What's The Closest You Have Come to Buying The Farm?

[manta22]

I was riding shotgun in a deuce-and-a-half and we had just dropped off a generator in Mainz for repair and were headed home. We went around a sweeping curve and were headed for a big bridge across the river when I noticed a wheel & tire rolling past us and at the same time the truck pitched nose down and screeched to a stop. Another hundred meters and we would have gone over the side of the bridge into the Rhine.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Gordan Baxter, who wrote for both flying magazines and ones focused on cars, one had an article one a new innovative way to attend to the needs of nature while driving. Texas has a lot of long straight lonely roads, where there are very limited opportunities to stop a suitable facility and relive oneself.

So under those conditions, one option he offered was to open the car door, unzip, lean to the Left, and let fly, the aerodynamics of the situation ensuring that the stream of liquid arcs outward without touching anything. And, since this usually entails releasing the seat belt so to present an unencumbered trajectory, there is a hazard as well. Your remains could be found in the middle of the road with your pants down around your ankles and your car come to grief some miles down the road.

Gordan did receive a letter of compliant, the author saying he had caused his instrument panel to be ruined, signed, "Shorty." And today I have no doubt that a similar suggestion would bring charges of sexual discrimination and misogyny.

On those long straight stretches, many of us will simply go to the shoulder and relieve ourselves there. If we see a car coming, we just zip up, and if need be explain that we were checking the tire pressure.

 

[rob23]

Brother, my pucker factor was so high and tight nothing was getting in or out

 

[rob23]

Rob 23 - probably nothing worse than that "horseshoe" malfunction, especially at that altitude, you were very lucky .
And I guess you discovered that adrenaline is brown !!

My pucker factor was so high nothing was getting in or out

 

[N4521U]

It was 1968, "You meet the nicest people on a Honda" they jingled.
Needed some kind of transportation, Honda sounded Great! Ay?
So into the dealers I went. Sure the Scrambler sounds terrific! How much? sure I can do that! Helmet? Who needs a brain bucket. Okay if you insist, I'll have to pay you on my first service tho. No worries? Good man. Up and down the street I go. Couple of small hills, no Dirt bikes in those days. Off I go onto the infamous Redwood Rd. Castro Valley CA.
Now I had never taken my Kaiser hospitalization card out of my wallet, but I did this day, put it in my shirt pocket, how did I know. So off we go, John who had been riding for 10 or more years and meownself................... 4 days! Now Redwood Rd is one of them wonderful riding roads. Up to the left, down to the right. Over and over. So I'm feelin pretty smart about 5 miles into Redwood Rd and I'm in a climbing left and a little too far in the Other lane, no speeding doing about 40mph. In my eye I spy a VW bus coming down into the straight before I'm thru my turn. I think I started to sit up, no I needed to go down, street tires those days. In the slide, they say, I'm on my back, noggin bouncing in the Bucket as I streak across My lane, pulled an 8x8 (200x200mm) post out of the ground body leaping thru the air, my poor Honda sailing with the post in tow toward a barbed wire fence 15 feet (3M) down the bank. When the fog lifted I was sitting with my legs crossed on the embankment, thinking "GD Davidson, you came out of this rather okay"........... So I attempted to stand up and it was then I found my right leg was about 6" shorter than my left. Yes Davidson, you have done it this time. I handed my Med card to the driver of the bus with instructions to call the number on the back. They sent an ambulance.
Broken right femur. During the six weeks in the hospital, 1. Pin inserted down the marrow of the femur, hole in my but cheek for pin insertion point, 2. hole in the top of femur for pin, 3, incision in the side of my leg to fit pin in bottom half of femur, 4. blood clot from right leg incision thru heart into left lung, 5. anticoagulants to dissolve clot, 6. in at 155 pound body weight, out at 135 I looked like death warmed over.
Good news, I carried a crutch with me on my bike, it cost 18$ to fix the Honda. I was water skiing 2 weeks later scaring the shit outta everyone around me........ I thanked the salesman profusely! I think I would still have a balled spot if he hadn't insisted me taking that helmet.
Cheers

 

[ARTESH]

I once tried to buy a farm, but it was so expensive! So, I aborted.

I hope there was a way or another, to prevent buying farms...

 

[rob23]

Sluggo was a friend from high school, the Civil Air Patrol and Navy Junior ROTC. He went to the naval academy and from there to Pensacola and NFO school and in between all that became a skydiver and got his PPL. Busy boy, that Sluggo. One weekend sometime in the '80's we shared the cost of a T-34B rented from the NAS Atlanta Flying Club. A victim of BRAC, NAS Atlanta once shared the same runway as Dobbins AFB and Lockheed GA in Marietta, GA. We took the nifty little T-34 to FT. Rucker in lower Alabama to cage a ride in a UH-1 to a seafood festival in P'cola. It was a great flight down to Rucker and Sluggo even let me fly it for maybe 45 min.

