Aircraft Landing Quotes

At night, after the exhausting games of canasta, we would look out over the immense sea, full of white-flecked and green reflections, the two of us leaning side by side on the railing, each of us far away, flying in his own aircraft to the stratospheric regions of our own dreams. There we understood that our vocation, our true vocation, was to move for eternity along the roads and seas of the world. Always curious, looking into everything that came before our eyes, sniffing out each corner but only ever faintly - not setting down roots in any land or staying long enough to see the substratum of things; the outer limits would suffice.

After a few minutes Jim was forced to admit that he could recognize none of the constellations. Like everything else since the war, the sky was in a state of change. For all their movements, the Japanese aircraft were its only fixed points, a second zodiac above the broken land.

Paying attention is more important to reliability than moving slowly. Because he pays close attention, a Navy pilot can land a 40,000 lb. aircraft at 140 miles per hour on a pitching carrier deck, at night, more safely than the average teenager can cut a bagel.

All night, after the exhausting games of canasta, we would look over the immense sea, full of white-flecked and green reflections, the two of us leaning side by side on the railing, each of us far away, flying in his own aircraft to the stratospheric regions of his own dreams. There we understood that our vocation, our true vocation, was to move for eternity along the roads and seas of the world. Always curious, looking into everything that came before our eyes, sniffing out each corner but only ever faintly--not setting down roots in any land or staying long enough to see the substratum of things the outer limits would suffice.

I have been hanging here headless for so long that the body has forgotten why or where or when it happened and the toes walk along in shoes that do not care and although the fingers slice things and hold things and move things and touch things such as oranges apples onions books bodies I am no longer reasonably sure what these things are they are mostly like lamplight and fog then often the hands will go to the lost head and hold the head like the hands of a child around a ball a block air and wood - no teeth no thinking part and when a window blows open to a church hill woman dog or something singing the fingers of the hand are senseless to vibration because they have no ears senseless to color because they have no eyes senseless to smell without a nose they country goes by as nonsense the continents the daylights and evenings shine on my dirty fingernails and in some mirror my face a block to vanish scuffed part of a child’s ball while everywhere moves worms and aircraft fires on the land tall violets in sanctity my hands let go let go let go

He turned the entire living room into an airport, complete with a four-foot-high LEGO traffic control tower and a fleet of paper planes, plastic army pilots taped safely into their cockpits. From deep beneath the couch, a large utility flashlight illuminates some sort of...landing strip? I crouch down for a better look. Oh. My. God. Stuck to the carpet in parallel, unbroken paths from one wall to the other are two lanes of brand-new maxi pads. Plastic dinosaurs stand guard at every fourth pad–triceratops and T rexes on one side, brontosauruses and pterodactyls on the other–protecting the airport from enemy aircraft and/or heavy flow.

No, on the outside view there was nothing for anyone to notice about me. I remained one pillar of a trinity, another pillar was lying only temporarily (temporarily! temporarily! temporarily!) in the hospital, I was the pilot of a three-engine aircraft, one of whose engines had stalled: there is no reason to panic, this is not a crash landing, the pilot has thousands of flight hours behind him, he will land the plane safely on the ground.

Along some northern coast at sundown a beaten gold light is waterborne, sweeping across lakes and tracing zigzag rivers to the sea, and we know we're in transit again, half numb to the secluded beauty down there, the slate land we're leaving behind, the peneplain, to cross these rainbands in deep night. This is time totally lost to us. We don't remember it. We take no sense impressions with us, no voices, none of the windy blast of the aircraft on the tarmac, or the white noise of flight, or the hours waiting. Nothing sticks to us but smoke in our hair and clothes. It is dead time. It never happened until it happens again. Then it never happened.

In this land of great opportunity and few roads (in most regions the Alaskan Highway is the only real road), the immense distances can only be reasonably handled by air, in fact, half of all the private aircraft in the world are registered in Alaska. Near any urban center, such as they were, I couldn't look up into the sky without seeing at least one fixed wing clawing itself into the sky.

Richard had trained in the Philippines, working to save the Philippines’ monkey-eating eagle, a wildly improbable-looking piece of flying hardware that you would more readily expect to see coming into land on an aircraft

Finding a taxi, she felt like a child pressing her nose to the window of a candy store as she watched the changing vista pass by while the twilight descended and the capital became bathed in a translucent misty lavender glow. Entering the city from that airport was truly unique. Charles de Gaulle, built nineteen miles north of the bustling metropolis, ensured that the final point of destination was veiled from the eyes of the traveller as they descended. No doubt, the officials scrupulously planned the airport’s location to prevent the incessant air traffic and roaring engines from visibly or audibly polluting the ambience of their beloved capital, and apparently, they succeeded. If one flew over during the summer months, the visitor would be visibly presented with beautifully managed quilt-like fields of alternating gold and green appearing as though they were tilled and clipped with the mathematical precision of a slide rule. The countryside was dotted with quaint villages and towns that were obviously under meticulous planning control. When the aircraft began to descend, this prevailing sense of exactitude and order made the visitor long for an aerial view of the capital city and its famous wonders, hoping they could see as many landmarks as they could before they touched ground, as was the usual case with other major international airports, but from this point of entry, one was denied a glimpse of the city below. Green fields, villages, more fields, the ground grew closer and closer, a runway appeared, a slight bump or two was felt as the craft landed, and they were surrounded by the steel and glass buildings of the airport. Slightly disappointed with this mysterious game of hide-and-seek, the voyager must continue on and collect their baggage, consoled by the reflection that they will see the metropolis as they make their way into town. For those travelling by road, the concrete motorway with its blue road signs, the underpasses and the typical traffic-logged hubbub of industrial areas were the first landmarks to greet the eye, without a doubt, it was a disheartening first impression. Then, the real introduction began. Quietly, and almost imperceptibly, the modern confusion of steel and asphalt was effaced little by little as the exquisite timelessness of Parisian heritage architecture was gradually unveiled. Popping up like mushrooms were cream sandstone edifices filigreed with curled, swirling carvings, gently sloping mansard roofs, elegant ironwork lanterns and wood doors that charmed the eye, until finally, the traveller was completely submerged in the glory of the Second Empire ala Baron Haussmann’s master plan of city design, the iconic grand mansions, tree-lined boulevards and avenues, the quaint gardens, the majestic churches with their towers and spires, the shops and cafés with their colourful awnings, all crowded and nestled together like jewels encrusted on a gold setting.

It was speculated that a car manufacturing company like Ford, or a space or aircraft project like NASA’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory Project, or millionaires like the Rockefellers or Howard Hughes were secretly purchasing the land. One account even suggested the Mafia was buying land to launder ill-gotten gains or dump bodies in the swamps. However,

The plane banked, and he pressed his face against the cold window. The ocean tilted up to meet him, its dark surface studded with points of light that looked like constellations, fallen stars. The tourist sitting next to him asked him what they were. Nathan explained that the bright lights marked the boundaries of the ocean cemeteries. The lights that were fainter were memory buoys. They were the equivalent of tombstones on land: they marked the actual graves. While he was talking he noticed scratch-marks on the water, hundreds of white gashes, and suddenly the captain's voice, crackling over the intercom, interrupted him. The ships they could see on the right side of the aircraft were returning from a rehearsal for the service of remembrance that was held on the ocean every year. Towards the end of the week, in case they hadn't realised, a unique festival was due to take place in Moon Beach. It was known as the Day of the Dead... ...When he was young, it had been one of the days he most looked forward to. Yvonne would come and stay, and she'd always bring a fish with her, a huge fish freshly caught on the ocean, and she'd gut it on the kitchen table. Fish should be eaten, she'd said, because fish were the guardians of the soul, and she was so powerful in her belief that nobody dared to disagree. He remembered how the fish lay gaping on its bed of newspaper, the flesh dark-red and subtly ribbed where it was split in half, and Yvonne with her sleeves rolled back and her wrists dipped in blood that smelt of tin. It was a day that abounded in peculiar traditions. Pass any candy store in the city and there'd be marzipan skulls and sugar fish and little white chocolate bones for 5 cents each. Pass any bakery and you'd see cakes slathered in blue icing, cakes sprinkled with sea-salt.If you made a Day of the Dead cake at home you always hid a coin in it, and the person who found it was supposed to live forever. Once, when she was four, Georgia had swallowed the coin and almost choked. It was still one of her favourite stories about herself. In the afternoon, there'd be costume parties. You dressed up as Lazarus or Frankenstein, or you went as one of your dead relations. Or, if you couldn't think of anything else, you just wore something blue because that was the colour you went when you were buried at the bottom of the ocean. And everywhere there were bowls of candy and slices of special home-made Day of the Dead cake. Nobody's mother ever got it right. You always had to spit it out and shove it down the back of some chair. Later, when it grew dark, a fleet of ships would set sail for the ocean cemeteries, and the remembrance service would be held. Lying awake in his room, he'd imagine the boats rocking the the priest's voice pushed and pulled by the wind. And then, later still, after the boats had gone, the dead would rise from the ocean bed and walk on the water. They gathered the flowers that had been left as offerings, they blew the floating candles out. Smoke that smelt of churches poured from the wicks, drifted over the slowly heaving ocean, hid their feet. It was a night of strange occurrences. It was the night that everyone was Jesus... ...Thousands drove in for the celebrations. All Friday night the streets would be packed with people dressed head to toe in blue. Sometimes they painted their hands and faces too. Sometimes they dyed their hair. That was what you did in Moon Beach. Turned blue once a year. And then, sooner or later, you turned blue forever.

