Yesterday someone had left the TV on and I as I was taking a short break I
saw that the TV soap "Days of Our Lives" had an aviation sequence on it. It
had two guys flying a civilian twin somewhere; I have no idea what the plot
was, but it was no doubt incredibly silly.

Anyway, they are apparently flying at night. You can tell because it is dark
and you can see a reflection from the rotating beacon inside the cockpit.
The beacon must have been mounted on the nose or something. It was like
watching an old gangster movie where the hoodlum invariably holes up in a
hotel room with an irritating flashing neon sign outside the window.

The pilots were yelling at someone to "Get out of the way! Get out of the
way!" through the windshield. Finally, using all their strength and
straining at the controls, it takes both of them to begin evasive action by
turning the yoke slightly. Despite this tremendous effort, they still hit
whatever it was they saw. I did not see what they hit, but they managed to
regain control of the airplane and continue flying with no more concern
about it.

I had started laughing so hard I had to wee. Walking back into the room
somewhat later, I saw the show was still on. The pilots were now flying
through a severe thunderstorm, represented by buckets of water being thrown
on the windscreen. They were obviously very macho and very dramatic. The
beacon is still flashing, but it is not as bright because dawn is breaking.
One of pilots says they have a signal ordering them to turn around. The
other pilot irritatedly says "I'll give them a signal!" and grabs his
headset and puts it on to make a radio call. This is the only time either
pilot is wearing his headset. He says, "Basic Black! Basic Black! This is
Basic Black! Come in!" Without waiting for a reply he rips off his headset
and throws it across the cockpit. "Radios must have failed when we took
off!" Just then a high pitched beeper goes off:
"beep-beep-beep-beep-beep..." The pilot fails to notice it until the
co-pilot calls it to his attention. The pilot then jumps with a start and
says, "Someone has locked onto us and is ready to fire! I think I can
re-program the frabulator through other unintelligible gobbledy gook...."

I wanted to wait around to see if the show could top this, but I had a
student. Besides, having to wade through the rest of the "Days of Our Lives"
sequences would probably have made me physically ill. Still, you wonder how
many people believe that this is how small planes operate. I mentioned it to
my student, a nurse, and she said, "sounds like their aviation is about as
accurate as their medicine." Nevertheless, it turned out she was a devoted
"Days of Our Lives" fan. I guess there is no accounting for taste.

Anyway, the moral of the story is, don't forget to preflight your
frabulator, or else you might get shot down.

--
Christopher J. Campbell
World Famous Flight Instructor
Port Orchard, WA


If you go around beating the Bush, don't complain if you rile the animals.