It's complicated, but basically I shouldn't have lost my temper like I
did. I don't do it very often, but when I do, I don't tread lightly.
It's a fault of mine.
I don't come from the world of pleasure flying. That doesn't mean I'm
better than pleasure pilots...just different. I've been pushing
airplanes to the limits of both their and my own maximum performance
limits for many years and survived. It's not a forgiving world. I've
been witness to many people dying in airplanes, a lot of them extremely
close friends. I've served on a few accident investigation teams,
basically within the airshow community.
We're a fairly close community. With us, life's real priorities get put
in order pretty fast. You learn pretty quick what's important and what's
not important in life when you're inverted half way through a slow roll
at 100 feet and you blow an oil line.
Certain things are very sensitive to us; one of these things is the use
of crash video by people outside the professional aviation community for
purposes other than a bonafide crash investigation or a news scenario.
We realize we can't stop it, but we don't like it just the same. For
example, Bud Holland was an idiot; a total disaster. His ultimate death
was considered a foregone conclusion in our little world. It was just a
matter of when it would happen. Bud finally killed himself through
overconfidence and by pushing his airplane too far into the left side of
his envelope. It was a horrible thing to watch. But Bud Holland wasn't
the only person on that airplane. He had a crew, and I knew the co-pilot
on Czar 52.
It's hard to explain how someone coming from my background feels about
seeing this crash and others displayed on a web site. Granted, the site
owner went to the trouble of attaching some related safety notation to
this particular video, and I commend that, but then I saw the two words
COOL and ENJOY.
The only thought that runs through the mind of someone with my
background at such a moment is that this web site owner, even if his
motives were fair and not prurient, had invaded into my personal world.
He hadn't paid the dues required to be in that world. He's just a guy
showing a film that represents the last moments on this earth of a
friend of mine, a nice guy who isn't even mentioned in the accompanying
text.
I don't know the right and wrong of it all. All I know is that to us, in
the airshow community, the showing of our deaths on a page where COOL
and ENJOY are showing as part of the accompanying marquee is like waving
a red flag at a bull.
I know that these videos will be shown, and nothing I can say or do will
prevent them from being shown, but the very least these web sites could
do, simply out of respect for the people who have died in these
accidents, is to remove words like COOL and ENJOY from the site.
The owner of the site has removed the word COOL from the site, and I am
grateful and commend him for doing that, but the word ENJOY, although
I'm sure meaningless to him personally, still leaves that awful taste in
my mouth when I see it there. There was nothing for me to enjoy about
Mark McGeehan's death.
I was wrong to lose my temper with the owner. I really don't think in
reflection that his motives were and are unethical. It's just more than
I can handle I guess, to see an old friend die and know that others are
seeing him die under the word ENJOY!
I guess in the end, you would just have to know someone like me
personally, or be from my little corner of the professional aviation
world to appreciate how I feel about something like this.
Anyway, thank you for your post, and I can assure you, I don't fly off
the handle like that all that often, so hang in there; I'm not REALLY as
dangerous as I must have appeared on this thread. Sometimes I even have
moments of sanity!

Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship



"John Mullen" wrote in message
...
"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
link.net...

"John Mullen" wrote in message
...
"Christopher Brian Colohan" wrote in message
.. .
First "Dudley Henriques" writes:
Right! I'll inform the rest of the world immediately! They'll want
to
retract fifty years of sought after professional advice.

Then he professionally advises:
Oh give me a ****ing break!
...and...
Who the hell do you think you're kidding?

He attempts to threaten:
and oh yes, you have ****ed off the worst person you could have
possibly picked to confront on this issue...trust me!!!

Continues professionally:
God, what a ****ing moron you are.

...and then retracts the threat:
Threatening my ass! The only threats
you have received from me is the threat that had I actually posted
to
your site in the interest of flight safety; then discovered your
use of
the two words "COOL" and "ENJOY" with my name under them; I would
have
marched into your GD lobby with several dozen other "interested"
parties from the aviation community and demanded that you remove
my name
and any reference of me from your website!
Go on moron, show us some more threats other than that!

Some unsolicited advice: think, _then_ post. You will come off
sounding much more reasoned and professional if you do.

Chris

(I happen to believe that Jay actually meant it when he said 'The
"Cool Videos" title pre-dates many of the tragic videos that are
now
on that page. I shall change it to something more appropriate when
I
get a minute.')

And I see he has changed it now. I agree with your coments about
Dudley's posts; I cannot see either jsut why he got so very angry
either. I suppose we all have our triggers...

The "triggers" are quite strong and go very deep. Sorry for the
trouble.

No trouble at all. I enjoy reading your posts. I know there must be a
reason you flew off the handle.

John