later learned that the aircraft carrying Lieutenant Thomas Meehan, 1st Sergeant William Evans, and most of the headquarters element, flew steadily onward, and then did a slow wingover to the right. The plane’s landing lights came on as it approached the ground. It appeared they were going to make it, but the aircraft hit a hedgerow and exploded, instantly killing everyone on board. If I survived the jump, I would be the company commander.

With apologies to the folks in Redmond, I’ll end on another Microsoft joke because it makes the point well (a point that applies everywhere, not just at Microsoft): A helicopter was flying around above Seattle when a malfunction disabled all of its electronic navigation and communications equipment. The clouds were so thick that the pilot couldn’t tell where he was. Finally, the pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, and held up a handwritten sign that said WHERE AM I? in large letters. People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drawing their own large sign: YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER. The pilot smiled, looked at his map, determined the route to Sea-Tac Airport, and landed safely. After they were on the ground, the copilot asked the pilot how he had done it. “I knew it had to be the Microsoft building,” he said, “because they gave me a technically correct but completely useless answer.

A tall, leggy French girl on her way to work was looking at her phone and almost walked into me as I crossed the street. I dodged her just in time and she glanced back to give me a dirty look. How dare I not realize the importance of her early morning text message. I wondered how humanity managed to work and accomplish things before our time in history; the invention of electricity, the radio and the light bulb; creating the combustion engine and then building roads for people to travel on; creating aircraft so mankind could travel faster between great cities they planned and built; the industrial revolution; NASA landing a man on the moon; the invention of the microwave so single guys could make TV dinners and not starve. How had mankind managed it all without texting each other every five minutes? Or had they been able to accomplish all these things because they didn’t have this frivolous distraction disconnecting them from dreaming and inventing, and human interaction?

Elbit, the biggest private arms manufacturer in Israel today. Established in 1966, it quickly became an essential supplier of equipment for Israeli tanks and aircraft. Years later it had become a major exporter of weapons to both democracies and despots, working closely with the US military and a host of other nations to develop a range of equipment, from drones to night vision googles and land surveillance systems to deadly high-tech munitions. Elbit is still today intimately tied to the Israeli security establishment, and has even moved into the book publishing industry.

As the last passengers boarded the aircraft, the constant slamming of the overhead bins started to hurt Hero's ears. The infant began to cry, and everyone in the cabin glared in Jack and Goldilocks's direction. "Everyone is looking at us like we've personally offended them," Jack remarked. "It's because you brought a baby on a plane," Bree said. "They're worried he's going to cry the whole way to New York." Goldilocks was not going to put up with this. She passed Hero to Jack and stood in the aisle where all the passengers could see her. "Now, wait just one Hickory Dickory second," she called out. "I don't care if you have to listen to my baby cry! Eight days ago I experienced the worst pain humanly possible by pushing him out of my body! It's something all mothers must endure for the survival of our species! It's natural, it's brave, it's beautiful, and I will NOT be disrespected for it! Now, I suggest you all wipe those foul looks off your faces or YOU"LL be the ones crying all the way to New York!" "I'd listen to my wife if I were you," Jack added. "She's on caffeine." All the passengers quickly diverted their gazes elsewhere. Bree tried to start a round of applause for Goldilocks, but no one joined her.

While our land forces are for unpredictable contingencies, our sea and air forces secure the global commons. The navy is our away team: its operations tempo around the world is the same, whether in peacetime or wartime. So crucial is our navy that were just one of America’s eleven aircraft carriers sunk or disabled by an enemy combatant, it would constitute a national disaster in strategic and reputational terms as devastating as 9/11. Manifest Destiny, the conquest of a continent with its unleashing of vast economic wealth and national will, reaches a point of concision here at Naval Base San Diego. It is a fitting end to my journey.

When aircraft engines fail, it is not the end of the flight. The planes don't fall like stones from the sky. They glide along the huge multi-engine passenger planes for 30 to 45 minutes, before crashing during the landing attempt. The passengers don't notice anything. Flying feels no different when engines are out than when engines are running. It is quieter, but only a little quieter: louder than the engines is the wind breaking against the fuselage and wings. At a certain point, for those who look out the window, the earth or the sea are frighteningly close. Or the film is being shown and the flight attendants have closed the blinds. Perhaps the passengers experience the slightly slower flight as particularly pleasant.

If you were to say to a physicist in 1899 that in 1999, a hundred years later, moving images would be transmitted into homes all over the world from satellites in the sky; that bombs of unimaginable power would threaten the species; that antibiotics would abolish infectious disease but that disease would fight back; that women would have the vote, and pills to control reproduction; that millions of people would take to the air every hour in aircraft capable of taking off and landing without human touch; that you could cross the Atlantic at two thousand miles an hour; that humankind would travel to the moon, and then lose interest; that microscopes would be able to see individual atoms; that people would carry telephones weighing a few ounces, and speak anywhere in the world without wires; or that most of these miracles depended on devices the size of a postage stamp, which utilized a new theory called quantum mechanics—if you said all this, the physicist would almost certainly pronounce you mad.

Allan realised it was only a matter of time before he and Herbert were stopped along the road and checked out properly. Not even a marshal would be allowed just to roll into the capital of a country at war without somebody at least asking a question or two. So Allan spent a couple of hours instructing Herbert as to what he should say – just one sentence in Russian, but a very important one: ‘I am Marshal Meretskov from the Soviet Union – take me to your leader!’ Pyongyang was protected at this time by an outer and an inner military ring. The outer one, twenty kilometres from the city, consisted of anti-aircraft guns and double checkpoints on roads, while the inner ring was virtually a barricade, a front line for defence against land attack. Allan and Herbert got caught in one of the outer checkpoints first and were met by a very drunk North Korean soldier, with a cocked machine gun across his chest. Marshal Herbert had rehearsed his single sentence endlessly, and now he said: ‘I am your leader, take me to… the Soviet Union.

I remember a story by a flight instructor I knew well. He told me about the best student he ever had, and a powerful lesson he learned about what it meant to teach her. The student excelled in ground school. She aced the simulations, aced her courses. In the skies, she showed natural skill, improvising even in rapidly changing weather conditions. One day in the air, the instructor saw her doing something naïve. He was having a bad day and he yelled at her. He pushed her hands away from the airplane’s equivalent of a steering wheel. He pointed angrily at an instrument. Dumbfounded, the student tried to correct herself, but in the stress of the moment, she made more errors, said she couldn’t think, and then buried her head in her hands and started to cry. The teacher took control of the aircraft and landed it. For a long time, the student would not get back into the same cockpit. The incident hurt not only the teacher’s professional relationship with the student but the student’s ability to learn. It also crushed the instructor. If he had been able to predict how the student would react to his threatening behavior, he never would have acted that way. Relationships matter when attempting to teach human beings—whether you’re a parent, teacher, boss, or peer. Here we are talking about the highly intellectual venture of flying an aircraft. But its success is fully dependent upon feelings.

