Sometimes I wonder about it.

I spent hours and hours and hours in hard practice getting as absolutely
sharp as I could be. Hell, at one time in my career I could slow roll an
airplane with an altimeter needle pinned on an entry altitude and not have
the needle move off the entry number through 180 degrees of roll. (the last
180 requires the nose to be lowered back to level flight :-)
In fact, my rule for low altitude work was that if I couldn't do five of
these in a row without blowing one on the low side, I'd start over again
until I got it right!
After all that........and the rest of what made up my being as sharp as I
had to be to work airplanes in the venue I did, I can sit here today after
all of it is said and done and tell you for an absolute certainty that if it
wasn't for some unknown element of sheer luck, I probably wouldn't have made
it through and survived.
It's funny about things like this. Kind of puts things in perspective for
the overconfident among us doesn't it????????? :-)))))
Dudley

"Roger" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 26 Apr 2005 17:46:21 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
dhenriques@noware .net wrote:

snip

Even Notams don't work sometimes.

I remember like it was yesterday; standing at the Blues Com Trailer with
John Patton of the Blue Angels at the Reading Show in 74. Tony Less took
the
Diamond straight up for the Diamond Loop. Both Patton and I saw the
Cherokee
140 at the same time. John had a hot mike in his had and direct contact
with
Tony in Blue 1. The formation went right past the Cherokee before either
of
us could speak. We discovered in the post flight brief that none of the
team
saw the Cherokee, and to this day, I honestly believe the pilot in the
Cherokee must have seen the team go by him. We judged he was close enough
that his pants were stained when he landed at where ever he was headed.
There are NOTAMS issued on the Blues performance times, and the field is
closed for traffic during demonstrations. We checked. All the NOTAMS were
intact. The times were correct. The guy in the Cherokee didn't read the
NOTAMS and wasn't advised either. He simply wandered in and flew right
through the restricted airspace unannounced and uninvited.
It happens!!!!

Now that is scary!
There is always at least one who never gets the notification.

Last spring we had a pancake breakfast. (OK, last spring or the one
before) and it was a pretty good turn out. Lots of planes.

They received a call up in the terminal building that such and such a
Cherokee pilot should call the tower over at MBS. Seems as the guy
went merrily chugging right through their airspace about a 1000 AGL
right in front of an airliner who had to take evasive action and go
around. To say they weren't happy would be an understatement.

Last Fall before the elections the President was going to be in
Saginaw. There was a TFR in place (centered on MBS) and well
advertised. We knew about it nearly a week ahead. Actually we were
just one mile outside the no fly zone so we could go straight out, or
straight back home while talking to ATC.

Pilot: Ahhhh... MBS Approach, I have a jet off my wing tip. What does
that mean? What's going on?
MBS: unintelligible
Pilot: Do you want me to land?
(The pres was due in about 15 minutes. No they did not want him to
land!)
I'll be contacted at harbor Beach? Who should I call?
(I doubt he had to call any one as the big blue State Police cars were
probably waiting for him)

Of course there was the time a year or so back an airliner flew right
through our down wind leg for 24 slightly below pattern altitude which
is 1000 AGL.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot; CFI; Retired
dhenriquestrashatearthlinktrashdotnet
(take out the trash :-)