When my daughters were young, they liked to go to amusement parks. We lived near Busch Gardens and Paramount Studios in Virginia. There were a lot of options in the mid-Atlantic in the 2000s for getting one’s thrill-ride on.
…But I was not a big-fan. Never have been.
The truth is, I f***ing hate those death-defying rides.
I would always think, “What would it be like if the cart lets go on that corner of the roller coaster? What do you think is going through the minds of those poor bastards as they’re flying – unattached – through space… clearly not on the original flight plan, as it were?”
This isn’t normal ill-wishing; nor the product of an overly active imagination.
As it turns out…
After my winging ceremony on May 21, 1993 – ahem. Excuse me. With more gravitas. After my graduation from Naval Flight Training as a basic rotary-wing (i.e. helicopter) pilot, my young wife, my two daughters, and I all got into my piece-of-shit, blue ’87 Chevy Corsica that I modified to put a tow hitch on bound for the west coast. We pulled away from NAS Pensacola with a U-Haul filled with our worldly possessions dragging behind and headed west on I-10 through Louisiana, endless Texas, and the rest of those big square states.
A very young Ozy in dress whites getting my gold wings pinned on. The commander is holding our newborn in the background while pointing, “You believe we winged this guy?”
Destination: Camp Pendleton, California, for HMT-303, the Marine Corps’ skid training squadron for AH-1 “Cobras” and UH-1 “Hueys,” both helicopters progeny of the Bell Helicopter Co. that traced their origins to the Vietnam War in the 1960s. In some cases, the data plates on the doors of our squadron’s Huey’s had birthdates older than the pilots flying them, originally entering service in the late-1960s. My aircraft, however, was the newer AH-1W SuperCobra, the -W variant of the breed, sometimes called simply ‘the Whiskey,’ from the military’s use of the phonetic alphabet for the letter.
After completing training in December 1993, we headed back east to my fleet squadron – HML/A-269, the Gunrunners. We lived in base housing: me, my wife, and our two girls, just across the road from one of the airfield’s two runways, nestled back in among the ubiquitous pines of North Carolina. By June of 1994, I had become a Pilot Qualified in Model (PQM): our CO, the inestimable R.E. “Saint” St. Pierre, said I was worthy of signing for one of the $15 million (or so) AH-1s on the flightline and assuming all responsibility for it. The next designation was AHC – Attack Helo Commander: that would mean that I could sign for a bird loaded with ordnance and was considered qualified to put steel-on-target. Big-boy toys.
The author landing aboard the USS Kearsarge (LHD-3)
And, oh! the Whiskey Cobra carried an awesome array of boomsticks: a 20MM three-barreled chain-gun in the nose that was good for somewhere in the range of 600 rounds per minute at max-blast, four wing-stations that could be loaded with everything from anti-radiation air-to-ground missiles to AGM-114 HELLFIRE missiles – squat, fat, tank-killers, of the laser-guided variety, that dropped down on top of a designated target, where no tank had adequate armor to protect from the roughly 7 pounds of composite-B explosive in a shaped charge rather impolitely knocking on the hatch; 19- and 7-shot pods of 2.75” rockets that could be stacked wing-to-wing, leading to apocryphal stories of guys who had fired “76 Trombones” – named for the old Broadway and Movie musical closing number of “The Music Man.” I didn’t care for the 2.75” much – they were just as likely to go off to the right 100 yards as they were to hit the target, but we had fired the remainder of our 5” Zuni rockets – the big boomers that the F-4 Phantoms used in diving fire against the North Vietnamese Army in Vietnam. The problem was that the rockets were so powerful that they would scorch the bejezus out of the side of the aircraft – AND they would wash out your night visions goggles when you fired them at night, something nobody really cares much for while trucking along toward a target at a couple of hundred feet off the ground and at about 150 mph in the pitch black. For all that, though, they flew straight as an arrow – just point. aim… and whoosh!
Insta-f*** somebody’s sh*t up.
