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I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

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231–240 of 274 posts

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He skidded the airplane. He applied rudder trim so that the tail was not directly behind the aircraft. He also mentions trying to be nose high. What this would look like I think. Slow down to increase angle of attack in level flight. The nose is now high (likely already occurred after flameout and ejection attempts without thinking about it - check). Go full deflection rudder trim to skid the aircraft. Now trim the a…

As someone who doesn't fly planes, it's almost impossible to understand this comment or the author's original passage lol

Imagine if a car had a setting for every input equivalent of setting speed via cruise control - this is what trimming is.

A car equivalent would be applying the handbrake and "trimming" it so it sticks with your hands off, then steering into a skid so you're drifting, then trimming the steering wheel; now your car is moving in an otherwise dynamically unstable configuration (drifting), but it maintains the configuration hands-free because you have locked-in the settings. A driver could then step out of a moving vehicle without the risk of being run over by their own car

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#232
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> “This is very serious,” I thought. That's typical of military pilots — their ethos is to present a calm, unruffled mien to the world. Phrases such as, "I was a bit concerned" would translate as "I was this close to sh*tting my pants from terror" in normal human-speak. (Source: Dad and sister were military pilots, plus my own service aboard an aircraft carrier.) There's a great and probably-apocryphal story in Tom…

Damn check out /u/dctoedt's profile. It's not just his father who's sickeningly accomplished. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dctoedt

Thanks, but it's mostly that I've been around a while and am still on this side of the grass (spelled O L D).

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#233

In a story of insane luck (and unluck!), the craziest part is definitely this " He said that if I had had a spleen, it almost certainly would have ruptured when I hit the water, and I would have bled to death. Of the 25 pilots in our squadron, I am the only one without a spleen. It gives me something to think about. Maybe it does you as well."

I thought the craziest part was where in this sequence of events does the pilot say > “This is very serious,” I thought. It's just after > "The main, 24-foot parachute was just flapping in the breeze and was tangled in its own shroud lines. It hadn’t opened! I could see the white folds neatly arranged, fluttering feebly in the air. So... after the flame-out, after the fire, after the lack of radios, after the failed…

I think it takes "processing" to realize the gravity of a situation.

A lot of things have happened in my life where all I think at the moment is "that's funny..." or "hmmm"

:)

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, e.g., the unbelievable heroics — and losses — in rescuing a shot-down American flier during (what we call) the Vietnam war, including a Navy SEAL who was awarded* the Medal of Honor for his astonishing feats in finally getting the guy out more than ten days after he was downed. * For those who don't know: Recipients of medals for valor in combat (I'm not a member of that august group) don't like it when people s…

Why did you say "what we call" in reference to the Vietnam war? Is there another name for it? Besides the obvious name of whatever the "enemy" called it at the time?

> Why did you say "what we call" in reference to the Vietnam war?

I guess I was thinking that HN is a very multinational forum, and I don't know what people in other countries would call the Vietnam War.

(I'm reminded of how genteel Southern ladies supposedly used to refer to the Civil War as The Late Unpleasantness.)

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#235

Something similar happened to my dad (USAF fighter pilot) in around 1961 or 62: He was test-flying a T-33 single-engine jet trainer assigned to his unit after it'd had repair work. The engine quit and wouldn't restart. He ejected, but his parachute didn't deploy fully (much the same as in the article) and he got tangled in the shrouds. He said a quick Hail Mary just before crashing head-first in a muddy, fresh-plowed…

How does that not qualify for VA disability compensation?

I think he did get some kind of VA disability compensation after he retired, but not while was still on active duty, and it wasn't much dollar-wise.

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#236
post #66
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good call-out! That was the scene I had in mind when I mentioned sitting in a barbershop arguing about the greatest boxer who ever lived, and while I didn't want to repeat that speech word-for-word, I was most definitely thinking of the Joe Frazier Rocky Marciano line you picked out. Finally, for all three people in the world who care, I picked George Chuvalo as my reply specifically because he is famous for fighting…

Wow you two really understand each other! I was thinking "what movie did I miss where they discussed Dicky Eklund and George Chuvalo?" I was wondering if it was from that old Showtime documentary about Dicky's darker times.

It's heart warming that people know Dicky in this context, it's tough to see him go from where he was to the person they saw during his appearance on HBO's "High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell"

https://deadspin.com/the-real-dicky-eklund-in-hbos-high-on-c...

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#237

It amazes the quantity of resources that will sometimes be deployed to rescue a sole man (or a handful) lost at sea. Not to say this is a bad thing; I would certainly appreciate it if I were lost at sea. But it might be questionable to a pure utilitarian. I counted at least one plane, two ships, and a helicopter all being diverted for the rescue. That's a great deal of expense in terms of fuel, I assume hundreds of c…

"It is hard to hang a man for stealing a sheep", he said. But the judge replied that we are not hanging you for stealing a sheep. We hang you so that other people would not steal sheep. In the same way, we spend resources to save one drowning man, not so much to save that one man, but to let all seafaring men to know that if need be, we will do our best to save them.

Highly efficient and utilitarian in both cases.

Especially when you consider the tertiary effects of greater widespread daily peace of mind and social morale, two things that tend to spill over positively into all areas of life and to non-obvious beneficiaries.

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#238

Something similar happened to my dad (USAF fighter pilot) in around 1961 or 62: He was test-flying a T-33 single-engine jet trainer assigned to his unit after it'd had repair work. The engine quit and wouldn't restart. He ejected, but his parachute didn't deploy fully (much the same as in the article) and he got tangled in the shrouds. He said a quick Hail Mary just before crashing head-first in a muddy, fresh-plowed…

>and soon afterwards got medically grounded — which meant he lost flight pay, with four school-aged kids while stationed in the Washington DC area; my mother had to go back to work as an RN (registered nurse) to make ends meet. That’s so, so wrong.

Welcome to the US military and being a veteran. There's a reason they call it a sacrifice.

Re: I Fell 15,000 Feet and Lived (2009)

#240
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progress is limited by security clearance. The US has incredible aircraft but no incentive to 'share'.

The USAF was third in the world for supersonic flight hours in the 1990's. First was British Airways second was Air France.

And BA was limited because the US banned supersonic flights overland, something widely seen (at least in Europe) as sour grapes after Boeing's attempt at building a supersonic airliner failed.
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