On the way back it became a dark and stormy night as a line of thunderstorms formed along the state line between Alabama and Georgia. Sluggo was rated for IMC so I wasn't too worried. The T-34 bounced and yawed which was fine as we were in a thunderstorm. Suddenly Niagara Falls' icy cold water cascaded into the cockpit from dry rotted canopy seals. We both screamed from the shock and when it stopped the cockpit was dark, no lights on either instrument panel. Now I was very worried.

Sluggo asked over the intercom if I could hear him, I verified I could, then he passed his giant flashlight to me and said to light up his instrument panel when asked and also look for ice on the wings and tail surfaces. I said okay and little else as I was petrified as the now seemingly very small T-34 jerked up and down and yawed and rolled across the storm roiled sky with cold water sloshing across my feet and occasionally pouring in through the canopy just to make sure we didn't get complacent.

Sluggo was on the radio and we nearly diverted to Robins AFB just south of Macon, GA, but they went below minimums so we did the airplane equivalent of the butterfly towards Dobbins/NAS Atlanta. I got into a grim rhythm of illuminating Sluggo's instruments and the wings and tail having no idea what any icing would even look like while Sluggo prattled on about his S-3 squadron going aboard Saratoga, how he enjoyed Star Trek IV which we saw together at the Thanksgiving boogie at Zephyr Hills, Florida. I could sense him looking at me via his rear view mirror saying "You sure are quiet back there". "Yep" I replied followed by more quiet. How the hell he was able to fly that airplane in that weather and still yak about Spock and the whale and his deployment and us both jumping Pegasus main parachute canopies was way way beyond me. I reckon that's why he went to Annapolis and I didn't.

Finally, Sluggo was on the radio with the Dobbins final precision controller and it sounded like in the movies with 'you need not acknowledge any more transmissions, turn to heading.....' . I pretty much kept the flashlight on his panel now as we descended through the pouring rain, wind gusts and lightening. Sluggo asked me to lower the landing gear and flaps so he could keep his hands on throttle and stick. After lowering both I played the light across his instruments again listening to the controller ask if we had the runway in sight yet. We did finally see the glow of approach lights illuminating the clouds around us. "You see it yet?" he asked. "Uh, no" I replied, with that familiar pucker factor kicking in.

Dobbins was now officially closed and below minimums but that controller had us and we suddenly had the runway in sight just before the wheels splashed onto the runway. I breathed a sigh of relief then had to take it back as I felt us start to hydroplane, skidding right then left as Sluggo deftly manipulated rudder and the brakes to keep us more or less on the centerline. Then the airplane felt solid and we almost stopped on the runway before turning off onto the taxiway. As I raised the flaps I saw Sluggo deflate like a balloon. He and that awesome controller thanked and congratulated each other as we made the long taxi back to the NAS ramp. We were spent, soaked, freezing and alive.

The boy could sure fly an airplane, anyone of less talent and we'd probably had ended up in a pasture.

 

[N4521U]

Flying, no matter how few flying hours Every pilot has a story.............
I flew a little Cessna 150D from Livermore to Yuba City one Christmas to be with family.
Next day I climbed into the pilot seat, I was alone. A little over cast, but knew the surrounds well enough and I'm full of fuel. Not instrument rated so I got Special Clearance form ATC, Beale AFB, just up the road. No questions asked and I got clearance, they wait until there is No traffic for a Straight out departure. I was just a few degrees off a left turn direct back to Livermore so no worries!? Blasting down the runway, like 150's do at 100HP and off I go................... 150 ft and I am in a milk bottle, zero viz. It's flat for 100 miles so I know enough from my instructor "keep heading and climb rate Billy boy". I break out at 3,000 feet. It's like snow below me clean to the horizon, I have flight following from Beale, it's when you Ident yourself with the transponder and you are highlighted on ATC radar, they track and alert you to any traffic en-route, always have, always will use FF. So now I tune into ATIS, Automatic Terminal Information Service LVK, (Livermore). What, socked in, IFR, Instrument Flight Rules???? Gadzooks. Okay, back onto ATC Beale they are handing me off to Stockton and they inform me of LVK being IFR, I Roger that tell them I will try Tracy just over the hills from LVK. "I just flew over Tracy and it's Zero viz", who said that................? some interloper in the air passing over Tracy..... Uh
Stockton, 21Uniform, I just heard that..... (Damn) I'll fly over Tracy if it's not visible I will fly on to another airport tat is clear, I'm pretty full of fuel so no prob, "understand 21Uniform. The only landmark above the fog is Mt Dablo way West and windmills on the hills just West of Tracy and just East of LVK , and the hills of Sonora and Yosemite way East so I am using course heading and luck to find Tracy, an uncontrolled small A/P with no tower lights. Doddeling along I can see thru the fog below me, ever since I left Y.C. so I keep an eye out Always for flat areas as one should. Low and behold Tracy!!!! I centerlined it. So I make a 45 trn right, to enter a standard pattern, I take a peek behind me after I finish the turn, what the, I quickly note my heading, make a 180 and there it is a minute later. So I notify ATC I am landing at Tracy, not telling them how!!!! So now I am midfield 1,000 AGL, Above Ground Level and spiraling down with power minimum and land midfield. Taxi to the A/P Hut, just a little shack. Shut down, walk in to see 3 old timers having coffee frozen in mid sip, a bit wide eyed "where did you come from"????????