Few grown humans can normally survive a fall of much more than twenty-five or thirty feet, though there have been some notable exceptions—none more memorable perhaps than that of a British airman in World War II named Nicholas Alkemade. In the late winter of 1944, while on a bombing run over Germany, Flight Sergeant Alkemade, the tail gunner on a British Lancaster bomber, found himself in a literally tight spot when his plane was hit by enemy flak and quickly filled with smoke and flames. Tail gunners on Lancasters couldn’t wear parachutes because the space in which they operated was too confined, and by the time Alkemade managed to haul himself out of his turret and reach for his parachute, he found it was on fire and beyond salvation. He decided to leap from the plane anyway rather than perish horribly in flames, so he hauled open a hatch and tumbled out into the night. He was three miles above the ground and falling at 120 miles per hour. “It was very quiet,” Alkemade recalled years later, “the only sound being the drumming of aircraft engines in the distance, and no sensation of falling at all. I felt suspended in space.” Rather to his surprise, he found himself to be strangely composed and at peace. He was sorry to die, of course, but accepted it philosophically, as something that happened to airmen sometimes. The experience was so surreal and dreamy that Alkemade was never certain afterward whether he lost consciousness, but he was certainly jerked back to reality when he crashed through the branches of some lofty pine trees and landed with a resounding thud in a snowbank, in a sitting position. He had somehow lost both his boots, and had a sore knee and some minor abrasions, but otherwise was quite unharmed. Alkemade’s survival adventures did not quite end there. After the war, he took a job in a chemical plant in Loughborough, in the English Midlands. While he was working with chlorine gas, his gas mask came loose, and he was instantly exposed to dangerously high levels of the gas. He lay unconscious for fifteen minutes before co-workers noticed his unconscious form and dragged him to safety. Miraculously, he survived. Some time after that, he was adjusting a pipe when it ruptured and sprayed him from head to foot with sulfuric acid. He suffered extensive burns but again survived. Shortly after he returned to work from that setback, a nine-foot-long metal pole fell on him from a height and very nearly killed him, but once again he recovered. This time, however, he decided to tempt fate no longer. He took a safer job as a furniture salesman and lived out the rest of his life without incident. He died peacefully, in bed, aged sixty-four in 1987. —

The Ten Ways to Evaluate a Market provide a back-of-the-napkin method you can use to identify the attractiveness of any potential market. Rate each of the ten factors below on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is terrible and 10 fantastic. When in doubt, be conservative in your estimate: Urgency. How badly do people want or need this right now? (Renting an old movie is low urgency; seeing the first showing of a new movie on opening night is high urgency, since it only happens once.) Market Size. How many people are purchasing things like this? (The market for underwater basket-weaving courses is very small; the market for cancer cures is massive.) Pricing Potential. What is the highest price a typical purchaser would be willing to spend for a solution? (Lollipops sell for $0.05; aircraft carriers sell for billions.) Cost of Customer Acquisition. How easy is it to acquire a new customer? On average, how much will it cost to generate a sale, in both money and effort? (Restaurants built on high-traffic interstate highways spend little to bring in new customers. Government contractors can spend millions landing major procurement deals.) Cost of Value Delivery. How much will it cost to create and deliver the value offered, in both money and effort? (Delivering files via the internet is almost free; inventing a product and building a factory costs millions.) Uniqueness of Offer. How unique is your offer versus competing offerings in the market, and how easy is it for potential competitors to copy you? (There are many hair salons but very few companies that offer private space travel.) Speed to Market. How soon can you create something to sell? (You can offer to mow a neighbor’s lawn in minutes; opening a bank can take years.) Up-front Investment. How much will you have to invest before you’re ready to sell? (To be a housekeeper, all you need is a set of inexpensive cleaning products. To mine for gold, you need millions to purchase land and excavating equipment.) Upsell Potential. Are there related secondary offers that you could also present to purchasing customers? (Customers who purchase razors need shaving cream and extra blades as well; buy a Frisbee and you won’t need another unless you lose it.) Evergreen Potential. Once the initial offer has been created, how much additional work will you have to put in in order to continue selling? (Business consulting requires ongoing work to get paid; a book can be produced once and then sold over and over as is.) When you’re done with your assessment, add up the score. If the score is 50 or below, move on to another idea—there are better places to invest your energy and resources. If the score is 75 or above, you have a very promising idea—full speed ahead. Anything between 50 and 75 has the potential to pay the bills but won’t be a home run without a huge investment of energy and resources.

So Japan is allied with Germany and they’re like “Sweet the rest of the world already hates us let’s take their land!” So they start invading China and Malaysia and the Philippines and just whatever else but then they’re like “Hmm what if America tries to stop us? Ooh! Let’s surprise attack Hawaii!” So that’s exactly what they do. The attack is very successful but only in a strictly technical sense. To put it in perspective, let’s try a metaphor. Let’s say you’re having a barbecue but you don’t want to get stung by any bees so you find your local beehive and just go crazy on it with a baseball bat. Make sense? THEN YOU MUST BE JAPAN IN THE ’40s. WHO ELSE WOULD EVER DO THIS? So the U.S. swarms on Japan, obviously but that’s where our bee metaphor breaks down because while bees can sting you they cannot put you in concentration camps (or at least, I haven’t met any bees that can do that). Yeah, after that surprise attack on Pearl Harbor everybody on the West Coast is like “OMG WE’RE AT WAR WITH JAPAN AND THERE ARE JAPANESE DUDES LIVING ALLLL AROUND US.” I mean, they already banned Japanese immigration like a decade before but there are still Japanese dudes all over the coast and what’s more those Japanese dudes are living right next door to all the important aircraft factories and landing strips and shipyards and farmland and forests and bridges almost as if those types of things are EVERYWHERE and thus impossible not to live next door to. Whatever, it’s pretty suspicious. Now, at this point, nothing has been sabotaged and some people think that means they’re safe. But not military geniuses like Earl Warren who points out that the only reason there’s been no sabotage is that the Japanese are waiting for their moment and the fact that there has been no sabotage yet is ALL THE PROOF WE NEED to determine that sabotage is being planned. Frank Roosevelt hears this and he’s like “That’s some pretty shaky logic but I really don’t like Japanese people. Okay, go ahead.” So he passes an executive order that just says “Any enemy ex-patriots can be kicked out of any war zone I designate. P.S.: California, Oregon, and Washington are war zones have fun with that.” So they kick all the Japanese off the coast forcing them to sell everything they own but people are still not satisfied. They’re like “Those guys look funny! We can’t have funny-looking dudes roaming around this is wartime! We gotta lock ’em up.” And FDR is like “Okay, sure.” So they herd all the Japanese into big camps where they are concentrated in large numbers like a hundred and ten thousand people total and then the military is like “Okay, guys we will let you go if you fill out this loyalty questionnaire that says you love the United States and are totally down to be in our army” and some dudes are like “Sweet, free release!” but some dudes are like “Seriously? You just put me in jail for being Asian. This country is just one giant asshole and it’s squatting directly over my head.” And the military is like “Ooh, sorry to hear that buddy looks like you’re gonna stay here for the whole war. Meanwhile your friends get to go fight and die FOR FREEDOM.

3 INCIDENT IN THE ENGLISH CHANNEL Not long afterwards, a Belgian ferry, the Oudenbourg, was steaming its way from Ostende to Ramsgate. In the straits of Dover the duty officer noticed that half a mile south of its usual course there was something going on in the water. He could not be sure that there was no-one drowning there and so he ordered a change of course down to where the perturbance was taking place. Two hundred passengers on the windward side of the ship were shown a very strange spectacle: in some places a vertical jet of water shot out from the surface, and in some of those vertical jets there could be seen something like a black body thrown up with it; the surface of the sea for one or two hundred yards all around was tossing and seething wildly while, from the depths, a loud rattling and humming could be heard. "It was as if there was a small volcano erupting under the sea." As the Oudenbourg slowly approached the place an enormous wave rose about ten yards ahead of it and a terrible noise thundered out like an explosion. The entire ship was lifted violently and the deck was showered with a rain of water that was nearly boiling hot; and landing on the deck with the water was a strong black body which writhed and let out a sharp loud scream; it was a newt that had been injured and burnt. The captain ordered the ship full steam astern so that the ship would not steam straight into the middle of this turbulent Hell; but the water all around had also begun to erupt and the surface of the sea was strewn with pieces of dismembered newts. The ship was finally able to turn around and it fled northwards as fast as possible. Then there was a terrible explosion about six hundred yards to the stern and a gigantic column of water and steam, perhaps a hundred yards high, shot out of the sea. The Oudenbourg set course for Harwich and sent out a radio warning in all directions: "Attention all shipping, attention all shipping! Severe danger on Ostende-Ramsgate lane. Underwater explosion. Cause unknown. All shipping advised avoid area!" All this time the sea was thundering and boiling, almost as if military manoeuvres had been taking place under the water; but apart from the erupting water and steam there was nothing to see. From both Dover and Calais, destroyers and torpedo boats set out at full steam and squadrons of military aircraft flew to the site of the disturbance; but by the time they got there all they found was that the surface was discoloured with something like a yellow mud and covered with startled fish and newts that had been torn to pieces. At first it was thought that a mine in the channel must have exploded; but once the shores on both sides of the Straits of Dover had been ringed off with a chain of soldiers and the English prime-minister had, for the fourth time in the history of the world, interrupted his Saturday evening and hurried back to London, there were those who thought the incident must be of extremely serious international importance. The papers carried some highly alarming rumours, but, oddly enough, this time remained far from the truth; nobody had any idea that Europe, and the whole world with it, stood for a few days on the brink of a major war. It was only several years later that a member of the then British cabinet, Sir Thomas Mulberry, failed to be re-elected in a general election and published his memoirs setting out just what had actually happened; but by then, though, nobody was interested.

