If I die...

My brother recently lost a friend of his in a diving accident. And my
brother, as a former sailor on the wreck that the accident happened on
(HMCS Cape Breton), a local PADI dive instructor and an expert in deep
diving techniques, had to go in to find the body after the RCMP tried for
two days and couldn't find him. I was reading the forum posts about the
accident, and somebody posted this. With a few substitutions, I could see
this applying to us just as well.

If I should die while diving.

If I should die while diving please do not hesitate to discuss the
incident and assess every element with a view to furthering your
understanding of how to enhance diver safety.

If I should die while diving get the facts. They won't be readily
available and will definitely not be correct as reported by the media. But
get the facts as best you can.

If I should die while diving understand, as I already do, that it will
most likely involve fault on my part to some degree or another so do not
hesitate to point that out.

If I should die while diving some of the fault will probably belong to my
buddy and that needs to be honestly assessed as well though I must admit
this is one area where I hope that compassion will be in the mix.

If I should die while diving there might be those who try to squelch
discussion out of a misplaced notion of respect for the deceased, family
and friends. They can say nice things about me at my funeral... but in the
scuba community I want the incident discussed.

If I should die while diving at least I didn't die in bed.

--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
Which ISPs provide write-only Usenet access?
From the state of Usenet in general? All of them.
-- J.D.Baldwin and Derick Siddoway

"Paul Tomblin" wrote in message
...
If I should die while diving at least I didn't die in bed.

Poignant words indeed.
The last line makes for a fitting replacement for the ever clichéd "He died
doing what he loved!", which always seems to rub people the wrong way for
some reason.
Crash Lander
--
Straight and Level Down Under.
http://www.straightandleveldownunder.net/

Crash Lander wrote:
"Paul Tomblin" wrote in message
...
If I should die while diving at least I didn't die in bed.

Poignant words indeed.
The last line makes for a fitting replacement for the ever clichéd "He died
doing what he loved!", which always seems to rub people the wrong way for
some reason.
Crash Lander
The reason for this is complex and is much more deeply rooted in
professional aviation than it is in general aviation as that relates to
pilots who fly for pleasure.
In the professional community, many pilots don't like this sentiment.
First of all, it assumes that the person stating the sentiment knows or
knew the pilot in question well enough to make such a statement and in
almost every instance, this couldn't be further from the truth.
The truth is that most professional pilots, although we love to fly,
live in a world of intense competition and self discipline where just
doing the job right and keeping our necks in one piece takes up much of
the time we could otherwise be spending on "feeling" how wonderful it is
to fly.
If and when one of us buys the farm, it's due to something that went
wrong either with ourselves, our flying environment, and/or our
equipment. In our world, what we do when this happens is come together
like all normal people in aviation do, but you will seldom hear
sentiments like "at least he died doing what he loved to do".
What you will hear as we speak of a crash among ourselves are sentiments
like "Damn shame. What went wrong?"
If you are around professional pilots when a crash occurs, you should
notice an air of silent respect interfaced with straight forward and
pertinent questions.
In our world a crash means something went wrong that needs correcting, NOW!
The "he died with his boots on" thing just isn't our cup of tea, at
least for the pilots I know and have flown with anyway.
I've often said that if something went wrong and I dug a 10 foot hole in
the ground during one of my displays, my friends and associates would be
standing at the rim of the hole in about 30 seconds discussing what
might have gone wrong..and that's the way I would want it to be. I'd
want them to find out ASAP what happened so it didn't happen to someone
else the next day.
That's the way it is in the world of professional aviation.....at least
in my little corner of it anyway. :-)

--
Dudley Henriques

And then, Mr Dudley, there were John Gillespie Magee, Jr's thoughts on
your profession. I doubt you've lost that joy and awe.



On Dec 5, 10:04 pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:
Crash Lander wrote:
"Paul Tomblin" wrote in message
...
If I should die while diving at least I didn't die in bed.