Flying, there is nothing like it!!!!
We told stories for about 3 hours before LVK cleared for VFR.
My total flying time was about 60 hours about then..........

 

[SaparotRob]

I love that kind of talk.

 

[rob23]

There's been a few, but one I'll always remember was in summer, 1985, when I was free-fall parachuting, using a round canopy.
I'd need to check my log book to confirm, but from memory, it was a 30 second delay, with a 360 degree turn to the right, followed by a 360 to the left.
I remember having a bit of bother shuffling to get out of the door of the Islander, but made a good, stable exit, went into stable free-fall and completed the turns, back onto the original heading. When I looked down to check my altimeter ( fastened onto the chest strap of my harness ), my "boogies" (goggles as used by horse jockeys ) had ridden up, and were across my eyes, blocking my vision. I eventually managed to see the altimeter dial, which was indicating 1, 800 feet, gasped, and then deployed the canopy, which was fully deployed by around 1,000 to 900 feet. ( deployment is supposed to be initiated at 2,500 feet !!).
After checking all round, I noticed something "floating" in my left peripheral vision, which turned out to be a snapped rigging line !
Re-checking the canopy, I now saw that three complete panels had blown out, and there were tears in a further four panels !!
It would seem that, when checking my altimeter, I had gone partially "head down", into a semi track, so instead of being stable at 120 mph, I was tracking across the sky at around 140 to 160 mph, hence the shock loading on the canopy and rigging lines !!!
I had two options to choose from, with about two seconds to decide - deploy the chest-mounted reserve canopy, or stay with it as it was, ride it down and expect a very hard landing, and possible injury.
I chose to stay with it, as the reserve very well may have deployed into the main canopy, causing a "bag of washing", tangling everything, leading to a very real disaster, possible serious injury or fatality.
Of course, I landed way off the airfield, in a corner of a farmers field, narrowly missing a wooden fence - but managed a relatively soft, stand-up landing, with no injury, except maybe to my pride.
It was a long walk back to the parachute center club house, where I received a bollocking from the chief instructor, for pulling low, although, as he knew I was just renewing my Category status, and having heard my explanation, he was OK about it.
After that little "incident" I changed my altimeter to wrist-mounted !!

I had to make 40 jumps under a round before I could transition to the square canopy. On my 42nd jump, at the '82 Zhills Thanksgiving Boogie I made my second square jump on a borrowed demo rig. I followed a fifteen way out of the DZ's DC-3, 40 Tango, delaying five seconds and did flips, 360's and seeing I was clear of the fifteen way I waved off and opened high at five grand to be able to play around with the parachute. Nothing happened. I looked over my right shoulder and saw my pilot chute, bridal cord, and my bag. I had a bag lock. I adrenalined, remembered the briefing about bag lock saying it was a 50/50 shot to cutaway, not cutaway and fire the reserve. Maybe it will clear if it the cutaway don't work, etc. So I rolled over onto my back and wound the bridal cord around my right arm until the bag was in my hand then rolled back over and pulled the reserve. It was a beautiful parachute, light yellow over white, steerable, conical in shape, just beautiful. That was my first malfunction.

Another time at another boogie at Zhills I was in a 10 way round with some new friends and looked across at the altimeter worn on the chest of the jumper across from me. We had left Mr. Douglas, a DC-3, from 13000 so how could we passing through 2000 already? I began to panic then looked at someone else's as well as mine which had us passing through 6000 then 5000. I calmed down, and under canopy it hit me- I was looking at a metric altimeter. Lesson learned!

