35 Years of Aviation...in the Toilet.

a reply to: 727Sky

Thank Gawd for David Clark!

A fella would go deaf otherwise, but I did love that plane! In the day, it was cool.

We used to "fly them into the ground" in the big Rocky Mountain weather. They always came back for more. Hayden Colorado was always just a 'fly it right into the pavement' airport. Full compression, no flare, just slam it into the pavement...heavy crosswinds. Nose up just enough for the mains to get down, full reverse, then stand on the brakes. Over and over.

That was flying! I loved that plane.

Nobody will ever do that anymore.

"We've got the Runway..." Everybody always lied. You could never see that runway.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

For what it's worth, I think you're a super balanced person who could be proud of a lot even if avianics wasnt part of your history.

Your cooking, ranching, and many other things you're knowledgeable about are proof your curiosity of life.

As a junior multi instructor getting some hours, I had a PIC freak out on me one night (i.e. nervous breakdown) in a piston 580. Runaway governor on the #2 engine. His kid had cut his fingers off in a radial arm saw earlier that week, and he just lost it. Nothing will grab your attention like being alone, and in trouble, like that.

We were over Cleveland Ohio, inbound to Youngstown. I was just a kid. It was snowing. I'm looking out the window to see if we're on fire, and my Dad comes forward and asks what's going on (he was an old B-17 in flight crew chief) (this was a private plane). He starts telling me this story about how you dive a plane with an engine fire to burn the engine away...we were at 7,000 feet! (not an option)

Was I scared? Yes (later). Gear down on long straight in final. Fast. "Just watch Bill, okay, keep his hands off the controls, okay?" I'll never forget seeing Dad, hand on the bulkhead above and his foot on the back of the console, he took up the whole passage way. "You've got this, just keep going. It's okay.", he said. (he'd flown 88 missions over Europe from 1942-1945, nearly 4 tours, and lived to tell about it. Nothing scared him.)

Landed a little hard, but without incident. I screwed up the exit and taxi though. My heart was shooting out of my chest. (think my heart rate was in the mid 200's) No matter, the airport was closed after we arrived. I wasn't expecting it that night, but I realized, in that moment; fear has no purpose.

We pulled up and parked on the apron and got on blocks. Dropped the stairs and Mom comes forward and asks (never forgot this) where the cafeteria is (there was only a vending machine). I thought, what a crazy question, but in retrospect...maybe it was the best question anyone ever asked me. Dad just winked. I think he saved all of our lives that night.

Those old Convairs were some kind of airplane! I remember seeing the glow under the cowling as I walked away, weak knees and all.

Epitaph - The engine had to be replaced. And the plane was sold shortly afterwards, traded for a Cessna Citation.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I believe that I understand how you feel. I've been working in the aviation industry since I was young enough to get a job. I practically grew up at airports and to this day make my way into a major one 5 days a week to work. In as little as 7 years I've seen things change in aviation in major ways, some good and some bad.

One unfortunate thing I've noticed is that the quality of the people charged with keeping this massive, complex and ungainly beast that is aviation in the US, drop every year. More and more people are going into this field with less and less knowledge of almost everything aviation related. Granted not everyone must hold an ATP, be an A&P or have a Ph.D in something but so few even have any interest in flying.

My work place is with a major airline, at a major hub, in a critical center of operations and I am the only one who has a degree in aviation (AS, BS and a MS in progress in aviation fields) and I am the only one with any pilots license. How did we get to this place? Is making everything easier, more digestible and "simpler" really a wise choice? I worry that we are pushing too far into conveniences to where once the knowledgeable among us leave the vacuums will never be filled again.

I've only really been scared one time flying. Really scared.

I was flying right seat in a Mitsubishi MU-2 out of Alabama, out over the gulf of Mexico one day. PIC was a storied USAF Major fighter pilot. We were repositioning an airplane. (My Mom was in back as the only PAX)

There was weather, but he thought we could beat it. Destination, Naples Florida.

it was a fast plane, but the storm was faster.

Storm didn't move over us, it developed around us.

The turbulence was severe and intense, but that didn't bother me so much. Getting slammed around was no biggie. Mom, in back was pretty upset, and I went back to help calm her down. Then I went back forward...

Getting back forward was a chore because we were getting bounced around pretty bad. I got back to my seat and belted in...and then I heard **WHACK** on the windscreen, then more, and more...serious hail! BIG hail! I'm looking out the window and seeing the props exploding giant hail balls. We're being pounded by giant hail!

Now, I don't know if you've ever seen what it's like, front and center, to be flying at 300mph in a giant hail storm, but "unpleasant" doesn't even begin to describe it!! Any minute, one of these apple sized hail meteors is going to break through the windscreen, depressurize the airplane and kill everyone inside!

Looking out the window, the wings a flapping like a bird, ice busting off every surface.. Some false sense of security strapping down my shoulder belts. (at least I'll be buckled in really tight when we crash into the Gulf of Mexico!) . I remember the checklist clipboar hitting the ceiling. Everything not strapped down was airborne.

I swore I would kiss the ground if we ever made it to an airport, any airport.

And I did kiss the ground when we landed in Ft Lauderdale.

a reply to: Quasar2287


You're right.

There was a time when a person had to have something (anything) for experience in the aviation industry to work there.

Now, experience is nothing. They'll hire anyone who's willing to show up. What I see anymore scares me. It truly does.

A while back I saw a contractor hire only Navy aircraft handler people. It was so cool. These guys were proud, and they did a good job. They would stand, erect, and give a crisp salute on separation of a tug from an aircraft for departure. I was impressed. Then they cost too much, so they hired people who don't even speak English, and sleep in the airport before going to work for their second job at Panda Express.

Now the pride is gone. These people don't care. I see aircraft at the gate, waiting to taxi in, and there's no one there. No wing-walkers, just no one.