A squadron of Vautours, Israel's longest range fighter-bombers, landed and taxied in pairs up to a ramp. A stop watch was started the second they touched down. Within 7½ minutes the aircraft had been filled up with fuel and oxygen, their cannons had been reloaded with ammunition, ten bombs had been hung from their wings and they were airborne once again. After the war one of the attachés asked General Hod how long the turn-around time of the Israeli aircraft had been. Hod replied that he had seen

My uncle had predicted correctly, for by the time I again came home on my vacation, the newly elected Pacifist Council had reduced the aerial activities to mere watchful patroling over the land of the enemy. Then came the report of an attempt to launch an airplane from the roof of Berlin. The people, in dire panic lest Ray generators were being carried out by German aircraft, had clamoured for the recall of the Pacifist Council, and the bombardment of Berlin was resumed.

Boeing commercial service history contains cases where guns were fired on board in service airplanes, all of which landed safely. Commercial airplane structures are designed with sufficient strength, redundancy and damage tolerance that a single or even multiple handgun holes would not result in loss of an aircraft. A bullet hole in the fuselage skin would have little effect on cabin pressurization. Aircraft are designed to withstand much larger impacts whether intentional or unintentional. For instance, on fourteen occasions Boeing commercial airplanes have survived, and landed, after an in flight bomb blast.

In his memoirs the author Roald Dahl, who took part in the invasion as a Hurricane pilot, confirmed the impression that the Vichy French were unprepared. Sent to strafe the Vichy aerodrome at Rayak, he recalled, on his first low pass over the landing strip, being astonished to see ‘a bunch of girls in brightly coloured cotton dresses standing out by the planes with glasses in their hands having drinks with the French pilots, and I remember bottles of wine standing on the wing of one of the planes as we went swooshing over’.19 It was a Sunday morning and ‘the Frenchmen were evidently entertaining their girlfriends and showing off their aircraft to them, which was a very French thing to do in the middle of a war at a front-line aerodrome. Every one of us held our fire on that first pass over the flying field and it was wonderfully comical to see the girls all dropping their wine glasses and galloping in their high heels for the door of the nearest building . . . we destroyed five of their planes on the ground.’ But the hope

Our only landing aid was a human T made up of Royal Marines lying on the flight deck holding torches.  The theory being that if, as the pilot, if you got the descent angle correct, then the visual aid would look like a lighted T on the flight deck.  The correct angle would be about a 3 degree glide slope and the aircraft should arrive just short of the T in a hover.  Once in the hover the pilot would detach the under slung load, or land vertically to discharge passengers.       This didn’t work real well on the first couple of tries because our human T didn’t have quite the confidence in the pilots that was required for this, and as we drew close, and were at the very critical stages of our approach, our human T landing aid would appear to move or disintegrate completely.      We shut down for a while and after a “quiet word” from either the Commando Sergeant Major or one of the Colour Sergeants, our human landing aids quit moving and things worked out well.

We were ready to land, we had on our seat belts, and then I realised we had hit something,’ said one survivor, forty-five-year-old engineer Pierre Cota – who was only on the aircraft because he had missed an earlier flight after being involved in an horrific car crash on his way to the airport.

There is only one unsolved case of hijacking in US aviation history - that of DB Cooper. A man, actually going by the name of Dan Cooper (it was later reported incorrectly by the media) bought a one-way ticket for flight 305 between Portland International Airport and Seattle, Washington. Shortly after take-off, Cooper whispered to an air stewardess to take a note from him, and that he had a bomb. The note requested she sit next to him and that he was hijacking the place. She did as told, and with some trepidation asked to see the bomb. Cooper opened up his briefcase enough the stewardess to see eight red cylinders in two rows. He gave her his demands - $200,000, four parachutes (two main and two reserve) and a fuel truck standing by in Seattle to refuel the aircraft as soon as it landed.

Naval and occasionally land-based air power turned the great sea battles—the fighting near Singapore, the chase of the Bismarck, the Coral Sea, Midway, the fight over the Marianas, Leyte Gulf, and Okinawa—mostly into contests of carrier-based aircraft attacking with impunity any enemy ships except like kind.

Given this American interest, how might war between the United States and China develop? Assume the year is 2010. American troops are out of Korea, which has been reunified, and the United States has a greatly reduced military presence in Japan. Taiwan and mainland China have reached an accommodation in which Taiwan continues to have most of its de facto independence but explicitly acknowledges Beijing’s suzerainty and with China’s sponsorship has been admitted to the United Nations on the model of Ukraine and Belorussia in 1946. The development of the oil resources in the South China Sea has proceeded apace, largely under Chinese auspices but with some areas under Vietnamese control being developed by American companies. Its confidence boosted by its new power projection capabilities, China announces that it will establish its full control of the entire sea, over all of which it has always claimed sovereignty. The Vietnamese resist and fighting occurs between Chinese and Vietnamese warships. The Chinese, eager to revenge their 1979 humiliation, invade Vietnam. The Vietnamese appeal for American assistance. The Chinese warn the United States to stay out. Japan and the other nations in Asia dither. The United States says it cannot accept Chinese conquest of Vietnam, calls for economic sanctions against China, and dispatches one of its few remaining carrier task forces to the South China Sea. The Chinese denounce this as a violation of Chinese territorial waters and launch air strikes against the task force. Efforts by the U.N. secretary general and the Japanese prime minister to negotiate a cease-fire fail, and the fighting spreads elsewhere in East Asia. Japan prohibits the use of U.S. bases in Japan for action against China, the United States ignores that prohibition, and Japan announces its neutrality and quarantines the bases. Chinese submarines and land-based aircraft operating from both Taiwan and the mainland impose serious damage on U.S. ships and facilities in East Asia. Meanwhile Chinese ground forces enter Hanoi and occupy large portions of Vietnam.

HOW TO LAND ON AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER

HOW TO LAND ON A HOSTILE AIRCRAFT CARRIER

HOW TO LAND A SHUTTLE IF IT’S ATTACHED TO THE CARRIER AIRCRAFT

Britain’s chain of radar antennas allowed the RAF to detect enemy aircraft before they neared the coast. The intelligence allowed the British to concentrate their limited forces against each wave of attack. On September 15, commemorated in England as Battle of Britain Day, 144 German pilots and crew were shot down versus only 13 for the RAF. One German bomber pilot, whose unit had lost one-third of its aircraft in one hour, wrote that “if there were any more missions like that, our chances of survival would be nil.” Two days later, Hitler indefinitely postponed the land invasion of Britain. By the end of October, the German attack was all but over. It was Germany’s first loss of the war.

You were Air Force?” “Does it show?” he asked, coming out of his chair and introducing himself with a handshake. Maybe it did show, she thought, as she looked more closely. Maybe it helped explain the hard handshake and the riveting grip of those eyes. She wanted to like him right away, which only fueled her suspicion of him. “Aircraft carriers, land-based, or what?” she asked.

To put 4,500 aircraft on the ground in places where they were not supposed to go- at the same tim ehe military is trying to get airborne and control the chaos- is an incredible feat of the air traffic controllers and air traffic managers coordinating that. I believe 700 landed within the first 10 minutes, and 3,500 within the first hour.