Poignant words indeed.
The last line makes for a fitting replacement for the ever clichéd "He died
doing what he loved!", which always seems to rub people the wrong way for
some reason.
Crash Lander

The reason for this is complex and is much more deeply rooted in
professional aviation than it is in general aviation as that relates to
pilots who fly for pleasure.
In the professional community, many pilots don't like this sentiment.
First of all, it assumes that the person stating the sentiment knows or
knew the pilot in question well enough to make such a statement and in
almost every instance, this couldn't be further from the truth.
The truth is that most professional pilots, although we love to fly,
live in a world of intense competition and self discipline where just
doing the job right and keeping our necks in one piece takes up much of
the time we could otherwise be spending on "feeling" how wonderful it is
to fly.
If and when one of us buys the farm, it's due to something that went
wrong either with ourselves, our flying environment, and/or our
equipment. In our world, what we do when this happens is come together
like all normal people in aviation do, but you will seldom hear
sentiments like "at least he died doing what he loved to do".
What you will hear as we speak of a crash among ourselves are sentiments
like "Damn shame. What went wrong?"
If you are around professional pilots when a crash occurs, you should
notice an air of silent respect interfaced with straight forward and
pertinent questions.
In our world a crash means something went wrong that needs correcting, NOW!
The "he died with his boots on" thing just isn't our cup of tea, at
least for the pilots I know and have flown with anyway.
I've often said that if something went wrong and I dug a 10 foot hole in
the ground during one of my displays, my friends and associates would be
standing at the rim of the hole in about 30 seconds discussing what
might have gone wrong..and that's the way I would want it to be. I'd
want them to find out ASAP what happened so it didn't happen to someone
else the next day.
That's the way it is in the world of professional aviation.....at least
in my little corner of it anyway. :-)

--
Dudley Henriques

"Tina" == Tina writes:

Tina And then, Mr Dudley, there were John Gillespie Magee, Jr's
Tina thoughts on your profession. I doubt you've lost that joy
Tina and awe.

I have not, but for some time have enjoyed W.B. Yeats thoughts too. It
helps to know that this was written around WWI and that the Irish,
like other members of the UK, have no love for the English.

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
W.B. Yeats

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

--
It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country
is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially
induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant
propaganda of fear.
~ General Douglas MacArthur

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
W.B. Yeats

Outstanding!

I never thought I'd see the day when I would read my old friend Yeats
in a thread on this newsgroup...

Better knock it off -- If this keeps up we pilots will soon be accused
of having some culture and class...

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Tina wrote:
And then, Mr Dudley, there were John Gillespie Magee, Jr's thoughts on
your profession. I doubt you've lost that joy and awe.

I am struck with the humor I envision merely from the thought of
beginning to recite "High Flight" during a pre-show brief of the
Thunderbirds or Blue Angels, or at a meeting at NAFEC discussing why the
#619 engine test bed F14 Tomcat was just lost as it spun into the bay.
I'm wondering just how long I would have lived had I taxied out to do a
low altitude display in one of our airplanes thinking to myself how
wonderful it was just to be allowed to experience the joys of flight.
I'm wondering if an airline pilot friend of mine who is flying today is
sitting up there in the cockpit enjoying the world going by, or thinking
about the approach he has to make in the next 30 minutes.

I once sat in on a meeting with about 10 combat veterans, all fighter
pilots, all aces, some several times over. The discussion was about
survival in the combat arena.
Probably the single most talked about factor in that meeting was the
mental attitude of new pilots going into combat for the first time.
The guys all agreed that most pilots going through the training program
bring into the program with them, a feeling of high emotion concerning
flying and wanting to fly. Almost to an individual, these newbies are
flushed with the "excitement" and "wonder" of being one of the "lucky
ones" accepted to flight training after fierce competition to get there.

All the veterans agreed that probably the first thing that had to be
accomplished with these newbies was to purge all that emotional feeling
out of their systems; the sooner the better.

There was and still is a critical reason for this.