This is not mere hyperbole, I feel compelled to add. When I was in Afghanistan ten years later, on the ground, I would occasionally be on the receiving end of rocket attacks in both of these rocket-flavors. The Russian 107MM (frequently) and 122MM (far less frequently, thankfully), were occasional delivered to our doors from Taliban and foreign fighters who found ingenious ways of using delayed fuses to fire these without consequence to them. (They would emplace them overnight and then walk back out of the mountains before the rockets would fire – an ammo can filled with water with a float switch and a hole punched in the bottom of the can). At any rate, the 107s whoosh and you can hear them incoming, but the 122s – a match of the 5” Zunis I mentioned above – would just “arrive.” And make a heap, big boom. One hit a girl’s school near our base, one we had built to educate the local Pashtun girls and generate goodwill, at the request of the tribal elders and local governance. They were over-the-moon about the opportunity for their daughters. We built it close enough to be within the ambit of our base’s protection, but a slightly long rocket hit it directly, mid-morning.
107mm rockets meant for our base that failed to ignite
That was all in the future, however. In July 1994, I just wanted to use the upcoming Combined Arms Exercises (CAX-9/10) at 29 Palms as a chance to get most of the training flights I needed to become an AHC. And have a helluva lotta fun firing rockets, missiles, calling in artillery and “fast-movers” – F18s loaded with the real, big-boy bombs, ready to drop on targets we marked and directed them onto out in the desert ranges of a Marine Corps Base known as “Twenty-Nine Palms,” located in the high California desert in the middle of nowhere. It’s one of the only places the Marine Corps can train in big numbers because there is enough space to use all of the combined arms in a place big enough to contain the sheer scale of the destructive force that a Marine Air-Ground Team can generate: F-18s and Harriers, attack helicopters, M1A1 Abrams tanks, 155MM artillery batteries, plus all of the weapons integral to a Marine Infantry Battalion, include 60MM and 81MM mortars, .50 cal machine guns, and (my favorite) Mark-19 grenade launchers, a 40MM belt-fed machine gun that fires hand-grenades. (I’m telling ya, until you’ve fired one of those things… man, you just can’t really appreciate how insane the technology we have for f***ing each other up is).
In parallel, I had begun working on my Post-Maintenance Functional Check Pilot (PM/FCP) designation. We called them FCPs, or ‘testers,’ but ‘guinea pigs’ would do. It was a local syllabus that gave pilot’s the ability to conduct tests after certain kinds of maintenance are performed on a helicopter – in order to ensure the aircraft is safe for the rest of the squadron’s pilots to use. For example, if you take the rotor blade off of the aircraft in order to conduct some maintenance on the transmission, after it gets put back on, the whole system – the rotor head – has to be tracked and balanced, and then vibration testing done using special equipment that is attached to the helicopter, both on the ground and in the air, in order to ensure the rotor is within safety limits. I was one of those knuckleheads who volunteered to get trained and do that nonsense.
I was well-into my functional check pilot syllabus when the whole squadron picked up, got loaded onto the massive C-5 Galaxy transport planes, and shipped to March Air Force Base that late-June of 1994. I was 24 years-young at the time. We unpacked and flew our helos out to the base through Banning Pass, took a lazy-left and swooped north just before Palm Springs, flying north of Joshua Tree National Park and following the highway until we popped north and landed at the EAF – expeditionary airfield – at Camp Wilson. Our home would be an aluminum quonset hut for the next 7 weeks, during two separate exercises for two different infantry battalions running three weeks of exercises. We would be the air support for both, with a one-week break in between. At the end, some of us would fly aircraft to Yuma in support of the Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI) course, like “Top Gun” for Marine helo pilots, except… an entirely professional affair because flying tactical aircraft is a dangerous business and acting like an asshole is a good way to go nowhere professionally, as well as also (possibly, likely?) earning you an ass-kicking in the O’Club after everyone’s had a few beers.
The boys having a visit
August 11, 1994, dawned scorching hot at the EAF, just like the day before, and the day after would be.
The EAF is made up steel matting, so in addition to the sun and outside air temperature, the matting heats up enough that you can occasionally find the troops showing a newbie that yes, an egg will actually cook on that steel decking at midday. My outside air temperature gauge showed something above 40 deg C, so Bill “Schlep” Dunn and I strapped in and got the engines started quickly. Thankfully, the AH-1W was equipped with a fantastic air-conditioning system that was piped through the seats. The Hueys next to us could open their doors and blow the outside hot desert air into the whole bird. They would swelter until we got off the ground and into some cooler air; we would mock them over the radios while the sweat dripped off their faces and onto their checklists.