So what," the Chelgrian asked, "is the point of me or anybody else writing a symphony, or anything else?" The avatar raised its brows in surprise. "Well, for one thing, you do it, it's you who gets the feeling of achievement." "Ignoring the subjective. What would be the point for those listening to it?" "They'd know it was one of their own species, not a Mind, who created it." "Ignoring that, too; suppose they weren't told it was by an AI, or didn't care." "If they hadn't been told then the comparison isn't complete; information is being concealed. If they don't care, then they're unlike any group of humans I've ever encountered." "But if you can—" "Ziller, are concerned that Minds—AIs, if you like—can create, or even just appear to create, original works of art?" "Frankly, when they're the sort of original works of art that I create, yes." "Ziller, it doesn't matter. You have to think like a mountain climber." "Oh, do I?" "Yes. Some people take days, sweat buckets, endure pain and cold and risk injury and—in some cases—permanent death to achieve the summit of a mountain only to discover there a party of their peers freshly arrived by aircraft and enjoying a light picnic." "If I was one of those climbers I'd be pretty damned annoyed." "Well, it is considered rather impolite to land an aircraft on a summit which people are at that moment struggling up to the hard way, but it can and does happen. Good manners indicate that the picnic ought to be shared and that those who arrived by aircraft express awe and respect for the accomplishment of the climbers. "The point, of course, is that the people who spent days and sweated buckets could also have taken an aircraft to the summit if all they'd wanted was to absorb the view. It is the struggle that they crave. The sense of achievement is produced by the route to and from the peak, not by the peak itself. It is just the fold between the pages." The avatar hesitated. It put its head a little to one side and narrowed its eyes. "How far do I have to take this analogy, Cr. Ziller?

a cloud of dust thrown up behind her white van like the vapour trail of a high-flying aircraft,

Rose: But when you're in the air, and the sky above you is a sea of gray mist and the land below you is all green, the silver balloons float in between like a school of shining silver whales, bobbing a little in the wind. They are as big as buses, and I and every other pilot have a healthy fear of them because their teathering cables are loaded with explosives to try to snarl up enemy aircraft.

Suppose I’m flying a very small aircraft like a Colomban Cri-Cri (wingspan: 16') over southern England right when Brexit happens. For complicated legal reasons, this means I need to land in France. Unfortunately, I’m a vampire who can’t cross the water of the English Channel. Could I fly through the 25'-diameter Chunnel?

Type for type, ships in general, and warships in particular, have always been bigger than their land-bound equivalents, often representing by far the largest and most complicated movable machines produced by, and at the disposal of, a given society at a given time and place. This was true in regard to the junks of pre-modern China, the galleys and sailing ships of the ancient Mediterranean, and the cogs of medieval Europe. As even a casual glance at a nuclear-propelled aircraft carrier of 90,000 tons burden will confirm, that still remains true today.

The United States Congress ordered an end to the bombing of Cambodia in August 1973. By that time American aircraft had dropped about 2.75 million tons of ordnance, causing massive carnage that has never been fully documented or accounted for. Yet Congress’s ban was enacted not out of concern for the Cambodian victims. As Representative Tip O’Neill said during the floor debate, “Cambodia is not worth the life of one American flier.” The

Ideology Fidel Castro was considered an ideologue by many. His fanaticism was always a continuing animosity towards the United States, while at the same time working to increase his good relationship with most left leaning Latin American countries. However, there have been times when out of necessity he had a tacit understanding with the United States. On September 11, 2001, Fidel Castro offered Cuban airports as emergency landing places, when all American aircraft were diverted from their primary destinations and ordered to land immediately, after the attack on the Twin Towers in New York City. On another occasion he accepted a one-time purchase of food after Category 4 Hurricane Michelle struck the island that same year. Once, he declined a U.S. Government offer of humanitarian aid turning to Canada instead. Castro continued having close relations with Canada and demonstrated this friendship when he attended Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s funeral in the fall of the year 2000. It was a way that he could retain contact with the western world without becoming involved with the United States.

During the “Bay of Pigs Invasion” One Douglas “B-26” airplane with counterfeit Cuban markings was fired on and crashed into the sea about 30 miles north of the island. Another of these aircraft, which was also damaged but still air worthy, continued north and landed at Boca Chica Key Naval Air Station near Key West, Florida. The following day the crew was quickly flown to exile in Nicaragua. The United States government announced that the downed aircraft belonged to the Cuban air force and was manned by Cuban dissidents. In reply to this, Castro appeared on Cuban State television and denounced these claims. He put his military on high alert and directed defensive operations from the Cuban Military Headquarters, which had just been bombed by two of the masquerading airplanes. Fidel issued orders to detain anyone who was suspected of conspiracy or treason. Lists of these people had previously been prepared and were used to round up suspected dissenters. Within days, his overzealous police force and army incarcerated about 20,000 Cuban citizens, using whatever means were available, including a sports stadium. In a speech to the people, Fidel finally admitted to the public that his Movement was Socialistic. The Cuban Foreign Minister Raúl Roa García, successfully presented evidence at the United Nations, proving that the attacks were foreign in origin. Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, replied that the United States had not participated in any action against Cuba. Ambassador Stevenson, knowing better, insisted that the aircraft that had landed in Miami had Cuban markings and therefore must have been of Cuban origin. Stevenson’s comments sounded contrived since the aircraft had Plexiglas noses, normally used as the bombardier’s station, whereas the actual Cuban B-26’s had solid noses with armament. It was obvious to the General Assembly that the United States Ambassador had been perpetrating an outright lie or, in diplomatic double talk, an untruth! It was an embarrassing moment that left the United States’ veracity open to ridicule

The organization of high-tempo air operations from carriers remains an extremely challenging proposition even today, but in June 1942, the Japanese were world leaders in this field. Their fleet carriers would typically hold about 90 aircraft, confined into a very tight space. There were two hangar decks, with lifts connecting them to the flight deck above. Japanese ground crews were very well trained, with the result that they could turn around aircraft much faster than their British or American counterparts. Nonetheless, these were crowded ships, and they were already coming under attack from the Midway-based American aircraft. Furthermore, in addition to switching armament for Nagumo’s reserve bomber force, the crews were maintaining a rotating force of covering fighters. There were always Zeros on deck waiting to take off, being refuelled, or just having landed. Hoisting heavy torpedoes into the bomb bays of the Kates was also a very skilled operation that only specialist torpedo armorers were able to undertake. In short, this was a recipe for delay and confusion, even given the superb quality of the Japanese ground crew, and as Nagumo changed his mind twice in the span of less than an hour, the issues the Japanese faced on the carriers were exacerbated. 

On May 17, 1913, Domingo Rosillo and Agustín Parlá attempted the first international flights to Latin America, by trying to fly their airplanes from Key West to Havana. At 5:10 a.m., Rosillo departed from Key West and flew for 2 hours, 30 minutes and 40 seconds before running out of gas. He had planned to land at the airfield at Camp Columbia in Havana, but instead managed to squeak in at the camp’s shooting range, thereby still satisfactorily completing the flight. Parlá left Key West at 5:57 in the morning. Just four minutes later, at 6:01 a.m., he had to carefully turn back to the airstrip he had just left, since the aircraft didn’t properly respond to his controls. Parlá said, “It would not let me compensate for the wind that blew.” When he returned to Key West, he discovered that two of the tension wires to the aircraft’s elevators were broken. Two days later, Parlá tried again and left Key West, carrying the Cuban Flag his father had received from José Martí. This time he fell short and had to land at sea off the Cuban coast near Mariel. Sailors from the Cuban Navy rescued him from his seaplane. Being adventuresome, while attending the Curtiss School of Aviation in 1916, Parlá flew over Niagara Falls. In his honor, the Cuban flag was hoisted and the Cuban national anthem was played. The famous Cuban composer, pianist, and bandleader, Antonio M. Romeu, composed a song in his honor named “Parlá over the Niagara” and Agustín Parlá became known as the “Father of Cuban Aviation.

Agustín Parlá Orduña was among the early Cuban aviation aces. He was born in Key West, Florida, on October 10, 1887, and received his early education there. After Cuba was liberated from Spain, the family returned to Havana, where he continued his education. On April 20, 1912, he received his pilot’s license at the Curtiss School of Aviation in Miami. On July 5, 1913, when the Cuban Army Air Corps was formed, Agustín Parlá was commissioned as a captain in the Cuban Armed Forces. On May 17, 1913, Domingo Rosillo and Agustín Parlá attempted the first international flights to Latin America, by trying to fly their airplanes from Key West to Havana. At 5:10 a.m., Rosillo departed from Key West and flew for 2 hours, 30 minutes and 40 seconds before running out of gas. He had planned to land at the airfield at Camp Columbia in Havana, but instead managed to squeak in at the shooting range, thereby still satisfactorily completing the flight. Parlá left Key West at 5:57 in the morning. Just four minutes later, at 6:01 a.m., he had to carefully turn back to the airstrip he had just left, since the aircraft didn’t properly respond to his controls. Parlá said, “It would not let me compensate for the wind that blew.” When he returned to Key West, he discovered that two of the tension wires to the elevator were broken. On May 19, 1913, Parlá tried again and left Key West, carrying the Cuban Flag his father had received from José Martí. This time he fell short and had to land at sea off the Cuban coast near Mariel, where sailors rescued him from his seaplane.