When you choose to fly airplanes for a living or fly airplanes in any
high risk or extended exposure professional environment, the scenario
involving the "emotional approach" to flying is best left on the ground
if you intend living for any length of time in this environment.
The long and short of it is that in the professional cockpit, there's
little room for the "High Flight" types. The professional pilot has much
more important things to be concerned with.
As for the fighter pilots; it was the general consensus of the people in
that meeting that the newbies flying into combat who were still enamored
with their "wonder of it all" feelings about actually being there and
involved, didn't last very long as a group. In short, they were the ones
who got themselves killed early on after deployment into operational
squadrons.
All this I'm saying here doesn't mean that pilots like myself are cold
and hard and that we don't feel things as other people do. What it means
is that we might look at flying a bit differently than the average
pleasure pilot.
I happen to have a copy of High Flight hanging on the wall here in the
den. I actually know people who knew the Magees in South Africa. The
poem is a beautiful sentiment, but for pilots like myself, it's a
private sentiment. I don't take things like this to work.
During my years in flying, I've buried 32 of my friends and associates.
It's a tough business where you are allowed emotion, but not at the office!
I can give you a perfect example of what I've been talking about.
I had a friend when I was younger, an ANG fighter pilot. He was killed
flying an F86 Sabre when his engine threw a turbine bucket and exploded.
He stayed with it too long, ejected low and out of the seat envelope and
the chute couldn't deploy. The papers carried the oft used story in
such situations about Jim staying with the airplane to avoid populated
areas thus costing him his life. Even the ANG accident inquiry stated
this as a probable cause of his death.
Understanding that I loved this man, you can imagine how much this
ending to his life meant to me.
Many years later, acting as a flight safety advisor giving a safety
lecture on low altitude emergency bailout, the issue of my friend's
ejection came up in the Q&A.
You can only imagine how difficult it was for me, now having thousands
of hours of experience to stand there and contradict the accident report.
The truth involved with low altitude bailout in high performance jets is
that the pilot involved seldom has the time or even the inclination to
either spot on the ground or attempt to avoid that "school house full of
innocent children" down there. The pilot usually has his hands full
controlling a stricken aircraft while trying to eject in time to save
his own life. The simple fact is that unless the emergency is stable and
the altitude situation dictates that the aircraft can be pointed to a
large obviously open area, the pilot will have little control over
exactly where the aircraft impacts the ground.

In covering these aspects of low altitude ejection, I had to use the
example of my closest friend as a negative example. I had to actually
detract from what had been written about him to present a more
reasonable probable cause.
Knowing Jim, he would have wanted it this way, and this is but one
example of the difference between flying for fun and flying professionally.






--
Dudley Henriques

On an IFR flight plan over PA last summer, maybe about 7000 feet, ATC
gave us permission to deviate. There were canyons of clouds to play
with along our route. My husband uses an airplane the way most use a
car, as a tool, but the pleasure of the moment was there anyhow.

Come on Dudley, you've been there. That's blood, not 100 octane low
lead, in your veins. Even professionals smile. I knew a Pole a long
time ago who flew bombers during WWII from England to Germany, and he
talked about flying along the top surface of cirrus clouds, right at
eye level. Fully alert (there were people around who wanted to kill
him), fully involved, and alive enough to remember the moment..




On Dec 6, 12:10 pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:
Tina wrote:
And then, Mr Dudley, there were John Gillespie Magee, Jr's thoughts on
your profession. I doubt you've lost that joy and awe.

I am struck with the humor I envision merely from the thought of
beginning to recite "High Flight" during a pre-show brief of the
Thunderbirds or Blue Angels, or at a meeting at NAFEC discussing why the
#619 engine test bed F14 Tomcat was just lost as it spun into the bay.
I'm wondering just how long I would have lived had I taxied out to do a
low altitude display in one of our airplanes thinking to myself how
wonderful it was just to be allowed to experience the joys of flight.
I'm wondering if an airline pilot friend of mine who is flying today is
sitting up there in the cockpit enjoying the world going by, or thinking
about the approach he has to make in the next 30 minutes.

I once sat in on a meeting with about 10 combat veterans, all fighter
pilots, all aces, some several times over. The discussion was about
survival in the combat arena.
Probably the single most talked about factor in that meeting was the
mental attitude of new pilots going into combat for the first time.
The guys all agreed that most pilots going through the training program
bring into the program with them, a feeling of high emotion concerning
flying and wanting to fly. Almost to an individual, these newbies are
flushed with the "excitement" and "wonder" of being one of the "lucky
ones" accepted to flight training after fierce competition to get there.

All the veterans agreed that probably the first thing that had to be
accomplished with these newbies was to purge all that emotional feeling
out of their systems; the sooner the better.