Bill and I were joined by our wing aircraft. My closest peer and friend in the squadron Clark Cox was flying with a senior Captain from another squadron who had volunteered to augment us because we were short qualified instructors. We were scheduled to call-in artillery on some targets in Quackenbush Lake, while using our own rockets to mark and/or suppress other targets, under the watchful eye of some of the Marine Corps’ training staff who monitored our joint exercises to ensure we were blowing things up in the prescribed military manner.
While we were hovering in the foothills, and I was watching Clark finish up his call for fire, the “Rotor RPM” warning alarm went off. One of the investigations would later note that it was about 6.5 seconds from the moment the first engine coughed and rolled-back until we impacted the hill below us, breaking both sets of skids, the upslope set snapping off completely, the tail-stinger buried into the ground, fortuitously also sticking the helo to the ground, keeping us from bouncing down the side of the hill upon which we had crashed, rack-to-rack ordnance and two full buckets of magnesium flares, plus the 700 rounds of 20MM HEI in the ammo-can under the nose-gun – the thing that I was sitting on top of because I was in the front seat and Bill in the back.
A roughly 150’ drop, unpowered, into the foothills on the southeastern edge of Quackenbush Lake.
We walked away from it.
The CO came to the hospital, stood by our hospital beds, and told us that he had been to the crash site. We waited in silence reclining in our flight suits and boots. (We had walked down from the helipad carrying our own gear, but the hospital had gone nuts, we could secretly have broken backs and be moving on adrenaline, blah blah blah, so we laid in the beds feeling ridiculous.) Bill had signed for the bird and I knew his reputation as a pilot was on the line, so I waited quietly and seriously, though in truth I was giddy that we were alive.
“Saint”, worthy of his callsign, shook Bill’s hand, then shook mine, and told us he was proud of us. He told the flight surgeon: “Doc, as soon as they’re cleared med-up, I want them back on the flight schedule.” Bill and I flew less than 48 hours after the crash. 4 days later, with both an aircraft mishap investigation and a JAG Manual investigation ongoing into our crash, the CO signed my test papers. Everyone in the squadron knew, including the enlisted maintainers, who were well-aware of the crash – they’d had to pull the wreckage off of that hill and bring it back to the EAF.
It was right out of Wordsworth as far as I’m concerned –
“that best portion of a good man’s life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love.”
He could have waited, done a dozen different things, played the bureaucrat, but he didn’t. I was testing his aircraft every day, my signature The Word that the aircraft I had just tested was safe-for-flight: it would go on the sked the next morning, for one of the other pilots to fly, with confidence, because I had tested it.
He could have delayed all of it while the investigations were pending.
Six-and-a-half seconds from first blurp until impact.
The hardest part about it is that you have to drop the collective immediately, instantly, unthinkingly, because you need to get the rotor blades at as flat a pitch as possible, hope the sprag clutches work, cause the rotor-blades to disengage from the rest of the transmission drivetrain so it can freewheel, and save those rotations for the very bottom, when you pull up on the collective, but with no engine power behind it, only the momentum left on the blades as the turns decrease, the lift lessens, and the ground rushes-up-as-you-mush-through-the-last-fifty-feet…
OHMIGODTHESIDEOFAHILL.
HEADUP,BACKSTRAIGHT,OGODHEREITCOMES
Pleasepleasedon’tletmebecrippled
W-H-A-M.
I sat bolt upright in my cot in the quonset hut, my heart pounding in terror. It was two nights after. I tried to control my breathing in the desert darkness. A hot wind blew under the side door and across to the opposite one. It was loud when it gusted, and felt like a hair dryer.
My eyes adjusted and I looked over, two racks to my left and the opposite row. Another figure was sitting up. I let my senses expand and I could hear Bill’s ragged breathing. His silhouette turned and looked at me. He grunted a greeting, a question…?
Yeah, I whispered back, barely audible over the wind.
He grunted, then laid back down.
G’night.
So…
…Imagine you’re on that roller coaster and you’re coming around one of the twists and you see that the track is broken and you’re only chance is to pull a lever that disconnects the car from the track, and that gives you only a slim chance of living, but a chance, if you manage to time it right and land in a nearby tree…after careening through the sky for six-and-one-half seconds.
