Over the years I have frequently been asked if I had any frightening experiences during my long flying career. In truth, there were few. The old joke about flying being “hours of boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror” is actually true, but those moments, especially with regards to commercial airline flying, are very, very few. However, in the late late spring of 1997 I had an experience which nearly ended my flying career and my life. Simultaneously! The whole scenario only lasted a few minutes, but was one which the three of us in the cockpit of that TWA 747-200, which we fondly called “The Whale”, will never forget.
I had been assigned to one of my favorite flights, TWA 001 from St. Louis to Honolulu, Hawaii. It may well have been the senior flight for 747 crews, and was always a pleasure. However, on that windy spring day it almost turned into a nightmare for me and the other 400 plus people on board. As it turned out, it was caused by an almost unbelievable example of “Murphy’s Law”, which as we all know goes something like “If it can go wrong, it will go wrong”. That day it did. For sure.
One day a week TWA 001 had a scheduled connection with a flight to Samoa out of Honolulu to Pago Pago, American Samoa. On that day we always had a large number of passengers who were either residents of Samoa, or of Samoan descent. I think I can safely say that Samoans, lovely people, by the way, are large people. That was one of the factors contributing to what was about to occur. Continue reading A Bad Day on the “Whale”
California is a beautiful State. While I never lived there, I spend a great deal of time there while I was based at the Los Angeles Domicile of TWA on and off from the mid 1970s through the mid 1990s. I watched as it gradually changed from a basically conservative state to a wildly liberal one.
The 18th Amendment to our Constitution, commonly referred to as the “Volstead Act”, set the starting date for nationwide “prohibition” for January 17, 1920. After that date, the production or sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States was prohibited by law. The law was rigorously enforced in some areas, and virtually ignored in others. One of the “unintended consequences” of the Act was to create tens of millions of “criminals”. These were citizens who felt their freedom of choice had been denied them due to the actions of a relatively small minority of very active and vocal individuals, like the “Women’s Temperance League” and others. They continued to imbibe, even though it was against the law.
On Friday, President Trump signed a 1.3 TRILLION dollar “continuing resolution” which will fund the government until September, when again we will be faced with another “Government Shutdown”. This 2200+ page document (published only hours before the vote, so nobody could read, let alone digest, it’s content) has the Democrats positively giddy.
During the summer of 1212, thousands of young people took “Crusading” vows and set out from Europe to recover Jerusalem from the Muslims. Lasting only from May to September of that year, the “Children’s Crusade” lacked official sanction, and ended in failure because none of the participants reached their intended destination. Tragically, many were sold into slavery, having been duped by unscrupulous merchants, who put them on ships that the young people thought were bound for the Holy Land, but indeed turned out to be slave markets.
Somewhere along the way I must have missed something. Apparently there was an amendment to our Constitution which allows anyone present within the boundaries of this nation, whether they are a citizen or not, to decide which of our laws they are going to obey and which they are going to ignore. If that is indeed the case, would someone kindly tell me where I can find the details about that amendment, because that is exactly what is going on.
there it is. One sentence. Plain language. Pretty simple. But what does it MEAN? The statue of the “Minuteman” shown at left shows him having taken off his coat and hung it on his plow. In his right hand is his rifle, which he has taken up to defend his family, property and rights.
I never cease to be amazed at how many people can be whipped into a frenzy of hysteria over an emotionally charged issue like the recent school shooting. The mainstream media is of course complicit in this process. They generally live in a “gun free” bubble in the major cities of the East and West Coasts as well as Chicago. However, their own “gun free zone” is closely guarded by armed security personnel.