I’ve shared the tale of Po’ Lazlorus with you, who – apart from his regrettable tendency to wander in Caesar’s fields – had the misfortune of being unpopular with Dad. Mentioned Point Hadji, where the unchained spirit could spook the occasional passer-by. Spoke briefly about poor, benighted Bones, who was unlucky enough to cancel his IFR low-level route in favor of fashioning his own way through the countryside. And who paid the price.
Neglected, I think, to share the tale of another young man of my acquaintance who was the antithesis of Laz in terms of senior officer appreciation, but who appreciated the finer things in life.
Like raging around at low level through a national park.
Flush was yer man’s call sign, or close enough. Summat of a golden boy for the hinges; tall, handsome, aerodynamically adapted and athletic. Lovely family.
Found himself one day in charge of his very own FA-18, no department heads to fishwife him over his comm discipline or formation flying. Saw a lovely valley between two mountain ranges below him. Forested like, as contrasted to the Panamint and Death Valley deserts, whose only redeeming virtues were the nudist colony at Saline Warm Springs.
Dove right in.
Came back with a grin on his face, happy as a pig in waller. “It’s great,” he cried, “beautiful mountains on both side and this crazy valley in the middle. And the best thing of all? Nobody goes there!”
Which was true, of course, on account of the fact it was a national park. Nobody was supposed to go there.
Turns out certain people did go there. National Park Service rangers. Who took a very dim view of Hornet pilots raging around in blower down below 3000 feet. And who had access to a phone line.
Came a phone call to the wing, which went bouncing about to the local squadrons duty officers, who dutifully reported what aircraft they’d had airborne at or about the time a certain FA-18 pilot had disturbed the feng shui of the Sierra National Park.
The spotlight fell upon yer man Flush, who stoutly denied that any aircraft under his actual command had violated park airspace in the least way. The Operations Officer nodded sagely, and asked the Maintenance Officer to pull the mission data recorder from the jet. As a form of insurance.
The MDR records where the aircraft is in space over three second intervals, as well as countless other things like engine power settings, flight control deflections, exhaust gas temperatures and the like. We used to joke that if you were going to be stupid in a jet, it was best to be stupid over the ocean, for if the MDR survived your ejection/crash it didn’t matter that you were single seat and sticking to your story: The jig would be up when the maintenance folks pulled the data.
Things went badly for Flush after the MDR data proved he’d been telling a story. The bloom had come off the rose, like.
Karma.
Airline pilot now, I believe. Not that, you know: Anything’s wrong with that.
I enjoy it when that happens. It’s so much sheer fun to read the assorted stories of glory and adventure. As it were.
Thanks for the refresher, Lex.
35 years ago NAS Nowra was ringed (tone phones) by a network of potential “low flying complainers” to the base. We had places to go low (ocean) with mostly no other places. We knew the rules – we had been warned.
It’s always been my experience that accenting to the transgression was the best option, followed quickly by coming up with a very real-sounding ploy as to why that transgression made sense at the time.
Something like, “Sir, I saw that valley and thought it would be a good idea to get an idea of what the perspective of speed was with trees flying by rather than featureless desert. Guy’s gotta be able to judge his attitide, altitide and speed in any environment, right? I kept an eye on my instruments, of course, but dang that was just something new.
Oh, nossir, wouldn’t do it again knowing people were down there. My mistake, sir — didn’t look populated at all when I first assessed the situation.”
Which, ya gotta admit, sounds a little better than John Candy’s excuse in Stripes:
“Well sir, we were going to the bingo parlor, at the YMCA, Well one thing lead to another and the instructions got all fouled up there and we ended up…”
Honesty. You can make up reasons *why* you screwed the pooch after admitting to the act. They’re not going to help much, but they may make you look either more or less foolish in intention.
The fact that we are fools has already been established, now we’re fishing around for the salvage rights to our reputations.
– Max
Max: Why would you be even allowed to speak before walking the plank?
Spaz, the best I can hope for is to not be allowed to talk while participating in a very one-way conversation regarding my actions.
That’s how it typically goes and in general I take my lumps and and punishment and can start fresh with the next division head.
One has to determine how long being dumb will follow, after all.
– Max
Following on Max/
Mixing it up with our RAF counterparts was strictly forbidden– officially–although it was done all the time. One guy in another Squadron, when reported (don’t ask me the story of how) for having at it with an RAF Lightning, explained his actions roughly thusly: “Well, you see, the other guy was scaring me with his unsafe, unwanted, aggressive aerial maneuvers, so I thought the safest place I could get was at his six o’clock to reduce the chance of a mid-air.”
And of course the Sq. CO nodded “sure you did, I believe you, I really, really do”–right before he grounded him and banished him to the Command Post….
