I dislike flying and almost never board a plane. But a plane almost crashed into me this weekend while I was innocently consuming mimosas and jalapeno potato chips at a tailgating party prior to the Gators-Razorbacks game in Gainesville, Florida.
A banner-towing plane went down. Luckily, there were no life-threatening injuries to the two people on board the plane OR the tailgaters on the ground. The plane and someone’s pick-up truck were pretty much destroyed, though.
Please talk about whatever.
flukebucket
Georgia lost three star stud players for the year in Knoxville Saturday. That is almost as bad as a plane crash
Rosalita
Dated a banner plane pilot back in the day… got a ride up the coast and it was fantastic. Obviously still a risky business to be in.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
I’ll go ahead and blogwhore my latest essay (on “Love Me Tonight”) for weekday readers:
http://www.theinsufferablemoviesnob.blogspot.com/2013/10/love-me-tonight-1932.html?m=1
Tommy
I try not to cuss much, but that is kind of fucked up.
Betty Cracker
@Rosalita: I don’t know doodly-squat about flying, but banner towing just seems super risky. Huge banner + small plane on a windy day. What could go wrong?
Everyone says the pilot was heroic in his efforts to avoid casualties, though, particularly since he lost power in an area that was teeming with people. It’s a miracle no one was killed.
Ben Franklin
Interesting piece an Awlaki…
http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/10/feds-cagey-on-early-anwar-alawlaki-ties-174323.html
Walker
@Betty Cracker:
My wife is a private pilot. They teach you that, in times of trouble, you should
Protect the people on the ground.
Protect yourself
Protect the plane
in that order.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I really enjoyed it! I love C. Aubrey Smith in the first clip.
Elizabelle
Excellent photo, BettyC.
For not having chickens in it, or anything.
Corner Stone
Thank goodness! I don’t know what I would do without you, Betty.
Although, mimosas and jalapeno chips? A little gauche.
LittlePig
I saw most of the second half on TV (first half merely spotty radio listening) and I never heard a word about that.
Now, knowing pretty early on the Hogs still haven’t got it quite together yet, I wasn’t listening all that hard, but geez not a single mention?
Tommy
@Walker: I am a military brat. Air Force. I used to play golf on said base. The golf course ran along the runway. The reason was clear.That is where you crash a plane. You don’t hit buildings and public spaces.
VOR
I’ve pretty much decided that the WW2 memorial “event” was planned and staged. Someone had to know those vets were coming. And I do not buy any claims that those Republican reps like Michele Bachmann just happened to come along. This weekend a column by John Kass of the Chicago Tribune on the event pretty much put the cap on it for me.
First, Kass says “The White House must have sent out an emergency call because there at the World War II Memorial, Democrats enthusiastically showed up with Republicans to make sure the veterans were allowed in.” Hmm, Democrats were there because of White House scheming. I assume those Republicans just spontaneously showed up.
Second, Kass throws in a quote from Hans von Spakovsky, described as a “a legal scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation”. There’s your sign. Conclusion: someone planned the ratfvcking.
Tom
I just had idea to ratf!#k the Republicans. Since the House voted nearly unanimously to restore back pay to federal workers doesn’t this seem like a bunch of squishes who pay bureaucrats to do nothing? Primary challenges from the right for everyone.
Gator90
I really like Tyler Murphy.
smedley the uncertain
Slightly OT; different kind of crash.
Like chasing Unicorns and dragons I’ve been looking for a site that discusses the Republican antipathy to ACA/Obamacare in any thing less that hysterical polemics. Surely there is a commentator who has laid out their issues in a rational manner. I cannot understand what it’s all about in the fog of war. Everything I find is so far off base and inconsistent.
Looking for help, not snark.
Punchy
FU played the Arkansas this weekend? Missed that.
Wonder what the banner said. Was it pimpin life insurance or parachuting tutorials?
Betty Cracker
@Gator90: He continues to be impressive. Solomon Patton was awesome too.
Gemcat
This is the same guy that was hit in the head while flying by some yahoo shooting in the air during New Years Eve. this guy is either incredibly lucky to have survived both these incidences or unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
FDRLincoln
So I was walking my dog last night, and thinking about the old Original Series Star Trek episode “Balance of Terror,” where the Enterprise has to stop a cloaked Romulan ship from destroying outposts along the Neutral Zone. I suddenly had an image of Nancy Pelosi saying “These are Republicans! You run away from them and you guarantee war!” which is a paraphrase from a briefing room scene where Kirk and the Enterprise staff are trying to decide on their tactics.
So, I came home from my walk and wrote this up. Anyone who is an original series Trek fan and a political liberal might like it. Enjoy.
OBAMA: Yes, well gentlemen, the question still remains. Can we engage them with a reasonable possibility of victory?
AXELROD: No question. Their power is simple propaganda.
OBAMA: Meaning we can out-fact them?