Between 1931 and 1946, Pan American Airways had 28 flying boats known as “Clippers,” These four radial engine aircraft were S-40’s and 42’s built in 1934, later replaced by Boeing 314 Clippers, that became the familiar symbol of the company. Following the war, Pan American Airways flew land based airliners such as the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, developed from the C-97, Stratofreighter, and a military derivative of the B-29 Superfortress, used as a troop transport, and the DC-4 series, converted from the blueprints of the C-54 Skymaster. Both of these airliners were originally developed for the United States Army Air Corps, during World War II. On January 1950 Pan American Airways Corporation adopted the name it had been unofficially called since 1943, and formally became “Pan American World Airways, Inc.” That September Pan American bought out American Airlines’ overseas division and simultaneously placed an order for 45 DC-6Bs, replacing their DC-4’s. Throughout Pan-American was known simply as Pan-Am. The Douglas DC-6 is a four engine “Double Wasp” radial piston-powered airliner manufactured for long flights. It was built by the Douglas Aircraft Company from 1946 until 1958. More than 700 were built between those years and some are still flying today. The rugged, reliable DC-6B, was regarded as the ultimate piston-engine airliner, from the perspective of having excellent handling qualities and relatively economical operations.

People still said that “The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire,” even though the Commonwealth was starting to come apart. In spite of the obvious, it was unthinkable that the United States had a colony in Africa; well they had one, and that was where I was headed! World War II had been over for ten years and in Europe they were getting on with things and for now all was well in Africa, and with the World! Unless especially fitted out, aircraft didn’t have the range to cross the Atlantic in one jump, so after leaving Idlewild Airport in New York City, we flew halfway across the Atlantic Ocean to the Portuguese island of Santa Maria in the Azores. After refueling and stretching our legs we continued on to Lisbon. Our layovers were only for as long as it took to take care of business. There were no days built in, for me to have a leisurely, gentlemanly, civilized journey to my destination. Instead my seat was beginning to feel as hard as a rock pile. The engines continued to drone on as the Atlantic Ocean eventually gave way to the Iberian Peninsula. My view of Portugal was only what I could see from the air and what was at the airport. Again we landed for fuel in Lisbon, and then without skipping a beat, headed south across the Mediterranean to the North African desert. The beaches under us, in Morocco and the Spanish Sahara, were endless and the sand went from the barren coastal surf inland, to as far as the eye could see. With very few exceptions there was no evidence of civilization.

Underhill had an idea for much safer, faster transport than autos or even aircraft. “Ten minutes from Princeton to Lands Command, twenty minutes across the continent. See, you dig these tunnels along minimum-time arcs, evacuate the air from them, and just let gravity do the work.” By Unnerby’s watch, there was a five-second pause. Then: “Oops, little problem there. The minimum-time solution for Princeton to Lands Command would go down kinda deep…like six hundred miles. I probably couldn’t convince even the General to finance it.” “You are right about that!” And the two were off in an extended argument about less-than-optimal tunnel arcs and trade-offs against air travel. The deep tunnel idea was really dumb, it turned out.

The gospel comes to the world not like an aircraft seeking an existing landing strip but like a bomb, which creates its own crater when it arrives.

This is what I was made for. I felt it in my gut. In the last hour, I'd been shot by the Taliban, had my aircraft riddled with bullets, and landed hard in enemy territory. 'I can do this. I'm not scared.' At that moment, I wouldn't have switched spots with anyone in the world, because I knew I was the best person for the job.

Instead, they came up with an ingeniously simple approach: they created a pilot’s checklist. Its mere existence indicated how far aeronautics had advanced. In the early years of flight, getting an aircraft into the air might have been nerve-racking but it was hardly complex. Using a checklist for takeoff would no more have occurred to a pilot than to a driver backing a car out of the garage. But flying this new plane was too complicated to be left to the memory of any one person, however expert. The test pilots made their list simple, brief, and to the point—short enough to fit on an index card, with step-by-step checks for takeoff, flight, landing, and taxiing. It had the kind of stuff that all pilots know to do. They check that the brakes are released, that the instruments are set, that the door and windows are closed, that the elevator controls are unlocked—dumb stuff. You wouldn’t think it would make that much difference. But with the checklist in hand, the pilots went on to fly the Model 299 a total of 1.8 million miles without one accident. The army ultimately ordered almost thirteen thousand of the aircraft, which it dubbed the B-17. And, because flying the behemoth was now possible, the army gained a decisive air advantage in the Second World War, enabling its devastating bombing

The Coeur d’Alene Airport was a sleepy little airfield with three paved runways laid out in a standard triangle configuration. Two small FBOs (fixed base operators) on the field rented airplanes and offered instruction. I felt a little discouraged upon seeing the dilapidated condition of the buildings at both of these businesses. It appeared they were both operating on a shoestring budget—just as Martha and I were at the time. The airport had no air terminal or commercial airline service. I was nevertheless hoping I would at least see a little airplane taxiing, taking off, or landing that day, but there was no activity whatsoever. It was exciting, though, for me to just see a number of single-engine private aircraft tied down on the tarmac as I imagined myself climbing into one, taxiing out, and taking off.

Flying over the unsettled countryside together, they came across mobs that had grown to fifteen thousand people or more. Bucher tossed teargas canisters out of the plane, to little effect. “Time and again, Jawaharlal said, ‘Try to land,’ ” Bucher recalled years later. “Sometimes we did and, regardless of danger, [he] would jump out of the aircraft and rush towards any mobs in the vicinity.”44

If a German reconnaissance aircraft were observed, the Hurricane would be launched to shoot down the enemy, but the plane could not be landed after the attack. The only option available to the pilot was to parachute from the aircraft and hope that some of the escort ships would pick him up.

IT WAS ALMOST December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened. No. Wrong word, Jonas thought. Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen. Frightened was the way he had felt a year ago when an unidentified aircraft had overflown the community twice. He had seen it both times. Squinting toward the sky, he had seen the sleek jet, almost a blur at its high speed, go past, and a second later heard the blast of sound that followed. Then one more time, a moment later, from the opposite direction, the same plane. At first, he had been only fascinated. He had never seen aircraft so close, for it was against the rules for Pilots to fly over the community. Occasionally, when supplies were delivered by cargo planes to the landing field across the river, the children rode their bicycles to the riverbank and watched, intrigued, the unloading and then the takeoff directed to the west, always away from the community. But the aircraft a year ago had been different. It was not a squat, fat-bellied cargo plane but a needle-nosed single-pilot jet. Jonas, looking around anxiously, had seen others—adults as well as children—stop what they were doing and wait, confused, for an explanation of the frightening event. Then all of the citizens had been ordered to go into the nearest building and stay there. IMMEDIATELY, the rasping voice through the speakers had said. LEAVE YOUR BICYCLES WHERE THEY ARE. Instantly, obediently, Jonas had dropped his bike on its side on the path behind his family’s dwelling. He had run indoors and stayed there, alone. His parents were both at work, and his little sister, Lily, was at the Childcare Center where she spent her after-school hours. Looking through the front window, he had seen no people: none of the busy afternoon crew of Street Cleaners, Landscape Workers, and Food Delivery people who usually populated the community at that time of day. He saw only the abandoned bikes here and there on their sides; an upturned wheel on one was still revolving slowly. He had been frightened then. The sense of his own community silent, waiting, had made his stomach churn. He had trembled. But it had been nothing. Within minutes the speakers had crackled again, and the voice, reassuring now and less urgent, had explained that a Pilot-in-Training had misread his navigational instructions and made a wrong turn. Desperately the Pilot had been trying to make his way back before his error was noticed. NEEDLESS TO SAY, HE WILL BE RELEASED, the voice had said, followed by silence. There was an ironic tone to that final message, as if the Speaker found it amusing; and Jonas had smiled a little, though he knew what a grim statement it had been. For a contributing citizen to be released from the community was a final decision, a terrible punishment, an overwhelming statement of failure.

