When Teddy was still alive and went swimming he was often mistaken for a whale. One of those ones that are sick and beaches itself just before it dies.
Looking back on the timeline, it is just amazing how quick 9/11 too to unfold. About the same time line as the Titanic hitting the iceberg and then sinking.
History has a way of repeating itself. In a couple of hours we can mark the anniversary of Benghazi.
"Who can forget where they were when they heard the JFK Jr. had crashed in the ocean."
I can't explain why, but that crash caused me to start lessons the next day to get my Private Pilot's license. I got it a few months later, and the process was one of the most exciting and interesting things I ever did, especially learning in the crowded airspace of Los Angles surrounded by ocean, high mountains, forests and desert. I wish I could do it all again, but I'm too cheap to fly planes now.
On the day of my first cross country flight as a licensed pilot, a doctor flying his girlfriend and secretary crashed his Piper Meridian seconds after take off in the parking lot of a Taco Bell just past the runway. After a short airport shutdown that delayed me a few hours, I flew out later that afternoon with a non-pilot friend who was chugging vodka to calm his nerves.
It was supposed to be a daylight flight, but we crested the 8,000ft mountains at dusk and proceeded to get lost in the very dark desert night over China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station. The Navy air controllers were very helpful in guiding me to a nearby airfield. After calling on the radio for assistance, the controller says: "Cessna 95 echo, do you know where you are?" I say "No sir, I'm lost." He said, "you definitely are."
We we're never really in danger, I kept above the terrain and could find my way back, but it was highly illegal to be where we were. Now after 9/11 they might just shoot me down, and figure it out later.
Getting lost was due to me forgetting to reset the directional indicator after the long climb over the mountains. Gyroscopic precession throws them into error especially in long climbs and accelerations. It was about 10 degrees off, which was enough to head us toward the Mohave desert rather than the sequoia forest we were headed to.
Relax, I don't fly metal aircraft anymore, so you're all safe.
My passenger, who I scared the shit out of that night, and who was my best friend, died a couple years later from a heart attack sitting in front of his TV.
Back in the 1980's I was in the towers every other day. Various New York State Tax Departments were quartered there and there was a very nice bookstore. Also it was the Subway Stop I would get out to meet my friends when we would go out drinking down on Wall St and the South St Seaport. We had a regular pub crawl that started across the street on Trinity Place.
Plus you could see them from just about every spot in Carroll Gardens as the brownstones are quite low and the Towers gleamed proudly in the background.
I watched that rebroadcast of the Today show from 9/11/01 this morning. Knowing exactly when things were gonna happen made it impossible to stop watching until both towers were down.
A horrible day. I've loved those towers since I was a kid watching them grow out of an irrepressible nation that was flying to the moon like it was a family vacation. I thought they were beautiful in their simplicity, their overwhelming power of presence, and the audacity of being double on top of it all. I think we have failed to live up to what the nation was that built them. We are too fat, too lazy, too small minded, too safety-minded, which only makes us less safe while robbing us of the life we try so hard to lengthen at all costs.
I soloed at 16 and got a private license at 17, out of lab assistant jobs at school. Driving age was 17 so I would bike out to the airport at 16 to fly until then.
I never got lost, not that regular flying isn't getting lost from place to place without anything but map and mag compass.
Plus certain techniques to keep track of probabilities, like fly in a straight line even if on the wrong course, so that when you recognize something you know what correction to make.
Flying at 16 made me a very safe driver. It all got out speeding of my system.
Teaching junior high kids to fly high performance jet aircraft would be a very good program for driver safety.
Something about flying like languages and some other things make it much easier to learn when you are young. I learned in my forties and was surrounded by kids, some of whom were my instructors. Most of the older pilots I've met learned in their teens. I don't know how a kid today could ever afford it. The costs have gone nuts.
21 comments:
I heard of that place.
I don't see why the Zapruder film shouldn't be fair game, but I try to keep an open mind about that kind of stuff.
Imus is going to carry the moment of silence live at the WTC this morning.
I don't know what's going on that will be silenced.
It seems like they must be creating noise just so that they can silence it.
Then it's carried live on the radio.
Maybe it will be replayed later.
Fragmentary evidence is all that remains.
But things are much better now, as the Preezy tells me we should now fight with Al Qaeda, no longer against them.
It only took a dozen years for us to be bestest friends!
9/11 draws enough eyeballs to be worth remembering.
Nobody remembers the 2008 market crash.
People striving to put food on their families.
Breaking news: Scott Salotto live at the north tower reflecting pool and what he's hearing. Not yet the moment of silence.