Now, I tell this story not so as to make my daughters or kids feel guilty. I’ve gone happily onto some of these stupid coasters, twisters, and tumblers with friends and cackled and just let go… but it took a lot of years to get there. And so I say to my beloved daughters…when I was younger, and Lauren, and then Becca, and Molly, and Rachel, all wanted to go on the Alpengeist? (Some ghoulish coaster in which you are fundamentally in a swing, with your legs dangling, and dragged across the sky in loops and twists, and– at one point – hurtled at the ground because a part of the ride includes swooping below ground-level, in a cut- out, your feet and legs dangling perilously close to the ground…)
Wonderful shit. Really.
Anyway, I never said anything because of my love for you girls. I never wanted to disappoint you, or let you down, but f*** me, I’ve gotta tell you this: the thing I was clenching my jaw against saying? Every time we would hit that chlunk, and lock in at the start of some gut-wrenching terrorfest, designed to produce adrenaline junkies by the hundreds… and I was looking stoically forward, resigning myself to my Fate?
I say this with all the love of a true “helicopter parent”:
That six-and-a-half seconds that you get, kids…if something goes wrong and one of those cars or seats or what-have-yous lets go…?
It’s a LOT longer than you think it is.
The author minutes after the deceleration event
Good morning, Ozy!
What a great story! I’m not a helicopter pilot OR parent, but I too am not a fan of amusement parks. Putting my trust in someone else’s maintenance acumen is very difficult.
Why is your commander standing next to an ISIS flag?
I had the privilege early in my career to work for a firm that adjusted insurance claims for amusement parks.
I can tell some stories.
Action Park?
Nope. But we all knew the place well.
Action Park was a regular annual trip for us in the early 80s. ?
I had never been there, but heard about it.
Thanks Ozy.
The difference between a supportive boss and one out to get you makes all the difference in the world.
Putting my trust in someone else’s maintenance acumen is very difficult.
Carnys have feelings, too, you know.
After all the booze and drugs? I doubt it.
I have a very hard time trusting other people’s work. Very hard.
Here in Edmonton, we have West Edmonton Mall, a 1,000-store-plus behemoth/testament to capitalism that was built by the Triple-Five Corporation (which used exactly the same blueprint to later build the Mall of America), which contains an interior amusement park, including one of those blasted roller coasters known as the Mindbender. Your question about “what would it feel like if” was answered for four poor souls one day 35 years ago, when the bolts on the captive rollers for the rails failed on one corner during an acceleration, flinging the people through the air and ultimately to the concrete below. Only one of them survived.
I’ve never ridden a roller coaster, or any other thrill ride, since. I’d want to see the maintenance myself.
The tasteless joke that arose in the wake of the accident was “What kind of a transmission does the Mindbender have? Four on the floor.”
Sir, you are truly a Badass! that collective move must be a real heartstopper, great timing Bro,
I enjoyed that. Thanks Ozy. When I was a kid I loved roller coasters and we made it to the “big” amusement parks in Denver once a summer usually. Now, I don’t think I would get on one and I never crashed a helicopter. A few boats here and there but never a helicopter.
A roughly 150’ drop, unpowered, into the foothills on the southeastern edge of Quackenbush Lake.
We walked away from it.
Wow.
I’m glad you folks made it.
You’ve certainly lived/are living an interesting life, Ozzy. Thank you for sharing so much of it with us!
Only the unclassified parts!! ?
This is a great article.
Great story; especially glad the part of the story with you and your partner had a happy ending.
A few place names were very familiar to me: Camp Pendleton of course (I used to hear the BOOMS when I lived in San Diego North County). Twentynine Palms was where some early railgun testing (in the 80s) was done. And I’ve been through some integration and test of “experimental systems” on combat vehicles in Yuma.
I was never a huge rollercoaster fan, but I stopped them completely after getting my engineering degree; we looked at many case studies in my Engineering Ethics class. Also, some of the other guys who graduated…sheesh.
Thanks, man!
Glad you liked it, HEX.