PELOSI: To be used in chasing them or retreating, sir?
OBAMA: Go ahead, Ms. Pelosi. I called this session for opinions.
PELOSI: We have to attack immediately.
OBAMA: Explain.
PELOSI: They’re still on our side of the Continuing Resolution. There would be no doubt they broke the agreement with the Senate.
DURBIN: Attack, without our own propaganda network? How do we explain the facts?
PELOSI: Spread with social media. Not as rapid as Fox News, but if we blanket them. . .
DURBIN: And hope for a lucky meme before they zero in on us?
PELOSI: And if we don’t? Once back, they’ll report that we saw their propaganda and ran.
DURBIN: And if they could report they destroyed us?
PELOSI: These are Republicans! You run away from them and you guarantee war! They’ll be back. Not just one blackmail attempt on the debt limit, but with everything they’ve got. You know that, Mister Majority Leader. You’ve the expert on these people. But you’ve always left out that one point. Why? I’m very interested in why.
OBAMA: Sit down, Mister.
REID: I agree. Attack.
OBAMA: Are you suggesting we fight to prevent a fight?
HAGEL: Based on what? Memories of a Civil War over a century ago? On theories about a people who will never, ever vote for Democrats?
PELOSI: We know what they vote like.
REID: Yes, indeed we do, Madam Speaker. And if the Tea Party is an offshoot of Confederate blood, and I think this likely, then attack becomes even more imperative.
HAGEL: War is never imperative, Senator Reid.
REID: It is for them, Secretary Hagel. The Confederacy, like all slave-holding aristocracies, had its aggressive colonizing period. Savage, even by European standards. And if Republicans have retain this martial philosophy, then weakness is something we dare not show.
HAGEL: Do you want another Civil War on your conscience?
OBAMA: Captain to Bridge.
CARNEY: This is Carney, Captain.
OBAMA: What’s our position?
CARNEY: Course unchanged, sir. Estimating debt limit boundary in ten days.
OBAMA: Are you continuing to consult political scientists?
CARNEY: Affirmative, Captain.
OBAMA: And at this distance?
CARNEY: Approximately three weeks before receiving a reply to our first message.
OBAMA: Thank you, Lieutenant. Check our course ahead, Senator Reid.
REID: A discharge petition, dead ahead, and the Republicans changing course toward it.
OBAMA: A clean continuing resolution from the House that was tabled in the spring. Composition?
REID: Quite ordinary. It funds the government at sequester levels, but says nothing about Obamacare.
OBAMA: And when the Tea Party tries to stop it?
REID: They will leave a visible trail that even the mainstream media can’t ignore.
OBAMA: Our chance, gentlemen. Prepare to attack. All hands, battle stations. I hope we won’t need your services, Chuck.
HAGEL: Amen to that. We’re taking a big gamble, Barack.
Amir Khalid
Is it just me, or does this Tea Party dude look like he could be Lemmy Kilmister‘s brother?
Gremcat
This is the same guy that was hit in the head while flying by some yahoo shooting in the air during New Years Eve. this guy is either incredibly lucky to have survived both these incidences or unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Joel
Go Red Sox!
Elizabelle
@VOR:
I saw that John Kass article and the Hans von S quote.
Kathleen Parker took up the “Bad Obama! Why close the national monuments?” theme too.
Maroons, all of them.
Corner Stone
@FDRLincoln: lord have mercy
Corner Stone
@Gremcat: Sounds to me like the FSM is trying to tell that guy to stop flying.
Like the old joke about the guy who dies in a flood asks God why he abandoned him.
CaseyL
@FDRLincoln: Nicely adapted; very well done!
A theater hereabouts is staging “Star Wars as if written by Shakespeare.” My usual theater buddy is going to be out of town, but I might go anyway, because the whole premise sounds wack enough to be fun.
Rosalita
@Betty Cracker:
a lot can go wrong… I lived on the east coast of FL so the guys I knew crash landed in the ocean. The open cockpit planes really seemed nuts to me.
MattF
@smedley the uncertain: I think Yuval Levin is pretty much the Republican anti-Obamacare expert– …and I’ll just leave it at that. Bon Voyage.
Steeplejack
Speaking of small planes, I rode on a Cessna like this a few weeks ago from Provincetown to Boston. Because of how they load-balanced the plane, I got to ride in the copilot’s seat. The half-hour flight was delightful: 1,500 feet and 170 knots. But landing at Logan was trippy: I felt like we were riding a minivan coming in at 120 mph. Whoa!
jibeaux
Lord knows I’m not reading an interview with Scalia, but I saw some highlights on the twittermachine last night. Apparently there’s a bit about how there’s too much nudity in movies, although of course it’s understandable when it’s essential to the plot. Maybe I’m a sicko, but the vision of him wankin’ it wildly to nudity while muttering “it’s o.k., it’s essential to the plot, it’s essential to the plot” was compelling. I am a victim of my own imagination.
