The last power up… Endeavour one last time… The full sequence can be seen HERE.
PILOTS
Pilots: People who drive airplanes for other people who can’t fly.
Fighter Pilots: Cold, steely eyed, weapons systems managers who kill bad people and break things. However, they can also be very charming and personable. The average Fighter Pilot, despite sometimes having a swaggering exterior, is very much capable of such feelings as love, affection, intimacy and caring. These feelings just don’t involve anyone else.
Words of Wisdom From Aviators:
Flying is a hard way to earn an easy living.
Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the airplane; the pessimist, the parachute.
If helicopters are so safe, how come there are no vintage helicopter
fly-ins?
Death is just nature’s way of telling you to watch your airspeed.
Real planes use only a single stick to fly. This is why bulldozers and
helicopters (in that order) need two.
There are only three things the copilot should ever say:
1. Nice landing, Sir.
2. I’ll buy the first round.
3. I’ll take the fat one.
As a pilot only two bad things can happen to you and one of them will:
a. One day you will walk out to the aircraft knowing that it is your last flight.
b. One day you will walk out to the aircraft not knowing that it is your last flight.
There are Rules and there are Laws:
The Rules are made by men who think that they know better how to fly your airplane than you.
Laws (of Physics) were ordained by God.
You can, and sometimes should, suspend the Rules, but you can never suspend the Laws.
About Rules:
a. The rules are a good place to hide if you don’t have a better idea and the talent to execute it.
If you deviate from a rule, it must be a flawless performance (e.g., If you fly under a bridge, don’t hit the bridge.)
The ideal pilot is the perfect blend of discipline and aggressiveness.
The medical profession is the natural enemy of the aviation profession.
Ever notice that the only experts who decree that the age of the pilot is over are people who have never flown anything? Also, in spite of the intensity of their feelings that the pilot’s day is over, I know of no expert who has volunteered to be a passenger in a non-piloted aircraft.
Before each flight, make sure that your bladder is empty and your fuel tanks are full; check T/O wt….
He who demands everything that his aircraft can give him is a pilot; he that demands one iota more is a fool.
There are certain aircraft sounds that can only be heard at night.
The aircraft limits are only there in case there is another flight by that particular aircraft. If subsequent flights do not appear likely, there are no limits.
Flying is a great way of life for men who want to feel like boys, but not for those who still are.
“If the Wright brothers were alive today, Wilbur would have to fire Orville to reduce costs.” President, DELTA Airlines.
In the Alaskan bush I’d rather have a two-hour bladder and three hours of gas than vice versa.
It’s not that all airplane pilots are good-looking. It’s just that
good-looking people seem more capable of flying airplanes.
An old pilot is one who can remember when flying was dangerous and sex was safe.
Airlines have really changed, now a flight attendant can gets a pilot
pregnant.
I’ve flown in both pilot seats, can someone tell me why the other one is always occupied by an idiot?
Son, you’re going to have to make up your mind about growing up and becoming a pilot. You can’t do both.
There are only two types of aircraft – fighters and targets.
The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline baggage.
You define a good flight by negatives: you didn’t get hijacked, you didn’t crash, you didn’t throw up, you weren’t late, and you weren’t nauseated by the food. So you’re grateful.
They invented wheelbarrows to teach FAA inspectors to walk on their hind legs.
The FAA Motto: We’re not happy till you’re not happy.
Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
h/t JP
Damn dog is doing the usual things, pulled out all his ‘toys’ is dropping them in my lap, expects to have them thrown…
And I get up to wash off the slobber, and he decides to come over and ‘lean’ on me…
He’s leaning so hard he actually fell over… And I’m bracing to keep from being knocked over.
It’s gonna be a long week!
And he just slobbered all over the mouse… sigh…
Thanks Larry!
The money quote as far as I’m concerned from Lapierre- “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a GOOD guy with a gun.”
Among other points covered, the need for a national database for mental illness, lack of prosecution of criminals involved in gun crimes, Feds cutting school security programs, and an online game I didn’t even know existed (Kindergarten killers)…
NRA putting together a team of security experts led by Asa Hutchinson to provide a model security plan for schools. To be modular, and fit all sizes of schools. Multiple elements- armed security, local volunteers, low cost to state and federals since the Feds cut funding. And the NRA will sponsor it…
Mark over at Texas Fellowship has a bleg up about one of his friends who’s house burned down today. His friend is a disabled Vietnam Vet. The post is HERE.
If you can spare anything, it would be appreciated. You can reach him at Greylocke at gmail dot com for information.
I got asked if I had a Christmas tree! Yeesh…
Actually I have TWO Christmas trees…
I moved it from the back of the safe to the table and I even dusted it this year… 🙂
And here’s my other ‘tree’… Since I can’t find gumdrops for my gumdrop tree…
Sigh…
So YES I DO HAVE A CHRISTMAS TREE! So there…
Having had the pleasure of meeting and talking to Kenn, I can only agree with what he says…
h/t John
And HERE is a website, Just Facts and their gun control link. VERY detailed and well documented across a spectrum of gun ownership, death rates, etc.
Umm… Not so much… Uncle Jay is down there right now for work, and had THIS post yesterday…
When I was down there a few months ago, I was talking to an LEO at SYD airport, he told me they’d confiscated something like 17,000+ illegal guns in the last year. And those are JUST the ones they caught…
Figure that is 10% of the total, so 170,000 illegal guns a year, Australia is roughly 1/10th the population of the US, so if they try a ban here, that would be roughly 1,700,000 illegal guns a year…
From WIRED, full article HERE.
In a secret government agreement granted without approval or debate from lawmakers, the U.S. attorney general recently gave the National Counterterrorism Center sweeping new powers to store dossiers on U.S. citizens, even if they are not suspected of a crime, according to a news report.
Earlier this year, Attorney General Eric Holder granted the center the ability to copy entire government databases holding information on flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and other data, and to store it for up to five years, even without suspicion that someone in the database has committed a crime, according to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story.
Whereas previously the law prohibited the center from storing data compilations on U.S. citizens unless they were suspected of terrorist activity or were relevant to an ongoing terrorism investigation, the new powers give the center the ability to not only collect and store vast databases of information but also to trawl through and analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior in order to uncover activity that could launch an investigation.
The changes granted by Holder would also allow databases containing information about U.S. citizens to be shared with foreign governments for their own analysis.
…
The Obama administration’s new rules come after previous surveillance proposals were struck down during the Bush administration, following widespread condemnation.
In 2002, the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness program proposed to scrutinize both government and private databases, but public outrage killed the program in essence, though not in spirit. Although Congress de-funded the program in 2003, the NSA continued to collect and sift through immense amounts of data about who Americans spoke with, where they traveled and how they spent their money.
The Federal Privacy Act prohibits government agencies from sharing data for any purpose other than the reason for which the data was initially collected, in order to prevent the creation of dossiers, but agencies can do an end-run around this restriction by posting a notice in the Federal Register, providing justification for the data request. Such notices are rarely seen or contested, however.
The ONLY thing transparent in this is OUR lives… sigh…