Robert Plant told me about 29 Palms
Great story thanks. Loved rollercoasters my whole life but recently realized that what was fun when I was young can knock your old ass for a loop. The Joker in Six Flags NJ banged me up pretty good.
And action park was the best. 50% of the people walking around had huge swaths of awful road rash on their arms and legs from the alpine slide. They would paint some iodine on you and send you back out to play.
I never did that big slide, but I liked a lot of the water slides there. A friend managed to convince me to jump off of those cliffs they had into that big pool/pond.
I really like tales of “I almost died but nothing happened”. We all have them.
My dumbest one might be the Birmingham train incident. I was on a photos expedition with a friend in downtown Birmingham, and we ventured I to the train tracks. There is a huge train yard with a bunch of parallel tracks. As we were traversing the yard, we crossed a parked train between cars. I stepped on the coupling and jumped down, stumbling forward a couple of steps…. Right into the path of a train.
Don’t ask me how we didn’t hear a train going by… But we didnt. And I missed that train by inches.
One step further, or one step later and I would have been hamburger.
But nothing happened.
Ugh. An old friend of mine got hit by a train over the summer. He was crossing a RR bridge on his bike and the speculation was that he never heard it.
Fate is weird, isn’t it? Back in 2001 I got crushed during a left turn by a dude running a red. Ended up upside down in the middle of the intersection and got out with a few cuts and bruises. Hell, I’ve had worse hockey games than that accident.
Pretty good argument for daily gratitude.
Amen, Brother.
I had to scoop a guy off of the raised train tracks in the Bronx. We had to wait 20 until they had shut the electric off. Was sure the guy was dead, never made a peep or moved at all. We saw his boot on the street below, his foot and shin were still in it. As soon as we got him on the stretcher he started screaming. Scared the piss out of me. Guy actually lived too.
I agree, cyto. I can’t help but wonder what that means…. Cuz I’ve got way way too many of those. Like you said, you make it to adulthood and you’ll have at least a few.
Every bachelor party I have ever been to confirms… We are lucky to have lived to be old enough to breed. Damn, dudes are stupid.
I have stories involving black powder, rock climbing, diving, skydiving, motorcycles, And maybe the best… A run-in with the entire Kappa Alpha Psi frat house.
“I killed a mule!”
Great story Ozy.
Thanks, kinnath. Glad you enjoyed it. I’ve got several more good ones from flying helicopters- as does everyone who ever flew those bleeping contraptions.
Back in college, I hung out with mostly older students. One was a training pilot from the Vietnam days. He was full of stories about flying helos.
“glide path of a crowbar”
I heard that many times.
My instructor on my first helicopter flight used the phrase “falls likes greased safe” in reference to unpowered helo aerodynamic capabilities.
I had a co-worker, retired Navy surface mustang, who said helicopters don’t fly, the earth is repulsed by them.
Interesting tale Ozy. Thanks for sharing. There are some great training lands in California, but precious few that are in any danger from urban entroachment because of the fantastic climate.
For me it is bungee jumping. Nope, no way. I have fallen too often while mountaineering, and had my stomach in my mouth on multiple risky military parachuting operations, to jump from something attached to a rubber band.
Lol. Ditto. No chance at all. I’ll skydive, but not the rubber band.
Good stuff, Ozy. In a nice coincidence, while sitting on our front porch reading your tale of flight, a Nuttall’s Woodpecker flew onto the redwood tree in front of me and began hammering away at the bark.
Anybody looking for a little prions disease? I know a guy.
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/proof-covid-vaccines-cause-prion?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozMTYyNjE4MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDQ2MjAyMjEsIl8iOiJqRFkzTCIsImlhdCI6MTYzNzk1MjEwMywiZXhwIjoxNjM3OTU1NzAzLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNTQ4MzU0Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.YLSxbvSNj5ibUCosgHXar-2BifdGlrNLwj-DDamkOOI
Outstanding story.
Interesting side note to the story – the woman who designs and constructs all of the roller coasters for Busch Gardens – her husband is one of my Dad’s gunsmithing clients.
They make some crazy ass coasters!
OT: Am I the last person to find Pink? She is a fantastic artist, all kinds of styles, and she sings the Blues!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1EIV630wDjArgt
She’s in the same category of Lady Gaga for me. Immensely talented, but the choice in music style turns me off.
