Almost saw someone crash

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
newsSFxc.1881$2i5.1305@attbi_s52...

Are you doubting that people fly/ride after drinking? Shoot, there are
entire riding clubs whose main purpose is to ride to the next "Pabst"
sign.

That's the whole reason Wisconsin was invented.

Are you doubting that people fly/ride after drinking? Shoot, there
are
entire riding clubs whose main purpose is to ride to the next "Pabst"
sign.

That's the whole reason Wisconsin was invented.

Seemingly so. Mary and I rode with a club like this precisely one time.
We rode from Racine, up the lakeshore, to Sheboygan for the "Brat Festival".
There were probably 50 motorcycles -- we made quite a spectacle.

There are a LOT of Pabst signs along that stretch, and by the time we got
there I had consumed several gallons of orange juice, and most of my fellow
riders could barely walk, let alone ride.

We never rode with those idiots again, and were pretty verbal about our
reasons.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Hi Jay,

Flying at night is neither difficult nor dangerous. And it is quite
beautiful

However, your odds plummet to near zero if you have an engine
problem. As a result, Mary (my wife, also a pilot) and I have
consciously decided not to fly at night until the kids are grown.

Same with sky-diving. If we're still physically capable (in another
ten years or so), we'll do that again, too. (Well, Mary will, for
sure.)

Charles Lindbergh would strongly advice you, to start at both
activities at the same time once your kids can support themselves :-).

I believe he once said something along the line of "I hope you take up
parachute jumping or stay out of single engined aircraft at night".

Would jumping from an engine-troubled plane at the dark of night
increase your odds over an attempted emergency landing in today's GA
planes? I would guess so, but am not sure. Probably depends on a lot of
circumstances.

regards,
Friedrich

--
for personal email please remove "entfernen" from my adress

Friedrich Ostertag wrote:

Would jumping from an engine-troubled plane at the dark of night
increase your odds over an attempted emergency landing in today's GA
planes? I would guess so, but am not sure. Probably depends on a lot of
circumstances.

I'm not sure that I would prefer to live through the aftermath of having my aircraft
crash into whatever it's likely to hit in New Jersey when left to its own devices.
For one thing, the lawsuits would probably make the remainder of my life
uncomfortable, to say the least. If I stay in the plane, at least I could make an
attempt at hitting something cheap. It might be a different matter in less populated
areas (like Iowa).

George Patterson
None of us is as dumb as all of us.

Hi George,

Would jumping from an engine-troubled plane at the dark of night
increase your odds over an attempted emergency landing in today's GA
planes? I would guess so, but am not sure. Probably depends on a lot
of circumstances.

I'm not sure that I would prefer to live through the aftermath of
having my aircraft crash into whatever it's likely to hit in New
Jersey when left to its own devices.

I guess ultimately it comes down to probabilities. Over a city you
might really be up to sacrificing yourself to avoid grave harm or death
to others on the ground. But if the ground below and ahead is pitch
black, so its almost certain death against a more or less remote
possibility of the plane hurting someone... a tough decision.

Would it be possible to narrow down the "target area" of a doomed
plane, e.g. by sending it into some sort of a spin or a nose dive or
maybe impairing it's c.g. over an unpopulated spot before jumping?

For one thing, the lawsuits
would probably make the remainder of my life uncomfortable, to say
the least.

Yes, this was probably different in Lindbergh's times....

I know he jumped from more than one plane at night during his years as
a mail pilot.

regards,
Friedrich

--
for personal email please remove "entfernen" from my adress

I'm not sure that I would prefer to live through the aftermath of having
my aircraft
crash into whatever it's likely to hit in New Jersey when left to its own
devices.

Wouldn't that be called "urban renewal" in Jersey?

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