 

[Airframes]

I missed out on going to Z Hills in around 1987.
I used to manage a display team at the time, and the lads were going over to the USA for a boogie at ZH, jumping Mr. Douglas. I was too busy with my job, and had a new daughter, just about 3 months old.

 

[rob23]

I missed out on going to Z Hills in around 1987.
I used to manage a display tram at the time, and the lads were going over to the USA for a boogie at ZH, jumping Mr. Douglas. I was too busy with my job, and had a new daughre, just about 3 months old.

Bummer! Zhills was a great place to jump. Mr. Douglas was cool too. It had a pretty good sound system and the rear bulkhead had a painting of the grim reaper pointing it's boney finger saying 'check thy gear'. No excuse to not get pin checks on Mr. D.

 

[Airframes]

Yep, I remember that from the description the lads gave me on their return - and also remember all the tales of BBQ's and beer in the evenings, b*st*rds !!

 

[rob23]

Yep, I remember that from the description the lads gave me on their return - and also remember all the tales of BBQ's and beer in the evenings, b*st*rds !!

Those were magic times. Carefree, in a way, few responsibilities and hanging with people who were aviation freaks that happened to skydive. I'm sorry you missed out on the Zhills experience. Those DC-3/C-47/C-53's were great jump planes with history like participating in D-Day. And there was nothing like dirt diving some megablot 30 way that would end up funneling before more than 10 people got in. Great times!

 

[Airframes]

Ah, happy days !
Another "missed out" episode was when Jeff Hawkes landed a Ju52 at our jump field. Of course, we all pestered him to take a load up, and let us "jump it", but he'd landed because of a problem, and wasn't having it !
Anyway, I'll stop hijacking this thread ..............

 

[Glider]

Nothing dramatic, but it was cancer. Fifteen years ago I was diagnosed with a terminal cancer, but clearly didn't, die. My consultant was East European and her English was very good, but sometimes she had an emphasis which could be funny.
When I last met her she said very seriously. 'Well Mr Slack, I really don't know why you didn't die, you really should have done.' I started laughing which she couldn't understand and told her she made me feel as if I should apologise. Then she got very upset.

That aside it wasn't a funny experience, but it makes you realise what is important, and what isn't important. The pain was such I became addicted to Tramadol and coming off that wasn't funny either

 

[rob23]

I've been on the fence about this experience, I really did not realize how many times I came sorta close to THE END plus this one might be objectionable to some. But it really happened, going back to the age of fourteen in the mid '70's when I started experiencing diarrhea off and on with the frequency increasing with time. By the time was I was fifteen-sixteen I started to lose weight, break out in abscesses, and just feel quite rundown most of the time. I called my malady 'assenfuego' as my butt was on fire most of the time. The summer I turned sixteen I played soccer with the YMCA with the rest of my high school team, as our coach said we really needed the practice. He wasn't wrong..... we were pretty bad.

It got to where before a game I'd have to sit in front of the air conditioner register and slap myself with with a cold wet rag to get enough energy to play. I lost my center half back position due to just running out of gas early in our games. My parents blamed it on personal issues like teen angst and stress and I couldn't figure out anything any better myself, so that's what we went with. Then school started back, and me, Sluggo, and several other kids who were in both CAP and NJROTC did a big combined group rappelling trip to a cave. I wasn't feeling well, but I went anyway, and while there I got assenfuego and wandered off into some boulders for a little privacy. With my pants down, I started throwing up too then passed out. My friends found me, cleaned me up and took me home. I was at a point where I could eat something and five minutes later it was passing chewed up but undigested otherwise. I lost forty pounds from my 155 pound frame, most of it muscle mass, and ended up in the hospital where the doc thought it had to be a tumor. So that's what they looked for.

I was in the hospital for a month as they did upper and lower GI"s with the hideous barium, laxatives, enemas, more imaging, stool samples blood work, but where was the tumor? There has to be a tumor..... I was in a bad way, literally starving to death despite having access to food. One morning the doctor asked me to follow him to a treatment room, so I shuffled along in my gown and tube socks. He patted an exam table and said "hop up here, head down butt up" and I did as asked. The nurse squeezed an entire tube of KY onto his gloved hands and I was lubricated, you know where, and while peeping from between by legs I saw the doctor take something that looked like a big glass syringe and as he said "deep breaths and relax" in it went, which hurt pretty bad, then he pulled back on the plunger thing and oh my gawd, the pain. In my mind I saw those little green plastic army men stabbing me with bayonets and I begged the SOB to pull the thing out. He said for some reason the damn thing, whatever it was, was not working anyway so mercifully he pulled it out.