Who can forget where they were when they heard the JFK Jr. had crashed in the ocean.
National weeping lasted weeks, baffling all men.
"But things are much better now, as the Preezy tells me we should now fight with Al Qaeda, no longer against them.
It only took a dozen years for us to be bestest friends!"
Well, when you put it that way. How very odd that we have armed al Qaeda, whether or not we said we were going to be careful not to.
JFK Jr. hit me hard in the nostalgia.
I went on a whale watching tour out of Hyannisport once and we spotted both RFK's airplane and Teddy's Oldsmobile. It was a memorable trip.
Imus did not carry the second moment of silence owing to a top of the hour break.
I heard of that place.
I had been to that place. They looked much better in person than they did in pictures.
When Teddy was still alive and went swimming he was often mistaken for a whale. One of those ones that are sick and beaches itself just before it dies.
Looking back on the timeline, it is just amazing how quick 9/11 too to unfold. About the same time line as the Titanic hitting the iceberg and then sinking.
History has a way of repeating itself. In a couple of hours we can mark the anniversary of Benghazi.
"Who can forget where they were when they heard the JFK Jr. had crashed in the ocean."
I can't explain why, but that crash caused me to start lessons the next day to get my Private Pilot's license. I got it a few months later, and the process was one of the most exciting and interesting things I ever did, especially learning in the crowded airspace of Los Angles surrounded by ocean, high mountains, forests and desert. I wish I could do it all again, but I'm too cheap to fly planes now.
On the day of my first cross country flight as a licensed pilot, a doctor flying his girlfriend and secretary crashed his Piper Meridian seconds after take off in the parking lot of a Taco Bell just past the runway. After a short airport shutdown that delayed me a few hours, I flew out later that afternoon with a non-pilot friend who was chugging vodka to calm his nerves.
It was supposed to be a daylight flight, but we crested the 8,000ft mountains at dusk and proceeded to get lost in the very dark desert night over China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station. The Navy air controllers were very helpful in guiding me to a nearby airfield. After calling on the radio for assistance, the controller says: "Cessna 95 echo, do you know where you are?" I say "No sir, I'm lost." He said, "you definitely are."
We we're never really in danger, I kept above the terrain and could find my way back, but it was highly illegal to be where we were. Now after 9/11 they might just shoot me down, and figure it out later.
Getting lost was due to me forgetting to reset the directional indicator after the long climb over the mountains. Gyroscopic precession throws them into error especially in long climbs and accelerations. It was about 10 degrees off, which was enough to head us toward the Mohave desert rather than the sequoia forest we were headed to.
Relax, I don't fly metal aircraft anymore, so you're all safe.
My passenger, who I scared the shit out of that night, and who was my best friend, died a couple years later from a heart attack sitting in front of his TV.
Back in the 1980's I was in the towers every other day. Various New York State Tax Departments were quartered there and there was a very nice bookstore. Also it was the Subway Stop I would get out to meet my friends when we would go out drinking down on Wall St and the South St Seaport. We had a regular pub crawl that started across the street on Trinity Place.
Plus you could see them from just about every spot in Carroll Gardens as the brownstones are quite low and the Towers gleamed proudly in the background.
I watched that rebroadcast of the Today show from 9/11/01 this morning. Knowing exactly when things were gonna happen made it impossible to stop watching until both towers were down.
A horrible day. I've loved those towers since I was a kid watching them grow out of an irrepressible nation that was flying to the moon like it was a family vacation. I thought they were beautiful in their simplicity, their overwhelming power of presence, and the audacity of being double on top of it all. I think we have failed to live up to what the nation was that built them. We are too fat, too lazy, too small minded, too safety-minded, which only makes us less safe while robbing us of the life we try so hard to lengthen at all costs.
Great story, bags! I know damn well you were trying to get to Area 51.
bags @12:34 Very well said.
I soloed at 16 and got a private license at 17, out of lab assistant jobs at school. Driving age was 17 so I would bike out to the airport at 16 to fly until then.
I never got lost, not that regular flying isn't getting lost from place to place without anything but map and mag compass.
Plus certain techniques to keep track of probabilities, like fly in a straight line even if on the wrong course, so that when you recognize something you know what correction to make.
Flying at 16 made me a very safe driver. It all got out speeding of my system.
Teaching junior high kids to fly high performance jet aircraft would be a very good program for driver safety.
Something about flying like languages and some other things make it much easier to learn when you are young. I learned in my forties and was surrounded by kids, some of whom were my instructors. Most of the older pilots I've met learned in their teens. I don't know how a kid today could ever afford it. The costs have gone nuts.
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