After nightfall, when most of the American planes had been taken aboard, a new formation of planes arrived over the task force. First, the drone of their engines could be heard above the cloud cover; then they slipped into view, at about the height of the Lexington’s masts. “These planes were in very good formation,” recalled Lieutenant Commander Stroop. They had their navigation lights on, indicating that they intended to land. But many observers on both carriers and several of the screening vessels noted that something was awry. Captain Sherman of the Lexington counted nine planes, more than could be accounted for among the American planes that were still aloft. They were flying down the Yorktown’s port side, a counterclockwise approach, the reverse of the American landing routine. They were flashing their blinker lights, but none of the Americans could decipher the signal. Electrician’s mate Peter Newberg, stationed on the Yorktown’s flight deck, noticed that the aircraft exhausts were a strange shape and color, and Stroop noted that the running lights were a peculiar shade of red and blue. The TBS (short-range radio circuit) came alive with chatter. One of the nearby destroyers asked, “Have any of our planes got rounded wingtips?” Another voice said, “Damned if those are our planes.” When the first of the strangers made his final turn, he was too low, and the Yorktown’s landing signal officer frantically signaled him to throttle up. “In the last few seconds,” Newberg recalled, “when the pilot was about to plow into the stern under the flight deck, he poured the coal to his engine and pulled up and off to port. The signal light flicked briefly on red circles painted on his wings.” One of the screening destroyers opened fire, and red tracers reached up toward the leading plane. A voice on the Lexington radioed to all ships in the task force, ordering them to hold fire, but the captain of the destroyer replied, “I know Japanese planes when I see them.” Antiaircraft gunners on ships throughout the task force opened fire, and suddenly the night sky lit up as if it was the Fourth of July. But there were friendly planes in the air as well; one of the Yorktown fighter pilots complained: “What are you shooting at me for? What have I done now?” On the Yorktown, SBD pilot Harold Buell scrambled out to the port-side catwalk to see what was happening. “In the frenzy of the moment, with gunners firing at both friend and foe, some of us got caught up in the excitement and drew our .45 Colt automatics to join in, blasting away at the red meatballs as they flew past the ship—an offensive gesture about as effective as throwing rocks.” The intruders and the Americans all doused their lights and zoomed back into the cloud cover; none was shot down. It was not the last time in the war that confused Japanese pilots would attempt to land on an American carrier.

The complex Japanese aircraft designation systems proved confusing during and after the war. Several forms of nomenclature applied to Imperial Navy aircraft, but just two are important. The first system (“short form”) comprised a letter, number, letter (e.g., A5M). The first letter identified mission (A = carrier fighter, B = carrier bomber, G = land-based bomber, etc.). This was followed by a numeral indicating the numerical sequence of that model for the mission (5 = fifth carrier fighter). The second letter designated the manufacturer (the most important were A = Aichi, K = Kawanishi, M = Mitsubishi, N = Nakajima). The second major system was the type number from the year of service introduction under the Japanese calendar. By the Japanese calendar, 1936 was Year 2596, from which “96” was taken as the year of introduction. The year 1940 was Year 2600, hence the famous designation of the Mitsubishi A6M Carrier Fighter as the Type “0” or “Zero.” Imperial Army aircraft bore a Kitai (airframe) number (e.g., Ki-27), a type number/mission designator based on the Japanese calendar (Army Type 97 fighter had a 1937 year of introduction), and sometimes a name. The Imperial Navy resisted the use of names before capitulating to this system in 1943. To unify and simplify the identification of Japanese aircraft, the United States adopted a system by 1943 of providing male (fighters) and female (bombers) names for Japanese aircraft. Hence, the A6M “Zero” became officially the “Zeke” (although the Zero alone of Japanese aircraft continued to be widely known by that designation), while the “Nell” stood for the G3M and “Betty” for the G4M. This system has become so entrenched in decades of literature about the Pacific War that it will be used here for purposes of clarity.

The first Superfortress reached Tokyo just after midnight, dropping flares to mark the target area. Then came the onslaught. Hundreds of planes—massive winged mechanical beasts roaring over Tokyo, flying so low that the entire city pulsed with the booming of their engines. The US military’s worries about the city’s air defenses proved groundless: the Japanese were completely unprepared for an attacking force coming in at five thousand feet. The full attack lasted almost three hours; 1,665 tons of napalm were dropped. LeMay’s planners had worked out in advance that this many firebombs, dropped in such tight proximity, would create a firestorm—a conflagration of such intensity that it would create and sustain its own wind system. They were correct. Everything burned for sixteen square miles. Buildings burst into flame before the fire ever reached them. Mothers ran from the fire with their babies strapped to their backs only to discover—when they stopped to rest—that their babies were on fire. People jumped into the canals off the Sumida River, only to drown when the tide came in or when hundreds of others jumped on top of them. People tried to hang on to steel bridges until the metal grew too hot to the touch, and then they fell to their deaths. After the war, the US Strategic Bombing Survey concluded: “Probably more persons lost their lives by fire at Tokyo in a six-hour period than at any time in the history of man.” As many as 100,000 people died that night. The aircrews who flew that mission came back shaken. [According to historian] Conrad Crane: “They’re about five thousand feet, they are pretty low... They are low enough that the smell of burning flesh permeates the aircraft...They actually have to fumigate the aircraft when they land back in the Marianas, because the smell of burning flesh remains within the aircraft. (...) The historian Conrad Crane told me: I actually gave a presentation in Tokyo about the incendiary bombing of Tokyo to a Japanese audience, and at the end of the presentation, one of the senior Japanese historians there stood up and said, “In the end, we must thank you, Americans, for the firebombing and the atomic bombs.” That kind of took me aback. And then he explained: “We would have surrendered eventually anyway, but the impact of the massive firebombing campaign and the atomic bombs was that we surrendered in August.” In other words, this Japanese historian believed: no firebombs and no atomic bombs, and the Japanese don’t surrender. And if they don’t surrender, the Soviets invade, and then the Americans invade, and Japan gets carved up, just as Germany and the Korean peninsula eventually were. Crane added, The other thing that would have happened is that there would have been millions of Japanese who would have starved to death in the winter. Because what happens is that by surrendering in August, that givesMacArthur time to come in with his occupation forces and actually feedJapan...I mean, that’s one of MacArthur’s great successes: bringing in a massive amount of food to avoid starvation in the winter of 1945.He is referring to General Douglas MacArthur, the supreme commander for the Allied powers in the Pacific. He was the one who accepted theJapanese emperor’s surrender.Curtis LeMay’s approach brought everyone—Americans and Japanese—back to peace and prosperity as quickly as possible. In 1964, the Japanese government awarded LeMay the highest award their country could give a foreigner, the First-Class Order of Merit of the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun, in appreciation for his help in rebuilding the Japanese Air Force. “Bygones are bygones,” the premier of Japan said at the time.

Our regiment was all women…We flew to the front in May 1942… The planes they gave us were Po-2s. Small, slow. They flew only at a low level. Hedge-hopping. Just over the ground! Before the war young people in flying clubs learned to fly in them, but no one could have imagined they would have any military use. The plane was constructed entirely of plywood, covered with aircraft fabric. In fact, with cheesecloth. One direct hit and it caught fire and burned up completely in the air, before reaching the ground. Like a match. The only solid metal part was the M-11 motor. Later on, toward the end of the war, we were issued parachutes, and a machine gun was installed in the pilot’s cabin, but before there had been no weapon, except for four bomb racks under the wings—that’s all. Nowadays they’d call us kamikazes, and maybe we were kamikazes. Yes! We were! But victory was valued more than our lives. “Before I retired, I became ill from the very thought of how I could possibly not work. Why then had I completed a second degree in my fifties? I became a historian. I had been a geologist all my life. But a good geologist is always in the field, and I no longer had the strength for it. A doctor came, took a cardiogram, and asked, “When did you have a heart attack?” “What heart attack?” “Your heart is scarred all over.” I must have acquired those scars during the war. You approach a target, and you’re shaking all over. Your whole body is shaking, because below it’s all gunfire: fighter planes are shooting, antiaircraft guns are shooting…Several girls had to leave the regiment; they couldn’t stand it. We flew mostly during the night. For a while they tried sending us on day missions, but gave it up at once. A rifle shot could bring down a Po-2… We did up to twelve flights a night. (...) You come back and you can’t even get out of the cabin; they used to pull us out. We couldn’t carry the chart case; we dragged it on the ground. And the work our girl armorers did! They had to attach four bombs to the aircraft by hand—that meant eight hundred pounds. They did it all night: one plane takes off, another lands. The body reorganized itself so much during the war that we weren’t women…We didn’t have those women’s things…Periods…You know…And after the war not all of us could have children.

She shows him the Moonraker shuttle and begins to explain how it can land like any conventional aircraft after orbiting Earth, but Bond butts in and finishes her sentence like any proper man would.

The pilot tapped his GPS screen a few times until he found the nearest airport. "Closest airfields are north. The Virgin Islands.” “You crazy, man? They’re probably already tracking us on radar. DEA or the Coast Guard would probably be waiting for us...” Marco tapped on the touchscreen map. “What about this island over here? Says it’s got a private air strip. Small, but we could go there.” The pilot squinted down at the GPS chart. “I know that one. Some rich guy owns it, I think. He’ll probably have security guards.” Marco tapped the map again, changing the layering to show the satellite image. “The buildings are all on the northwest side of the island. It would take people time to get to the runway, even if they knew we were there. It’s been storming hard so they won’t be outside. We can land on goggles, keep the lights off. We’ll cut the engine as soon as we touch down. We only need ten, fifteen minutes at the most. I’ll check the oil and top us off, then we’ll take off before anyone has time to reach us.” The aircraft jolted as they flew through more turbulence. More lightning in the distance. “Fine,” said the pilot. Marco tapped on the GPS display screen. “There. Your waypoint is in.” The aircraft banked slowly left as the pilot turned them toward the private island.

