military pilots "hot dogging"

[semperfido]

Concur. Poor choice of words, and I apologize for that. I wrote that in haste.

roger that....tks

 

[JungleJett]

You break the rules, you pay. Simple concept.

Hopefully someone else will not pay. Marine, AF, Navy, Army, if anyone dicks up then make an example of them. You may just save a life.

 

[FastCargo]

This is a subject that burns me up...

It's a tragedy when someone dies or gets hurt because they made a mistake in judgement, didn't know a rule, or a mechanical problem, etc.

It is quite another thing to know exactly what the rules are and violate them blatently with willful disregard.

Moody AFB lost two reserve pilots in a T-6A because they did exactly that. They took off on a cross country, were seen 'showing off (inverted flight)' over a couple of different locations by friends and family. They died the morning after stopping at a local airfield one of the guys used to fly at, by taking off and trying to max perform the aircraft outside of its limits, stalling and crashing in front of friends, and on videotape.

One of the pilots had just gotten hired at JetBlue, and one of them (maybe the same one) just had a new baby.

There was no indication apparently in their previous history that something like this would happen. They weren't known (as far as I know) as the type that would try to do this sort of thing.

What the hell do you tell their families...

"Your son/dad/husband is dead because he was stupid"...

FastCargo

 

[Huggyu2]

Magnum,
Two things come to mind:
- First: avoid the grandstanding. Yes, you've flown low level at 5 bills. But make sure you can speak to THIS accident. Have you read the case?
- Second: you imply that the outcome (e.g. people getting killed) determines the level of the transgression. Let's say the gondola had been empty; would that have changed the level of neglect on the part of the pilots? Would it then be ok?
How about the Viper guy years back that hit the bush 3' off the ground at Red Flag while ingressing at high speed? No one was killed, so emotional drama during the investigation was probably minimal. And when they investigated it, they found that flight discipline was not that much of a factor. It was more of a "human factor" issue. But imagine if he had hit a Boy Scout hiking in the area. I'll bet the outcome would have been different for his career.
Flight discipline should be measured on the actions of the pilot, not the outcome. The fact that someone gets killed means that the lawyers get more involved. But the level of flight discipline remains the same.

 

[stonewall]

Good points...I think most of us are on the same page here, or at least the same chapter.

I didn't start grandstanding until someone called me a tight a$$ ;-)

 

[Huggyu2]

Ah, yes,... SemperFido did get a bit fired up with the name calling. But, "tighta$$"? Semper must not know you. I've never met a CJ-guy that didn't fight to buy the first round for a room full of bro's ;-)

 

[semperfido]

just a knee-jerk reaction. it seemed appropriate at the time. got the desired results. ..but i think we are square now. i would be glad to buy for anyone in uniform

 

[Wild Weasel]

I never understood the showboating because of simple cost/benefit analysis. Doing something stupid and losing the opportunity to fly was far outweighed by the joy and fun of flying a high performance aircraft while getting paid to do it. Never made any sense to me.

 

[Huggyu2]

Who did you do the Tornado exchange with?

 

[VaB]

Yeah the guy who was flying a routine MTR with an undepicted tram system on the charts? Snow covered terrain provides almost as good vertical cues as flying over water. Did I mention that their Rad Alt was griped on previous flights? Don't believe everything you read in the media. That was a witch hunt, plain and simple. Thankfully the court ruled in their favor as well.

Hey Purpledog,

What was the final outcome of that situation? Is there a link somewhere? I thought the pilot and guy in the front seat got flogged for that. I also thought that it was ruled they were in the wrong valley and flying to low.

Not judging or anything, just curious. I flew those same routes over there in Italy and 2000' minimum altitude was indeed a boring "low level".