Difficult decisions.

Discussion in 'Freedom and Liberty' started by duane, Feb 15, 2020.


  1. duane

    duane Monkey+++

    I was taught to fly a l-21B at Eglin AFB on old Field 3, where Dolittle trained for the raid on Japan. They had repainted the runway, fixed up the buildings, etc, for the movie as part was filmed there so it could be kind of weird setting at the end of the runway waiting to take off. There was no tower and the military radio had been removed and replaced with a civilian one, along with the rocket racks, to save weight, so arrangements had to be made with the main base over the phone before take off and you were on your own on landing. The Instructor pilot was getting ready to retire with 20 years in the USAF and although he had God knows how many hours, most was in B-17, B-29,. B-50, and B-47. He had combat in WW2 and Korea and had survived to talk about so had a lot of good stories. Eglin was and I guess still is bad for a haze developing and visability going from 20miles to a mile or less in minutes. The price was right for his teaching, he was jumping thru the hoops to meet the required conditions for his civilian training papers and charged me nothing. Before he let me solo, I had to make practice df steers with the FAA, fly needle, ball, and airspeed, with a hood, and learn how to slow fly and make a minimum speed descent, at roughly 45 mph, and he stressed that airplanes were replaceable. He taught me to stay out of IFR, but if you get into, don't try to be a hero, with a L-21, full flaps, some power on, and a good safety harness, your odds of walking away from the crash were almost 100 % in your favor. I hate to say the number of times in the 60 years that I have seen reports on people dying to save their car, house in a fire, airplane in bad weather, and so on. Kennedy comes to mind, as well as John Denver.
    In survival as well as in life, when do you make the decision to fight it or to walk away and be around for another day? Used to think it was a theoretical question, but I think the line is starting to blur a little. As is true about so many things in life, you will have the final exam and then learn the lesson if you are still alive. Only way I know to prepare is to establish as much muscle memory as you can and don't try to overthink it. The fact that we are on this board means that in the past we have made some correct decisions and are still alive to participate.
     
  2. Dunerunner

    Dunerunner Brewery Monkey Moderator

    And, yet; the stupid survive and reproduce....
     
    sec_monkey, SB21, Oddcaliber and 2 others like this.
  3. There is an awfully large number of them.
     
    sec_monkey, SB21, Ura-Ki and 2 others like this.
  4. Gator 45/70

    Gator 45/70 Monkey+++

    Thanks for your service Duane!!!
     
  5. duane

    duane Monkey+++

    Nothing to thank me for, in most of the 1940's and 50's, you were expected to and did serve as part of growing up. Vietnam War changed all that. Politicians and college educated upper class that all of a sudden had better things to do than serve and figured ways not to serve.
    Always hated the Pres for pardoning those that went to Canada, they made their beds, they should have been made to sleep in them. YMMV
     
  6. apache235

    apache235 Monkey+++

    Not only pardoning the cowards, but giving away the Panama Canal
     
  7. Ura-Ki

    Ura-Ki Grampa Monkey

    Good Ol' L-21, brings back lots of fond memories for me! I took my tail wheel training in a 1958 Super Cub ( Same as an L-21) and I knew from the first flight that I had to have one some day! Took me a few years to find one, but I finally found a good one, and have been flying Supers ever since, Best damn Bush Planes ever made, and i'm on my third one now! LOL
    [​IMG]
     
  8. apache235

    apache235 Monkey+++

    I didn't realize the Super Cub was the L-21. My first flight in June of '59 was in a Super Cub I was 13 at the time. That airplane is still flying, kinda wish I had it, but glad that I don't. The Apache served me well but those days are past now.
     
    Gator 45/70 and Ura-Ki like this.
  9. offgrittyt

    offgrittyt You gonna eat that?

    I feel young now .. oh so so very young .. thank you all .. thank you all so very much!
    [​IMG]
     
  10. offgrittyt

    offgrittyt You gonna eat that?

    LOOK, we all know that the only reason why the two atomic events that brought the Second World War to end all wars to a close hasn't broken the stride of war to this very day, ISN'T because the people of earth's nations hate each other and want to torture, maim and murder themselves, their own children and the children of others, but because there's money in the industry of war. As as long as the eternally hell bound, lowest common denominator, governing minority can terrorize people into doing their idiotic bidding, war will continue.

    Government's and their war industrial underwriter's continue to contrive and collude to create war, BUT, government's are powerless to do anything without the permission and participation of a mass proletariat.

    Where do government's find a mass proletariat to proudly do their bidding? Easy, they create one in a mandatory publicly funded, majority attended, government "education" monopoly. (See the striking similarities between ancient Rome and present day US of A).

    As far as we can tell, war has always been the way of the monkey's of humanity. However, the continuation of the industry of war is not a foregone conclusion nor is war even any longer practical because of our ability to exterminate ourselves at the push of a button.

    These things I write out of great respect, love and honor for my father who was a POW, the many close members of my family who are ex or active military, all of you who are ex or active military as well as the humble, lesser citizenry who have the brains and balls to love our veteran's enough to oppose the LCD's idiotic industry of war.

    Define Junior's, "mission accomplished" ?

    [​IMG]

    Armed merely with rifles, soldiers fend off the flowery assaults of the cupcakes who were literately trying to save the soldiers from becoming fodder in yet another war contrived by the ruling, lowest common denominator.
    The cupcakes lost.

    [​IMG]

    Only one person in this photo has balls.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Feb 17, 2020
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