However to the south west of NAS Nowra there is the ‘tiger country’ of sandstone valleys & plateaus. We could low fly there (mostly with other aircraft) if authorised, to counter the National Park Rangers (who would make the effort to hotfoot it to the nearest phone – just because).
This reminds me of my wife’s push for me to add an APRS transmitter to my wee little airplane in order for her to be able to track my flights realtime on Google maps. I continue to find excuses for not doing so, what with me thinking that the leash is quite short enough already, thank you very much.
I contend that there are things that are better left unknown, even if it is just for the principles involved.
See, it really was better in the good ole days before things like MDRs and loggers. The beauty of single seat was often overshadowed by the stark realization of just how close one came to being the sole causal factor of a Class A. But COs are reluctant at best to see their hard work and reputations disappear in a poof of JO stupidity. Had a friend that was a squadron CO of a helo squadron down south. Lived out on PV Beach, REAL nice houses. one Friday night out on his back patio having a couple of Bombay and Tonics and whoop whoop whoop thunders overhead at 250 ft, slow enough for us all to look up and go “isn’t that one of yours?”. Man I wish I could have recorded that phone call to the SDO. The rest of the squadron loved it as they were off the SDO watch for a month!
Interesting. My bud, now a former Wing Commander, told me of his early days driving F-4Ds as a 1LT with another 1LT in his pit. He related that, in those days they gave him the jet and credit card and told him he could do some cross country to build up his time but be back in a reasonable period, like within 4 days. Home being east coast, north east coast he and his Bear found themselves on the west coast. He asked me if I had ever seen pictures of El Capitane and Yosemite. I replied affirmative. He told me he did too. Looking up at it at 400 some odd knots before climbing for the ride back east. The AF F-4s in them days were painted in European greys and greens so you had to get up real close to see any identifying marks. Apparently, they weren’t “made” but I bet some phone calls were made to several AF bases and Air Guard bases on the west coast looking for the culprits. Never heard a word about it upon getting home.
I was lucky enough to get to ride in his Viper’s pit for the best hour in the air I have ever had when he was a squadron commander and I commanded a tank battalion.
Another point. In my 30 odd years in this business it is always much better to fess up than compromise one’s integrity, the ramifications of the act may still be painful but not nearly as painful as when getting caught in a lie. I have had officers thrown out for lying about screwing up, usually for something they could have recovered from.
“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” has always been my way of saying mea culpa.
I tell you Lex, that mental picture of “Bones” and his come-uppence flight physical had me rolling on the floor laughing…. My wife had to come in and see what was going on, from whence she left in disgust “there he goes again”. Great stuff. Thanks again for brightening the day.
‘spose many of you may already know but it’s getting worser for our young bucks. Not sure about our fellow services but USN has been looking at the dreaded MFOQA (Mil Flt Ops Quality Assurance) for yrs. Hornets in particular have a nice little flt replay feature what the CO, MO, can have a nice liitle gander at a 3D rendering of any flt of interest, with HUD, flt controls, throttles, etc.. To be sure, it provides maint an increased ability to further troubleshooting efforts (MSP codes popped and cleared when?). To my thinking it all but puts the very last nail in the coffin, not that the skipper’s cuz I sez so wasn’t clear enuff.
Nah, those crafty ole jet jockeys just need to cultivate a loyal following amongst the maintenance techs. The ole “Sorry chief, the blamed thing’s lost its memory” or “Too bad, musta come loose in flight and the data’s f*cked” of course accompanied by suitable liquid refreshment anonymously provided at the favorite watering hole…..
Never happen…… heh.
What with Google offering tracking of cell phone location you will soon have to remember to leave the thing turned off lest someone via consulting the web might analyze the time-frame spent reading your morning paper while relaxing on the can. If you read it on your iPhone, you’ll be SOL as it were….
“SOL as it were”
BWWAAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Bones story was rich. The Flight Surgeon was lucky not have a broken wrist.
AF TAC AC were normally painted subdued back in the 70s. It sure makes it easier to flathat.
I once flew real low over a silver fox (or was it mink?) ranch once on a VR route and the wing got a call..I missed it on the chums I reckon.
To this day I wake up in a cold sweat worried about how terrorized those poor little minks were…..NOT. LOL
b2
Lex, I know exactly the valley that you are talking about. On my first fam flight I was with the Base CO and he pointed the valley out. He relayed a couple stories like your, each with the same outcome. Its a damn shame cause that valley looks like it would kick ass.
Lex,
Just want to make sure I got that right: A contractor making fun of Airline Pilots?
A year ago, you were part of the solution. Now???
Which on weekends, I’ll remind you, I’s also a commercial pilot.
It’s a slender thread, but it’s all I’ve got
At least it’s loggable, Lex. All I have these days is Falcon 4 Allied Force on Boot Camp. Looks pretty good on my iYak’s ™ 24 inch monitor though.
Now if I could just figure out how to program my old Saitek X36F’s buttons and switches…