I breathed a sigh of relief then felt the assenfuego coursing down and out, no way to stop it. The doctor was standing right behind me and I yelled "Doctor!! Look out!!" and then BBBBLLLLLAAAAATTTTT all over his chest. His white doctor coat was covered, so was his tie and shirt. He just stood there looking down at the mess as the nurse ran away as the smell was pretty bad. I started laughing. I could not help it, I just laughed and laughed.

After another month of more assenfuego and starvation and one foot in the grave, a different doctor in a different hospital did a biopsy of my duodenum and diagnosed Celiac Disease. My aspirations for a military career ended that day as Celiac is one of the medical conditions that the military will not take, no exceptions. I think the diagnosis and being told "NO" is a reason I took up mountain climbing, scuba and skydiving. Maybe, who knows. Once on a gluten free diet, which was tough to do back in 1977, my intestines slowly healed and weight came back and has not stopped.

 

[manta22]

I've been on the fence about this experience, I really did not realize how many times I came sorta close to THE END plus this one might be objectionable to some. But it really happened, going back to the age of fourteen in the mid '70's when I started experiencing diarrhea off and on with the frequency increasing with time. By the time was I was fifteen-sixteen I started to lose weight, break out in abscesses, and just feel quite rundown most of the time. I called my malady 'assenfuego' as my butt was on fire most of the time. The summer I turned sixteen I played soccer with the YMCA with the rest of my high school team, as our coach said we really needed the practice. He wasn't wrong..... we were pretty bad.

It got to where before a game I'd have to sit in front of the air conditioner register and slap myself with with a cold wet rag to get enough energy to play. I lost my center half back position due to just running out of gas early in our games. My parents blamed it on personal issues like teen angst and stress and I couldn't figure out anything any better myself, so that's what we went with. Then school started back, and me, Sluggo, and several other kids who were in both CAP and NJROTC did a big combined group rappelling trip to a cave. I wasn't feeling well, but I went anyway, and while there I got assenfuego and wandered off into some boulders for a little privacy. With my pants down, I started throwing up too then passed out. My friends found me, cleaned me up and took me home. I was at a point where I could eat something and five minutes later it was passing chewed up but undigested otherwise. I lost forty pounds from my 155 pound frame, most of it muscle mass, and ended up in the hospital where the doc thought it had to be a tumor. So that's what they looked for.

I was in the hospital for a month as they did upper and lower GI"s with the hideous barium, laxatives, enemas, more imaging, stool samples blood work, but where was the tumor? There has to be a tumor..... I was in a bad way, literally starving to death despite having access to food. One morning the doctor asked me to follow him to a treatment room, so I shuffled along in my gown and tube socks. He patted an exam table and said "hop up here, head down butt up" and I did as asked. The nurse squeezed an entire tube of KY onto his gloved hands and I was lubricated, you know where, and while peeping from between by legs I saw the doctor take something that looked like a big glass syringe and as he said "deep breaths and relax" in it went, which hurt pretty bad, then he pulled back on the plunger thing and oh my gawd, the pain. In my mind I saw those little green plastic army men stabbing me with bayonets and I begged the SOB to pull the thing out. He said for some reason the damn thing, whatever it was, was not working anyway so mercifully he pulled it out.

I breathed a sigh of relief then felt the assenfuego coursing down and out, no way to stop it. The doctor was standing right behind me and I yelled "Doctor!! Look out!!" and then BBBBLLLLLAAAAATTTTT all over his chest. His white doctor coat was covered, so was his tie and shirt. He just stood there looking down at the mess as the nurse ran away as the smell was pretty bad. I started laughing. I could not help it, I just laughed and laughed.

After another month of more assenfuego and starvation and one foot in the grave, a different doctor in a different hospital did a biopsy of my duodenum and diagnosed Celiac Disease. My aspirations for a military career ended that day as Celiac is one of the medical conditions that the military will not take, no exceptions. I think the diagnosis and being told "NO" is a reason I took up mountain climbing, scuba and skydiving. Maybe, who knows. Once on a gluten free diet, which was tough to do back in 1977, my intestines slowly healed and weight came back and has not stopped.

Good for you, seeking a second opinion-- the first guy was a shitty doctor anyway.

 

[Greg Boeser]

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

After having a video chat with FLYBOYJ this evening with a few beers, I realized the time I went IMC with a young LT was pretty damn close…lol

Having said that, she did great, and became one hell of a pilot.