused day. Glad I took my currently rationed anxiety meds, along w Adderall to dampen my brain and reinforce constant vigilance.
Wish me profound luck. Imma need it, but feel chill and focused today. Being it on world.
“I ain’t shook!”
You can do this.
Trump fragrances:
https://gettrumpfragrances.com/
Not affiliated with Donald Trump, only $199 per bottle. I wonder if I can rebottle Old Spice and get in on this grift.
Heh, sold by some LLC under a license agreement, what a scam.
I hate multitasking.
Currently I’ve got two upgrades, a mass reconfiguration to fix an error, an external “review” of our environment (read: Audit), the roll-out of a new tool to update workflow, a revamp of user roles and permissions, a consolidation of environments, an employee who needs too much supervision, a client agency migrating to a new environment, an intermittant error causing data loss, and a bunch of people who seem allergic to reading my emails.
Some of that is technically deligated, but I have to stay on top of it regardless.
‘I hate multitasking.”
I always wanted to complete one task before starting another. I worked for a boss that would call frequently, like every day or two, telling me “Here’s what I want you to do, this is the most important thing you have to do” . OK but I still a dozen uncompleted projects that were the most important thing I had to do, waiting. I would have all the projects lined up in matters of importance. I tried to action everyone everyday, some times I couldn’t get to them before daylight ran out. Somehow, my Most Important” weren’t the most important to the other action people. Then after a few days, the boss would call, “How we doin’ on…”. Drop everything and restart on THAT Most Important project…
We had a saying for that. “When everything is top priority, nothing is.”
I got so engrossed with these aviation mishaps last night that I had a kitchen mishap.
The good news is the smoke detectors work.
I’m unclear if the butter solids are now a permanent part of the cast iron pan.