Not a model soldier

I am not a combat infantryman and as such cannot fully understand the pressures and the pain faced by the men on the line in Afghanistan, and earlier in Iraq.  


However, I would ask one question to those who would like to judge the Afghanistan effort and the quality of our troops based on this unspeakable atrocity.  


How many tens of thousands of combat arms soldiers have gone downrange and done their duty, under similar circumstances as SSG Robert Bales and yet have NOT slaughtered 17 civilians?  

One day on approach to Singapore

News item: Texting Pilot Forgets to Lower Gear

Note to haters and lawyers: this is a joke, not the actual transcript.  Thank you.  Joke continues.  

CVR transcript of Jetstar 320

PF = Pilot Flying, or in this case Pilot Forgetting

PM = Pilot Monitoring, or in this case Pilot: Moron

ATC = duh, ATC

ATC: Jetstar 320, cross MORON intersection at 2000 feet, contact tower MORON inbound.

PM: Mmmmmm.

PF: You need to push the PTT button.

PM: (click) Uhhhhhhh, roger, MORON inbound uhhhhhh (freq change)

PM: Signapore tower, Jetstar 320 MORON inbound for the visual RWY12R.

(stone cold silence)

PM: Ooops, tuned the NAV radio. No wonder I couldn’t get the whole freq in. Stand by.

(fiddle fiddle fiddle)

PM: Signapore tower, likeiwuzsayin, Jetstar 320 MORON inbound for the visual RWY12R.

ATC: Jetstar 320, runway 30L is in use.

PM: Yeah that’s what I meant. 30R.

ATC: 30L.

PM: Sure.

ATC: Jetstar 320, do you have the airport in sight?

PM: The Singapore Airport?

ATC: Yes.

PM: Why yes I do.

ATC: Good. Make straight in for RWY 30L, check wheels down, follow a Spruce Goose on a 2 mile final.

PM: Searching.

PF: Before landing check.

PM: Speaking of landing, what you want to eat here, they have that pizza place right by the gate.

PF: Should I get my own flaps or what?

PM: No, I was going to get the supreme, I hadn’t got the flaps before.

PF: BIRDS!

PM: Huh?

WHAPWHAPWHAPSCHMACKTHUMPTHUD (yaw) (compressor stall)

PF: We should write that up.

PM: Screw that, one more leg and I’m going home. Maintenance can figure it out.

ATC: Jetstar 320, previously issued traffic is clearing at taxiway C, cleared to land RWY 30L, where are you parking?

PM: We’ll be parking at the terminal.

ATC: ??????

BAM BAM BAM BAM

PM: Whose banging on the cockpit door now?

PF: Oh, we have a non-rev Jet Blue captain deadheading in first class.

(sounds of screams, religious ranting, flight attendants kung fu fighting)

PF: Did you ever get that before landing checklist?

PM: What? I got a text.

PF: Dang, we’re hot on this approach. Flaps 90.

PM: Maybe it’ll make up for that time we lost after we left the gear down on climb out for fifty miles.

PF: Yeah, we’ll never do that again.

(gear warning horn silenced by PM)

PF: Are we cleared to land?

PM: Lemme ask, I turned the volume down.

PF: You turned tower down? Arm speed brakes, we got a tailwind or something.

ATC: (slow fade up to normal volume) JETSTAR 320, do you require assistance?

PM (texting) We got it, we’re a little busy here.

ATC: Roger, rolling crash.

PM: 10-4.

PM: Oh. Hey, Singapore tower, did you text me a minute ago?

ATC: YES I SAID CHECK GEAR DOWN YOUR GEAR IS UP AGGGGGGH.

PM: Oh. Well I guess we’ll go around, as the article stated, at 720 feet we are too low to extend the landing gear. Got the high skid package on this one.

ATC: Jetstar 320 GO AROUND GO AROUND GO AROUND.

PF: Going around.

PM: Tower, do you know that it costs our airline $2000 every time we go around?

ATC: Roger, give me $5000 worth - direct MORON and hold.

For the record I would like to state that all these conversations are fictitious and I would never do anything like this.  

Another old pilot joke...

Three old, old pilots are walking together on the flightline.  


"Sure is windy today" says the first.


"Naw, its Thursday" says the second.  


"Me too, let's go get a beer" says the third.  

The Bell 525 Debuts...

In a overblown theatrical production much like... a lot of other Bell helicopter product intros, Bell recently rolled out the mock up of their new "super-medium" class helicopter, the Bell 525 Relentless.  


Looking something like a cross between an AW139, 214ST, and a stretch S-76, the most shocking thing is that Bell appears to have gone with a clean sheet design, no small step for a company that seemingly begins designing new helicopters with old blueprints and erasers.  


16 seats!  18K Max Gross!  140 knots!  Five blades!  Fly-by-wire controls!  Garmin G5000 Avionics!  A big baggage compartment!  First flight still a couple years off... I hope many of these features survive to production.  


I am excited to see Bell moving forward with a new design, and I hope that they can move this project forward soon and build into it the hell-and-back reliability and unmatched product support that made Bell great in the first place.  


Still I remember the Bell 417, rapid and frequent Bell CEO changes, and other projects that just didn't make it, but I am still hopeful.  Maybe they learned a lot from their involvement in the AW139 (once the Agusta-BELL 139) and don't want to lose that segment of the market.  


Good luck to you, Bell.  Stay on schedule, and for heavens sake lose that ugly paint job on the prototype!  

Your Obamacare Minute, Part 2

I know you are asking by now... what does Obamacare do for the Indians, anyway?  Well, there's a section for that...


Page 1698, under 


Division D - Indian Health Care Improvement
Title 1 - Amendments to Indian Laws
Title 1 - Indian Health, Human Resources, and Development
Sec. 115 Quentin N. Burdick American Indians Into Nursing Program


Which states, in part...

 (a) GRANTS AUTHORIZED. — For the purpose of increasing the number of nurses, nurse midwives, and nurse practitioners who deliver health care services to Indians, the Secretary, acting through the Service, shall provide grants to the following:

  (1) Public or private schools of nursing.

  (2) Tribal colleges or universities.

  (3) Nurse midwife programs and advanced practice nurse programs that are provided by any tribal college or university accredited nursing program, or in the absence of such, any other public or private institutions.

John Conyers was right, its way too hard to read this bill.