Suffern ACE
@jibeaux: The odd thing about that is that there is virtually no nudity at all in American movies any longer. Even the vulgar movies end up being fairly chaste. I’m going to guess that he hasn’t watched movies since 1979.
Ben Cisco
@FDRLincoln: I thoroughly approve of this post.
Corner Stone
@jibeaux:
There is so much that is just so wrong about this…
Ben Cisco
@Corner Stone: Yeah, you’re supposed to pass out the brain bleach (or maybe even pass out, PERIOD) before saying some shit like that.
Betty Cracker
@Joel: Nuh-uh! Go Rays!
jibeaux
@Corner Stone: Look, I know. It was a most unbidden and unwelcome vision. There was just something about the wording of it that immediately made me think “ahhh, he’s found a loophole….”
jibeaux
@Suffern ACE: My favorite are the sex scenes where the woman still has her bra on. I’m not speaking for everybody, but that lacks realism to me.
Ben Cisco
NC AG Roy Cooper to run for govenor in 2016.
The Sailor
According to the news report I saw it was a Cessna 172. They land at about 60 mph.
Banner flying is very safe except for the pickup.
The banner can be jettisoned at any time, and was before the plane came down.
Stadiums are known for large open spaces called parking lots.
The glide ratio of a C172 is ~9:1 with the banner released.
His minimum altitude was 1000 ft.
That’s a 1.7 radius miles to find a flat open spot.
I’m glad there were only minimal injuries to the pilots, and damage to a truck, but there should have been none, IMO.
PaulW
@FDRLincoln:
…forward that to Fallows. I think he can use it.
Damned appropriate. Very good, sir.
LittlePig
@FDRLincoln: OK, that was awesome.
Betty Cracker
@The Sailor: In defense of the pilot, pretty much every parking lot, yard and field within at least a mile of the stadium is jam-packed with vehicles and tailgaters on game days. It’s not like there were these vast, empty stadium parking lots he could have landed in. And the community surrounding the stadium is densely populated.
Mnemosyne
@jibeaux:
Honestly, I think that happened because male actors were so frickin’ reluctant to bare all that the actresses started saying, “Why do I have to be topless and he gets to hide under a sheet?”
Did you ever see The Doors? Crappy movie in so many ways, but one of them was that the women (including Meg Ryan and Kathleen Quinlan) were topless and/or nude in multiple scenes while apparently Stone’s “vision” was that Jim Morrison was such a modest guy that he kept himself wrapped up in sheets and blankets at all times when he was with a girlfriend.
Though there’s also the recent story that director Paul Schrader convinced Lindsay Lohan to do her nude scenes in The Canyons by agreeing to strip down himself while shooting the scene. Not really something I’d want to have to see at work, but it does seem more fair than making women sit around naked on the set while fully clothed crew members gawk at them.
ETA: European films have more nudity, but they tend to have more nudity of both sexes and the whole thing is less of an issue anyway. You know the whole world was laughing at us over the Janet Jackson freakout (“OMG A BOOBIE!”)
Jacquie
I know I’m late for the “mid-morning” open thread (as usual), but I just needed a little space to vent right now. My stepdad is in a coma at Yale-New Haven right now after he collapsed Saturday morning from complications related to diabetes. My stepsister is stationed in Japan with the Air Force right now and the Red Cross has gotten permission from her CO to bring her home but I guess she was in the typhoon zone. I am trying to keep myself occupied at work and it’s not going well.
Michael Dybevick
That’s spot on. I live two miles from the crash spot. The only open space not crowded to capacity during a game and strung with power lines or filled with cars are that field and a nearby alligator infested lake. I suspect it was the pilots local knowledge that helped as well, since neither of those are especially easy to pick out quickly at night with the surrounding nearby tree cover. Pilot probably had been eyeing that very spot at the first hint of trouble or even before.
ruemara
@Jacquie: Big hugs to you , the family and good vibes to your stepdad.
henqigual
Aw’right, it just got real! Went to reset my watch, needed the NIST atomic clock (www.time.gov) to make sure I was accurate, and turns out the site is down due to the government shutdown. DAMN those REPUBLICANS!!!
Yes, I’m grinding my way through a long day of (mostly) productive work activity, but I’m losing what little I got left of what passes for my sanity.
ETA: Moderation?! Really? What I type? We now against random nonsense???
FDRLincoln
I sent the Star Trek thing to various people. We’ll see if anyone bites. Small audience of Trek geeks might appreciate it I guess, but I think the tactics hold up. The Republicans must be treated like the Romulans were.
Thymezone
My mother always unplugged appliances not is use because she was sure that the electricity would leak out of the appliance and start a fire.
I think WRT aviation, you are right about there with her. Your chances of winning the Powerball are probably higher than your chances of perishing in an airplane accident.
The Sailor
@Michael Dybevick: The crash was at 4pm, but I didn’t realize those games were that popular.