Here's our industry, corrupted by greed and the lowest common denominator.

This was my whole point. ...35 years of a career, in the toilet!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

...and your efforts DO matter.

Personally, my own world view leans way right... small "c" conservative. But I am also a guy who spent 15 years learning how the lever pullers weaponize peoples own brains and perceptions to sell stories, narratives and world-views.

I'm a capitalist, 100%, but not everything that is sold as "free markets and capitalism' actually IS.

Corporations, monetary policy and professional politics has made what is sold as "Capitalism" a free market Potemkin village.

Corporate money and the political class have built massive corruption into the corporate investment and monetary policy schema that is sold as "capitalism", but it's all infested with grifters and fascists now, and their underlings that pull the levers and protect equity value.

If Boeing survives the blowback from this greed, no telling what will be left... but there are a fair number of Boeing executives who will be needing to go to prison.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

H O L Y C R A P...

THAT is a terrifying aviation story. Not a pilot... but I'm going to say making it to a runway that day was approaching miraculous.

With all the crap metal parts coming out of TPROC these days I wonder if it would have played out the same way.

Did the props survive intact... and did the engines need a rebuild? LOL!

a reply to: dasman888

Both props were dented and damaged. Engines were fine.

A lot of vibration on landing.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I've heard some hair raisers... that one about takes the cake.

I had a friend, who had a really good friend who survived the UA Flight 232 Crash in Sioux City Iowa in 1989.

He basically had a spiritual experience. The passengers knew they were going to crash... the friend just closed his eyes and started to pray to God... and described being "drawn within into silence". The next thing he knew, he was waking up laying in a cornfield.

I've oft wondered if "big rig" pilots all believe in God. There are SO MANY small things that can get sideways in modern aircraft.

a reply to: chr0naut

My sincerest condolences and a super hug. xox

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: DictionaryOfExcuses

Sadly, I am not an aviator (pilot) anymore. Hereditary high blood pressure and A-fib took me out. (as it should have). There where better than me, and I was okay with that.

I spent the rest of my career working to make it right in the aviation sector. I'm not mad, not at all.

Say what you will about me, but I have truly tried.

I will always be your best advocate.

It is just that it sounded like you were pretty young guy.

originally posted by: hiddeninsite
a reply to: chr0naut

My sincerest condolences and a super hug. xox

Thank you.

First of all, thank you for the time, sweat, and blood you put into making things more safe for us all!

Progress is just that. Things move forward, for good or bad. The airline industry is the safest it has been in years. I understand your reservations though. Relying on systems that can fail, is a scary thing. How many times have we heard about cars that get stuck throttles. The throttle is all computer controlled now, not a cable to a carb.

Sometimes simpler is better. A stick and some cables. Not that there will not be failures, but at least a real person is behind the controls.

Along the same lines, I do not fly anymore myself, but used to. Instead of getting back into it, I have been working on a Cessna cockpit simulator.

originally posted by: Shockerking
Hell, I thought you was just a farmer?

It's okay though, I've been in the contracting business for 35 years so I more than know my way around finish carpentry and remodels and home building.

www.abovetopsecret.com...
Contracter and rancher busy people and all I do is sit.

Change just happens, and when it affects things you hold dear... you have to break free and explore the closest things near to it. Easy to say, hard to do, but it is reality. I do understand how you feel, presently, but don't let it bog you down too long.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
I just wonder what will happen when the time comes, I'm gone...will anyone care, like I have. Will the next generation understand?

My voice will be lost in not so long.
I don't see anyone out there.

My theory is that people die not so much because they get sick and deteriorate, it's because they become irrelevant. You get old and the songs on the "radio" are all old songs, sung by dead people. The kids play games and have jokes and work machines that are baffling. Our friends die off one by one, and after a while nobody even knows you. You're just a random "old man." And then you die and then everybody who actually knew you dies, and if you were buried nobody goes to visit your grave. They don't know you. You lived, and then you slowly just no longer fit in with the rest of the world, so you vanished.

That's my cheery thought for the day.

I still use paper and pencil to work out designs sometimes rather than using fancy pantsy 3D design programs and use a hammer and dollies to shape aluminium and steel than use machines to do it.

originally posted by: DictionaryOfExcuses
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

In reading your posts over the years, I have learned that you are a rancher, a construction estimator, a radio broadcaster, and now an aviator?

Ski pro, big oil maverick, IT specialist, lineman.


# 1031

a reply to: TheWhiteKnight

I was never a lineman. I've worked around some big electrical power before, but never a lineman.

I was never a professional skier. I was a good skier, and an instructor for a while (in college), but never "professional".

Trust me, I was never an "oil maverick" either. My family owned a construction company and we did a lot of oilfield work for Texaco, including some heavy hauling.

I did work in radio, as I have noted, and I do work in aviation, and my wife and I do own/operate a working cattle ranch.. I'm not sure I'd categorize myself as an "aviator" anymore though. It's been a long time since I've flown an airplane...as I have noted.

I am not an "IT specialist", but I do work in electronic systems...aviation electronic systems to be exact. To me, an "IT specialist" is a software guy, and I am anything but that.

Does this answer your questions? Or, did you have some other point you were trying to make?

ETA - And while we're at it, you missed a few...

Draftsman
Laborer and Carpenter
Even got an EMT along the way working for the company I work for now (and have for the past 25 years). I don't work as an EMT now though, but I did do some rescue related things in construction for a while.

Yes, I've done a lot of different things, all of them related, and all of them following a logical progression of a career and life. Not jumping around from one job/career to another, just different opportunities and experiences. There's also a lot of things I haven't done (and some I wish I had).

Life is an adventure. Why not live and experience every bit of it?

Would you rather I didn't share those experiences?