Comments on: Foggy Weather

By: stormy03bravo

stormy03bravo — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 21:32:30 +0000

Just caught a story on the news about the ultimate instrument landing … An RAF pilot talked down a pilot who lost his sight midflight from a stroke.

By: virgil xenophon

virgil xenophon — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:23:13 +0000

Lex,

You’re a fine writer, but it brings back too many bad memories for me–like the time something like that ALMOST happened to me as a #2 on a x-country in T-38s in UPT. Such stories simply underline the fact that when flying hi-performance aircraft, whether it be in tng or combat, the old saying is oh so true: “Some days you get the Bear…….”

By: Mongo

Mongo — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:54:14 +0000

Lex, your story reminded me of a nearly abbreviated trip from NASNI to Mugu back in the mid-80′s. Riding as crew in the back of an HH-1K we left under Spec VFR with a ceiling of about 300′. No biggie for us…we’d done it a bunch of times. 300′ went to 200′ so we adjusted accordingly, then went down to 150′, and again the pros up front adjusted…no big gig. Picture 150′ just off the shoreline, passing the pier at Huntington Beach, and the lid as gooey as it gets.

About 5 minutes north of the pier we go into the goo for about a 6 count; heartrate jumps up about 10-15 beats/min. We break out…heartrate goes back to normal…5 minutes later back in the goo at 100′…7 potato, 8 potato, 9 potato…uh, sir, you know, I’m getting a bit uncomfortable with us not seeing anything. Anything we can do about that? (Army at Los Al wasn’t too far north and they quite often flew a recip course to ours).

At that point the HAC says “Yeah, okay, we’re IMC and I’m on the gauges”. He starts a left 180 and about the time we roll out we go back to VMC…and I look over and notice we’re down to 50′. Left seat says ‘Pull up’…no response…’Pull up’ (a bit louder)…no response and descending through 25′ at 110IAS…’PULL UP!’…Okay, that got his attention. The crew chief and I happened to glance over at each other and extend our legs forward, so as not have our legs crushed when the seats compressed at impact.

Fortunately, no one collected any insurance money and no one had to think up nice stuff to say about us…but it was really damned close.

No fooling…my first thought was ‘We just about became subject matter for an article in Approach Magazine’. Had we survived the impact, the swim to the beach in February water would have been a most delightful mile.

After that we contacted Coast Approach, who had the unmitigated gall to make us climb to 4000′ (nose bleed for a helo) to do the IFR thing.

Thanks for bringing back the memory, Lex…you know…associations and all….Hah!

By: Ron

Ron — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:07:58 +0000

Re the motorcycle. Lordy Yes.

It had been almost 30 years since my last one-picked up a thumper this spring and cannot believe how great it is to be back on a bike.

By: MajHarvey

MajHarvey — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:39:19 +0000

Well, the only scenario that I could come up with that even comes close was leading a convoy through the Udairi Range in Kuwait one night. The dusty white dirt road that paralleled the berm all but vanished at night, and clouds and blackout drive lights effectively canceled out much of the benefits of my night vision goggles. Ended up juggling a map on my lap, a red-lens flashlight, a GPS held outside the window, and my goggles to ensure that we didn’t inadvertently take some goat trail that would head us over the nearby Iraqi border. Took us most of the night to make the 50km night move as I recall, and that included having to dig out a couple of our howitzers that’d gotten stuck in some loose sand that blew into one of the gaps in the berm sometime after I’d conducted the leader’s recon earlier that day.

Good times. Good times.

By: HomefrontSix

HomefrontSix — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:54:23 +0000

Dammit Lex. I had just managed to force that image from my mind’s eye…and now it’s back. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.

Really.