When I heard her doing acoustic guitar based blues/rock I was sold, she has a voice for the Blues.
And I like EDM, so YMMV in that regard,
Also unrelated Trashy, as soon as Angela gets her ass over here, we go play Ice disc! the skips are amazing, and because it’s below freezing, nothing gets wet,
Winning!
/or insane
I’m going to have to say if I already knew about her the answer is yes.
I have an appreciation for Cobras.
2004 in Iraq, my unit did convoy security. 90% boring 10% way more excitement then then we wanted.
For some of those convoys, we had Cobra over watch. I distinctly remember looking up at the helo, thinking”I wish those bastards would hit us now”, but they never did.
I was stationed in 29 Palms for 6 years as an 0811 Artillery Cannoneer, so I did plenty of CAX’s, not as much fun for the ground forces.
In 2003-2004 it was the presence of AH-64 Apache helicopters near our convoy that gave us a warm and fuzzy feeling. We were rarely screwed with when they were around.
I’m not that keen on roller coasters, though I’ve ridden a few, mainly at good old Kings Island. My weakness is Ferris wheels, especially double Ferris wheels at night.
I hope none of you have scary Ferris wheel stories. ?
Ferris wheels scare me more than coasters. All that stopping and starting, I think.
Even with the trope of the Ferris wheel breaking free and rolling through the city?
::plugs ears:: LALALALALAICAN’THEARYOU!!!
I rode the ferris wheel in pigeon forge, and one of the attendants was talking about the “no canes” policy. He said some people freak out and try to get out when it gets to the top. They fail because the doors are locked from the outside, and those with canes try to break the glass in the doors or the floor. “In fact, see this car coming by right now with all the cracked glass? Yeah, that’s why canes aren’t allowed.”
If this is the one, it looks cool as all get-out!
That’s the one. It’s great! We rode while it was raining, so we didn’t get the glorious mountain views, but the kiddo enjoyed it nonetheless.
That was the second large ferris wheel in two weeks for us. We were at the State Fair of Texas the week before. One of the cool things about that ferris wheel is that there’s a bird show they do in a different part of the fairgrounds, and they launch some of the birds from the top of the ferris wheel. You get to watch them fly all the way in from there to get the toy/bait/whatever. Probably more than 1/4 mile away and 100 feet up.
::updates Bucket List::
Commiting the cardinal sin of linking to reddit because funny
https://www.reddit.com/r/maybemaybemaybe/comments/r2ufyt/maybe_maybe_maybe/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Reddit is for porn.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BustyPetite/
NSFW.
My parents would not let me go on carnival rides because they didn’t trust that the ex-felon carnies had put them together properly.
Places like Six Flags with permanent rides though were a different story. And I looooooooove roller coasters.
My parents would not let me go on carnival rides because they didn’t trust that the ex-felon carnies had put them together properly.
My long-lost son???
Thanks for the story, Oz. Wow, that was intense. Nothing like a near-death experience to give one an appreciation of life.
As for amusement parks, never been a fan, but went on a few coasters with my thrill-seeking youngest son back in the day. Drew the line at the annual church/town carnival setups, and my kids were NOT permitted on any rides in those things. Call me over-protective but no way, nohow.
The NYT doesn’t like him, but given how blue collar he is they don’t know how to really attack him.
Mr. Durr said he hoped to keep his job as a truck driver for the Raymour & Flanigan furniture chain, and the health insurance it provides, even after he is sworn in as a senator, a part-time position that pays $49,000. Lawmakers who took office after 2010 are not eligible for health coverage.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/26/nyregion/edward-durr-new-jersey-republican.html
And zero interest in showing how the 119 other legislators make ends meet on $49k/year, with decreasing benefits. Nice how those elected before 2010 are grandfathered as if political office was an entitled job and career (which it unfortunately is in practice).
Yup. It’s NJ we all know.
OT. No thanks, but would have been fun briefly when younger.
https://www.designboom.com/design/ikea-japan-tiny-apartment-1dollar-month-tokyo-11-26-2021/
So it’s a gimmick. That thing would go for a lot more than a dollar in the market.
Yup. But that kind of apartment isn’t. Just the price.
In unit washing machine? Better than most places when I was an apartment dweller. And the yuka-shita storage space too. Homemade umeshu!
