Unknown Friends
Four aviators from one of my alma maters, VT-86, were killed. It touches me, but certainly doesn't enrage me like the War By Greedy Cowards, er, war on terrorism. These were people training for an exciting type of mission, and their deaths will form the peers who knew them. It sharpens the danger and excitement, and makes you aware of your mortality and more professional in your job. I wrote about the mindset of dealing with this kind of tragedy and grief in a healthy and productive way in a one act play. It's one of my projects on the back burner, rewriting it for one of the people who want to produce it.
There is anger though. The T-39 they were flying was supposed to be getting transitioned out of service when I was in flight school in 1985-6. Thank you Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II for taking such good care of the troops. Fuckers. It reminds me when one of my friends, Dennis Lowry, was killed during flight school in a T-2, which was long overdue for replacement, but hadn't been thanks to cutbacks and diversions driven by Carter and Reagan.
It doesn't matter which party you talk about, safety for the military is not a big deal. (I could spank that silly bitch, Clinton. If she really cared about body armor, she would have done something about it before it became a media feeding frenzy.) Neither the democrats tendency to stand down troops or the republicans tendency to increase manning mean much when it comes to safety. I didn't mind flying incredibly old planes once I was trained, but you should have dependable aircraft for the training squadrons. The older planes we flew in the training squadrons were dependable ... once. When they were well less than twenty years old.
Hell, we knew it. It wasn't like we were marched out to the flight line under duress. We would have flown poorly patched ultra-lights. We wanted to zip around in ways they don't let civilian fliers. I don't know one person who dropped because the planes were too old. There were drops, but that never figured into it. More the lifestyle, academic, or physical aspects. There were actually a few who washed out because they couldn't get over violent motion sickness. The point, is getting newer training aircraft won't improve recruitment, just the survival rate.
One thing that irked me as an aviator was calling an airplane crash a mishap. A mishap sounds like an apt description for spilling your soda while playing bridge, not a crash where your friends are turned into debris lining and littered around a smoldering crater, or smoking hole as we used to say. Is it just me, or does mishap sound like an insulting euphemism?
You know, I still miss it. The flying in particular. That is why I'm considering going for my private pilot's license as a break after the intensive conservatory training is finished. I'll try to train pretty aggressively, so I can get it quickly. When I see my old pictures of airfields we were approaching or departing, or have a window seat on an airborne greyhound there's an ache. Like the feeling when I'm away from the boards for too long. Now there's a dream. To die while flying an airplane when I'm in my 90's, on the way back from having worked in a film or major stage production. Hopefully there'll be a skilled co-pilot so I don't ruin a perfectly good airplane.
There is anger though. The T-39 they were flying was supposed to be getting transitioned out of service when I was in flight school in 1985-6. Thank you Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II for taking such good care of the troops. Fuckers. It reminds me when one of my friends, Dennis Lowry, was killed during flight school in a T-2, which was long overdue for replacement, but hadn't been thanks to cutbacks and diversions driven by Carter and Reagan.
It doesn't matter which party you talk about, safety for the military is not a big deal. (I could spank that silly bitch, Clinton. If she really cared about body armor, she would have done something about it before it became a media feeding frenzy.) Neither the democrats tendency to stand down troops or the republicans tendency to increase manning mean much when it comes to safety. I didn't mind flying incredibly old planes once I was trained, but you should have dependable aircraft for the training squadrons. The older planes we flew in the training squadrons were dependable ... once. When they were well less than twenty years old.
Hell, we knew it. It wasn't like we were marched out to the flight line under duress. We would have flown poorly patched ultra-lights. We wanted to zip around in ways they don't let civilian fliers. I don't know one person who dropped because the planes were too old. There were drops, but that never figured into it. More the lifestyle, academic, or physical aspects. There were actually a few who washed out because they couldn't get over violent motion sickness. The point, is getting newer training aircraft won't improve recruitment, just the survival rate.
One thing that irked me as an aviator was calling an airplane crash a mishap. A mishap sounds like an apt description for spilling your soda while playing bridge, not a crash where your friends are turned into debris lining and littered around a smoldering crater, or smoking hole as we used to say. Is it just me, or does mishap sound like an insulting euphemism?
You know, I still miss it. The flying in particular. That is why I'm considering going for my private pilot's license as a break after the intensive conservatory training is finished. I'll try to train pretty aggressively, so I can get it quickly. When I see my old pictures of airfields we were approaching or departing, or have a window seat on an airborne greyhound there's an ache. Like the feeling when I'm away from the boards for too long. Now there's a dream. To die while flying an airplane when I'm in my 90's, on the way back from having worked in a film or major stage production. Hopefully there'll be a skilled co-pilot so I don't ruin a perfectly good airplane.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home