Sooner or later...
Wow.
I just read the TIME Magazine obit of a reporter named Johnny Apple, Jr., written by John McCain.
McCain met Apple in 1967 on the flight deck of the USS Forrestal after the reporter flew out to cover a horrendous fire that had just been suppressed on the aircraft carrier.
Anyone in the Navy knows the story of the fire. During launch and recovery ops, a missile accidentally fired and struck the external fuel tank of an A-4 (attack jet). The ensuing conflagration set off nine major explosions, punching holes in the deck which allowed burning jet fuel to rain into the ship, causing more fires and eventually killing 132 men (and 2 missing). The pilot of the initial A4 to be hit was McCain, who climbed out of his cockpit and tightroped his way down the nose onto the refueling probe (imagine walking on a metal pipe a few inches wide), from which he jumped to the deck. The plane exploded behind him.
This was, of course, three months before McCain was shot down on an attack mission and taken prisoner for five and a half years.* I hadn't known that he was the 'lucky' pilot on the Forrestal.
All this reminded me of one of my pilots who had a reputation of being extremely unlucky. I didn't put much into that and figured the opposite, as he was still alive after some horrendous mishaps (a split rotating swashplate?! Ju-HEEZUS!). After flying together more or less uneventfully almost three years, our night finally came when an electronics failure turned the aircraft into a bucking bronco a hundred feet above the black water - we dashed for the shore so quick and hard we skimmed over an apartment building and blew a motorcycle into the front end of a truck as we landed in the parking lot, wedged between a van and a water tower.
Sooner or later something happens; it's up to you to decide whether or not it's lucky.
* He was offered early repatriation due to his father being a prominent Admiral, but he refused special treatment denied his fellow prisoners. This is the man who we rejected in favor of a draft-dodger.
I just read the TIME Magazine obit of a reporter named Johnny Apple, Jr., written by John McCain.
McCain met Apple in 1967 on the flight deck of the USS Forrestal after the reporter flew out to cover a horrendous fire that had just been suppressed on the aircraft carrier.
Anyone in the Navy knows the story of the fire. During launch and recovery ops, a missile accidentally fired and struck the external fuel tank of an A-4 (attack jet). The ensuing conflagration set off nine major explosions, punching holes in the deck which allowed burning jet fuel to rain into the ship, causing more fires and eventually killing 132 men (and 2 missing). The pilot of the initial A4 to be hit was McCain, who climbed out of his cockpit and tightroped his way down the nose onto the refueling probe (imagine walking on a metal pipe a few inches wide), from which he jumped to the deck. The plane exploded behind him.
This was, of course, three months before McCain was shot down on an attack mission and taken prisoner for five and a half years.* I hadn't known that he was the 'lucky' pilot on the Forrestal.
All this reminded me of one of my pilots who had a reputation of being extremely unlucky. I didn't put much into that and figured the opposite, as he was still alive after some horrendous mishaps (a split rotating swashplate?! Ju-HEEZUS!). After flying together more or less uneventfully almost three years, our night finally came when an electronics failure turned the aircraft into a bucking bronco a hundred feet above the black water - we dashed for the shore so quick and hard we skimmed over an apartment building and blew a motorcycle into the front end of a truck as we landed in the parking lot, wedged between a van and a water tower.
Sooner or later something happens; it's up to you to decide whether or not it's lucky.
* He was offered early repatriation due to his father being a prominent Admiral, but he refused special treatment denied his fellow prisoners. This is the man who we rejected in favor of a draft-dodger.
posted by jim at 10/16/2006 12:19:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home