It wouldn’t be my first choice but I’d take it in Japan. Here, not so much.
Surprised me too. Hopefully decent light.
Random AH1 thoughts:
I remember building a model Cobra as a kid, was probably the second one after a F5 Tiger.
The Cobras had been replaced/mostly replaced by AH64’s by the time I got in, except for your Marine SuperCobras, so didn’t see them that much. One of the junior NCOs I met in the guard was a prior service who did a tour in Vietnam with the 101st, including time at Hill 937. He’d have some interesting stories. One of his corrections to the movie version is that it was AH1’s, not Hueys, that were involved in the friendly fire incident.
I saw recently that the AH1Z modernization program is complete. Amazing how many military designs have been going for so long. First prototype of the ancestor of the UH1/AH1 flew in October 1954.
The original AH1-G models flew in Vietnam – ever since then it’s been upgrade after upgrade to the airframe to match the (then)-current threat.
The W really was reaching the end of the airframe life. The Hueys for sure were. They needed the upgrade to the “Yankee.”
Some kid with FD plates drove into the back of the WRX today. No major damage, but I’ll get the minor stuff repaired on his dime.
Went to a gun store in Amsterdam that people say is really good. I wasn’t too impressed, but I did pick up a case of 12ga target loads. I had a gift card to there from winning the KF&G 2-day match.
Tomorrow for the winter steel, I’ll be using my EDC (SIG P365). That will be a good challenge for me.
That sucks. Hopefully no parts needed with the current supply issues.
Make sure the foam under the cover isn’t compressed. If it is be sure to replace it.
Some kid with FD plates drove into the back of the WRX today.
Sorry.
No major damage, but I’ll get the minor stuff repaired on his dime.
This is good.
Kanahoe Bay Marine Corps Station still flies the Super Cobra and upgraded Hueys. I see them on a regular basis. Their CH-46’s and CH-53’s have gone away and the artillery is preparing to depart as the unit transforms into the first “Littoral Regiment”. The USMC is going big on preparing to shoot at the Chinese Navy.
“The USMC is going big on preparing to shoot at the Chinese Navy.”
Good that at least one branch still gives a shit about combat readiness.
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2021/03/22/goodbye-tanks-how-the-marine-corps-will-change-and-what-it-will-lose-by-ditching-its-armor/
Will see…
Hmmm… not sure what to make of that.
“The truth is, I f***ing hate those death-defying rides.”
They are not always death-defying. In fact with a little research you will be shocked at how often they are not.
This is fairly common. People who have never experienced the real thing love to experience safe simulations. It is cathartic to them.
Wife is 5 feet tall and weighs 98 lbs if she drinks a big ‘ol glass of water. Her right arm is very weak (polio when she was a baby). She loves shoot’em ups, adventure movies, beat’em ups, and crime dramas…cop shows. She has never experienced real danger in her life. I will pass on those, thank you very much. Thus my profile description. Trust me y’all when I say that boredom is highly underrated.
Ozy, if I happen to run into you and the family at some silly amusement park we can go find a bite and something cold to drink. I will even buy. Wives can go ride anything and everything they want. My wife loves that stuff.
Or you and Chas. C. W. Cooke (Floridian).
Sounds good to me, Suthen!
Thanks for the great article Ozy. Do you still fly sometimes or is that in your past? Last year for my birthday my wife got me a copter lesson. Went up in a Robinson R22. I was not expecting something so small, it was frigging tiny, rubbing shoulders with the instructor. I thought it’d be something more like TC’s rig in Magnum. It was definitely intimidating. I’ve done far more dangerous things in my life, but I was definitely nervous the whole time up there, even though I did enjoy it a lot.
No, flying helos is a thing of the past… but if I ever hit the lottery, I would buy a Bell 404 (basically a civilian Huey) or some equivalent. I learned on the Jet Ranger (206) and I’ve got ~30 hours in the Huey, but it’s an expensive hobby. In Naval Aviation, we start on fixed-wing, so I have my stiff-wing tickets, too. I’ve done a little flying in Cessnas, but again, not something I have the time or $$ for now. Finally, after flying snakes, it’s all a bit downhill from there. 😉
Heheh. Right on!