hello

Funny you should say that!


I let our older son take flying lessons at 16, because he was a good student. I drove him to the airport many times for his lessons, but he took me up only once from San Jose International Airport!

How wonderful.
And a great way to show trust to your son.

Yeah, but twice would have been nice! LOL

Good for you, CI!

The word is that you're a backseat driver

tmi

tmi

tmi


<covering my eyes>

Can't get in touch with him. I think Jonathan has tried also.

I'm hoping that putting his picture here will somehow cause him to look in.

Bummer. Has he left NY or do you not know?

On flying? No way, jose.

No idea.

But you know Kicky!

Hey...that Second Avenue place was great, wasn't it!

He used to talk about moving to Florida (hmmmm).

I've missed him all these years now.

Yeah to that.

I whine here on a2k every year or so about my negative takes on my high school, uh, girls academy. But I loved my elementary school years, in particular the Chicago years. Ok, Evanston, but only a few blocks away from Chicago. I'm sure that grades 4-8 set me up for being interested in the whole world via geography discussions, being pretty interested in history, moderately enthused about grammar, oh, and baseball. Sister Mel (grades 6 and 7) took us outside in springtime to teach us baseball, which set me up for liking sports, even though I was terrible at batting on those occasions. Funny, since I was damned good when we neighborhood kids played there on the same playground. Probably our old friend Fear of Doing Badly was behind that.

I've used a principal derived from my own youthful fears to deal with things like that. No matter what you are undertaking there are some who can do it better than you, and some who can't, but in challenges that are truly daunting it can be good to focus on some who has done it, no matter how well or badly. Focus on him or her and recite the Jackass mantra .. "If that jackass ______ can do this, then so can I".

My first night carrier landing was such an experience. Worse I had the bad luck of being assigned to the phase 2 group which boarded the carrier in Pensacola for the trip out into the Gulf, while the phase 1 guys got to takeoff the next day from Pensacola at twilight and gradually adapt to the darkness over the sea on the flight out to the ship for their qualifying ten landings. When my counterpart finished his ten traps and nine cat shots, he taxied up to the island, where, in the very dim red lights around the island, he exited and I climbed in the cockpit. "Piece of cake, but it's dark out there" Tom Anderson said exultantly as I climbed in and strapped into the ejection seat.

Moments later the flight deck directors signaled to unchain my aircraft and taxi me up to the bow catapult. As I left the dim red glow around the island and headed up to the bow I was suddenly enveloped in an impenetrable darkness - no moon, no starlight, no horizon ahead, nothing - just darkness. The little voice inside said "I can't do this" "There must be something wrong with this aircraft" I'll down it and try another day". ... "No they'll think I'm a wuss: better to die". By then I was being hooked up to the catapult and the signal for full power was given. The automatic responses of training took over: I advanced the throttle and cycled the flight controls, Petrified I said to myself if that jackass Anderson can do this then so can I ! Then the moment of truth, one flicks the switch on the throttle to turn on the aircraft lights - the signal that your'e ready. BAM !!! the catapult fires and you're hurled into the darkness. A few seconds later, with the landing gear up, and the aircraft accelerating and climbing up thru 500 feet, the same little voice within was exultantly saying "What a cool, studly son of a bitch you are ."

Two lessons. 1. The little voice lies. 2. If that jackass can do it then so can you.

I assume you flew F4's at first? My friend who flew off the Independence had given me a picture from the 1970's of the results of a tail hook of an F4 that, on landing at night , had " gathered up" a chunk of the end of the flight deck and pulled it up a bit .It looked like a preying Mantis.
The guy that did it on the Independence was hurt very badly, he survived , and was sent to work a desk in Oceana.

great , awesome anecdote.

Yes, awesome anecdote, and then so was farmerman's follow up awesome in it's own way.

I started in A4s, a small (15,ooo lb. ) delta winged aircraft with a very small cockpit (you could move your head only a few inches left or right before striking the canopy), moved on to A-6 s and then into F-14s. Never flew the F-4. I was based in Oceana for about 5 years in F-14s.

Ramp strikes are not always fatal. There's only 13 feet of clearance between the hook point and a perfect landing on a Nimitz class carrier. In the earlier ships it was less. Sounds scary, but it usually isn't (except when the deck is pitching in a rough sea).

I had an F-14 night ramp strike on my ship - a fireball at the ramp and just the cockpit section of the aircraft sliding down the deck - a quick ejection and both guys survived, the back seater landing on the ship (after a single swing of the 'chute)and the pilot in the water. Lucky. HY 100 steel plate is a lot harder than aluminum.

My brother in law flew f15's in the air force, and flew one from AZ to Moffett Field when he was still serving, and we were living in Sunnyvale. He took us to the field to look at it. Now, that was a fighter airplane.

Still is. The F-14 was of the same design generation, but had a variable sweep wing and, line most Navy aircraft was heavier (structurally) than its Air Force counterpart, and, as a result, a bit less agile.