Bush, Kerry, Airplanes

All this brings up several things.

One, Bush learned to fly in the military at government expense, did
not complete his assigned commitment, and flew, if I understand ,
fourteen months after UPT and has not flown as PIC or SIC since.
Neither military or elsewise. (Not counting the ride out to the boat
of late.)

Kerry learned to fly not at government expense and apparently has
done so for a number of years.

Now, mind you, I don't like Bush or Kerry as a candidate. Bush was
born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. Kerry is also
apparently something of a rich kid, married Big Ketchup, Ivy League
(yecch), and to top it off is closely associated with a family I
detest and which makes my skin crawl for many reasons (not least of
which the same reason a certain baseball player hated them for every
day of the last 36 years of his life). I can tell you right now I'm
voting third party.

But-be honest-is there any reason I should prefer Bush over Kerry
from an aviation standpoint? Bush, a nonpilot as far as I'm concerned,
has done nothing for aviation in this country. Kerry isn't likely to
either, but how much worse could he be?

The other thing in all this discussion of what balls it takes to
strap on a single engine fighter, is the growing evidence that many
people are willing to pay a lot of money for the privilege. Once
reserved for places like Mojave, the warjet deal is penetrating down
to the backward Midwest. I saw a Sabre and a Hawker Hunter poking
their tails up among the Aztecs and King Airs at the local spam can
patch this week out here. My guess is it costs roughly five hundred
bucks an hour to fly a Sabre. And the civil warjet guys are killing
themselves at a rate that would have embarrassed the Air Force during
the glory days of "Every Man A Tiger".

In and of itself flying fighters is no more heroic than riding a
chopped Harley with the Hells Angels or wreck diving with open circuit
scuba gear. It's what one does, and why, that sometimes might be
heroic. But just climbing up there-if I hit the lottery and could get
the FAA to let me I'd buy-after working my way up a little-the wildest
fighter I could. Simply because it would be-this is 2004, Marilyn's
dead, and she'd be 78 anyway- the biggest ego blast in the world to
taxi up to the ramp at the local FBO in front of all those square-ass
Gulfstream and Lear crews. I know what the statistics are, and I don't
care. I suspect Bush Jr's motives were the same-booze, pussy and
kerosene!












Cub Driver wrote in message . ..
I believe that is the first time I have heard of the F-102 as a "safe
aircraft"! Were they really?

As Ed Rasimus has said: "Every time you kick the tires and light the
fire in a single-engine, single-seat Century Series jet, it can kill
you--all by itself without help from an enemy."
www.warbirdforum.com/bushf102.htm