There was and still is a critical reason for this.

When you choose to fly airplanes for a living or fly airplanes in any
high risk or extended exposure professional environment, the scenario
involving the "emotional approach" to flying is best left on the ground
if you intend living for any length of time in this environment.
The long and short of it is that in the professional cockpit, there's
little room for the "High Flight" types. The professional pilot has much
more important things to be concerned with.
As for the fighter pilots; it was the general consensus of the people in
that meeting that the newbies flying into combat who were still enamored
with their "wonder of it all" feelings about actually being there and
involved, didn't last very long as a group. In short, they were the ones
who got themselves killed early on after deployment into operational
squadrons.
All this I'm saying here doesn't mean that pilots like myself are cold
and hard and that we don't feel things as other people do. What it means
is that we might look at flying a bit differently than the average
pleasure pilot.
I happen to have a copy of High Flight hanging on the wall here in the
den. I actually know people who knew the Magees in South Africa. The
poem is a beautiful sentiment, but for pilots like myself, it's a
private sentiment. I don't take things like this to work.
During my years in flying, I've buried 32 of my friends and associates.
It's a tough business where you are allowed emotion, but not at the office!
I can give you a perfect example of what I've been talking about.
I had a friend when I was younger, an ANG fighter pilot. He was killed
flying an F86 Sabre when his engine threw a turbine bucket and exploded.
He stayed with it too long, ejected low and out of the seat envelope and
the chute couldn't deploy. The papers carried the oft used story in
such situations about Jim staying with the airplane to avoid populated
areas thus costing him his life. Even the ANG accident inquiry stated
this as a probable cause of his death.
Understanding that I loved this man, you can imagine how much this
ending to his life meant to me.
Many years later, acting as a flight safety advisor giving a safety
lecture on low altitude emergency bailout, the issue of my friend's
ejection came up in the Q&A.
You can only imagine how difficult it was for me, now having thousands
of hours of experience to stand there and contradict the accident report.
The truth involved with low altitude bailout in high performance jets is
that the pilot involved seldom has the time or even the inclination to
either spot on the ground or attempt to avoid that "school house full of
innocent children" down there. The pilot usually has his hands full
controlling a stricken aircraft while trying to eject in time to save
his own life. The simple fact is that unless the emergency is stable and
the altitude situation dictates that the aircraft can be pointed to a
large obviously open area, the pilot will have little control over
exactly where the aircraft impacts the ground.

In covering these aspects of low altitude ejection, I had to use the
example of my closest friend as a negative example. I had to actually
detract from what had been written about him to present a more
reasonable probable cause.
Knowing Jim, he would have wanted it this way, and this is but one
example of the difference between flying for fun and flying professionally.

--
Dudley Henriques

Dudley Henriques wrote in
:

Tina wrote:
And then, Mr Dudley, there were John Gillespie Magee, Jr's thoughts
on your profession. I doubt you've lost that joy and awe.

I am struck with the humor I envision merely from the thought of
beginning to recite "High Flight"

Mostly ~I just don't want them to think I ****ed up


Bertie

Dudley Henriques wrote:
The reason for this is complex and is much more deeply rooted in
professional aviation than it is in general aviation as that relates to
pilots who fly for pleasure.
In the professional community, many pilots don't like this sentiment.
First of all, it assumes that the person stating the sentiment knows or
knew the pilot in question well enough to make such a statement and in
almost every instance, this couldn't be further from the truth.


Well, first I posted a rather brusque response and then I read what you'd said.
I've almost died twice in my life: once cave diving (oddly enough for this
thread) and once in an airplane. I'd rather have a few seconds of terror
followed by the deep peace that comes with acceptance of impending death than to
sit in a nursing home waiting for my cancer to eat me alive.

So yeah, I'd rather go doing something I enjoyed even if it caused me momentary
pain. The alternatives aren't attractive. I used to joke that I hoped I would
go out at the hands of a jealous husband but I believe the window of opportunity
has slammed shut on me. Now the best I can hope for is to go in my sleep. Or
doing something I enjoy....

I would fully expect folks to discuss and dissect such an event. And I'd hope
others could learn something that might help them avoid a similar fate...



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com