At about eight thirty in the morning on January 3, a lookout I had stationed at the top of the mountain came running toward me. “Enemy fleet sighted!” he cried. Clutching my binoculars, I hurried up the mountain. What the lookout had seen was an enemy fleet, all right. And what a fleet! As carefully as I could, I counted the vessels. There were two battleships, four aircraft carriers, four cruisers and enough light cruisers and destroyers to make up a total of thirty-seven or thirty-eight warships. What astonished me most, however, was not this awesome armada, but the host of troop transports that followed it. There must have been nearly 150 of them. As if that were not enough, the sea was literally peppered with landing craft—more than I could possibly count. The invasion of Luzon was about to begin.

Karajan’s pulse-rate while conducting Beethoven’s Overture, Leonora No. 3. Interestingly, his pulse-rate showed the greatest increase during those passages which most moved him emotionally, and not during those in which he was making the greatest physical effort. It is also worth noting that recordings of his pulse-rate whilst piloting and landing a jet aircraft showed much smaller fluctuations than when he was conducting.3 Music is said to soothe the savage breast, but it may also powerfully excite it.

In their open front cockpit the crew were completely unprotected from the bitter lash of the wind. And the same westerly winds also proved an additional threat when at last, mission accomplished, they tried to fly back to safety: The prevailing wind was against us when returning from any flight over the lines and when it was strong, as it often was, our ground speed was much reduced thereby presenting us as ‘sitting birds’ for the anti-aircraft guns. When landing back at the aerodrome I have known the wind speed to be greater than my landing speed, so that I had to use my engine to get down after finding that my aeroplane was flying backwards relative to the ground.7 Second Lieutenant Geoffrey Hopkins, 22 Squadron, RFC

Over the years I took many millions of dollars out of Wall Street and invested them in Florida land, aircraft companies, oil wells, and new miracle products based on new inventions—they were all abject failures, disasters. I lost every cent I ever invested in them" - Jesse Livermore.

If you are sitting way at the back of a lecture theatre or cinema and do not find it entertaining, this dart will get your message across!

During the chaos of the morning attacks, planes inbound from Enterprise, as well as a squadron of B-17 bombers coming from the mainland, had come under assault—from the attacking Japanese as well as the defenders. That was somewhat coincidental and to some extent unavoidable. Enterprise lost six planes in the melee. Halsey had been right to be worried. They were indeed shooting at his boys. By evening, however, defenders should have been alert to distinguish between friend and foe. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, incoming friendlies,” the control tower on Ford Island advised all ships and shore installations as this second group of aircraft from the Enterprise, the six Wildcats, entered the pattern with landing lights ablaze. But over the dry docks, nervous gunners on the Pennsylvania opened fire. That was all it took. The entire harbor erupted in gunfire. Four of the six Wildcats were shot down and three American pilots killed.

Early the following year, Arizona steamed from its home port at San Pedro to Hawaii to participate in Army-Navy Grand Joint Exercise No. 4. It was a mouthful of a name for a round of war games that simulated an attack on Oahu from “enemy” aircraft carriers lurking to the north. Near sunrise on February 7, 1932, the first strike of carrier planes caught Army Air Corps bases by surprise. A second wave achieved similar results after slow-to-respond Army pilots landed for refueling and breakfast. In the after-action critique, the Army protested that the Navy’s attack at daybreak on a Sunday morning, while technically permitted under the rules, was a dirty trick.8 A few weeks later, on March 2, Arizona entered Pearl Harbor for the first time. Pearl Harbor in the early 1930s was minuscule compared to the massive installation it would become just one decade later. Despite wide inner lochs—bays of water spreading out from the main channel—its entrance was historically shallow. Nineteenth-century visitors had anchored off Honolulu a few miles to the east instead. In 1887, Hawaii’s King Kalākaua granted the United States the exclusive right to establish a coaling and repair station in Pearl Harbor and improve the entrance as it saw fit. No facilities were built, but the United States annexed the Hawaiian Islands in 1898. When the American Navy built its first installations within months of annexation, they were at Honolulu, not Pearl Harbor, because of the difficult channel access. Finally, in 1908, Congress authorized dredging the channel entrance and constructing a dry dock, as well as adding accompanying shops and supply buildings. Naval Station Pearl Harbor was officially dedicated in August 1919. The Army and Navy jointly acquired Ford Island in the harbor’s center for shared airfield facilities that same year.9

Whatever anxiety crew members on the Arizona and throughout the Pacific Fleet felt about the future would have been heightened had they known that on this same Thanksgiving day, the War and Navy departments in Washington issued what came to be called their “war warning” to all commands: “negotiations with Japan looking toward stabilization of conditions in the Pacific have ceased and an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few days.” At Pearl Harbor, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, met with Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., the commander of his carrier forces, and Army Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, commander of land forces in Hawaii. Kimmel and Halsey had already organized task forces of cruisers and destroyers around the three aircraft carriers then operating in the Pacific: Lexington (CV-2), Saratoga (CV-3), and Enterprise (CV-6). To guard against a concerted attack or sabotage, they adopted a general protocol that only one carrier task force would be in Pearl Harbor at any one time. At the moment, this meant alternating between Lexington and Enterprise because Saratoga had yet to return to Hawaiian waters after a lengthy overhaul at Bremerton. A similar alternating routine was supposed to be in place among the three battleship divisions. Of the nine battleships in those three-ship divisions, Colorado was currently in Bremerton undergoing its own overhaul. With the war warning in hand, Admiral Kimmel and General Short concerned themselves primarily with the outer boundaries of their commands and not with Hawaii itself. The chief topic they discussed with Halsey was the delivery of aircraft to reinforce garrisons on Wake and Midway islands. Short wanted to deploy Army squadrons of new P-40s, but Halsey quoted an arcane regulation that Army pilots were required to stay within fifteen miles of land and asked what good they would be in protecting an island.

Most of us, most of the time, live in blissful ignorance of what a small elite, heroic group of Americans are doing for us night and day. As we speak, all over the globe, American Sailors and Submariners and Aviators are doing something very dangerous. People say, ‘Well, it can’t be too dangerous because there are no wrecks.’ But the reason we don’t have more accidents is that these are superb professionals; the fact that they master the dangers does not mean the dangers aren’t real. Right now, somewhere around the world, young men are landing aircraft on the pitching decks of aircraft carriers – at night! You can’t pay people to do that; they do it out of love of country, of adventure, of the challenge. We all benefit from it, and the very fact that we don’t have to think about it tells you how superbly they’re doing their job — living on the edge of danger so the rest of us need not think about, let alone experience, danger.” George Will commenting after the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger, January, 1986

Beijing’s creation of three thousand acres of new land in the South China Sea between 2013 and 2015 has placed China on a trajectory to dominate the entire body of water by 2020. “They will control the South China Sea against all the militaries out there with the exception of the U.S. military in all scenarios short of war,” he said.*2 Here again, China was pushing the envelope in at least two ways. The first was by claiming a range of rights over what goes on within an EEZ that exceeds what most countries recognize. Conventional interpretations of the international law of the sea allow “innocent passage” of vessels from other nations through any state’s two-hundred-mile EEZ, including military vessels, which should neither pause or linger nor “launch or recover aircraft, collect military intelligence, distribute propaganda, launch any kind of watercraft, fire weapons, fish or take any action that is not involved in the direct passage of the ship through the territory of the coastal state,” according to an article published in September 2015 by the U.S. Naval Institute.

We are like passengers on a large aircraft crossing the Atlantic Ocean who suddenly realize just how much carbon dioxide their plane is adding to the already overburdened air. It would hardly help if they asked the captain to turn off the engines and let the plane travel like a glider by wind power alone. We cannot turn off our energy-intensive, fossil-fuel-powered civilization without crashing; we need the soft landing of a powered descent.

The next aircraft to appear were a pair of Mirages which attacked the anchorage at 9.45 am. Thereafter raids seemed continuous, except for a short break for lunch. The helicopter pilots, landing-craft and Mexeflote crews bravely continued with the offload. It was uncanny to see a Sea King helicopter, with a gun or pallet of ammunition slung underneath, purposefully flying to its appointed landing site, while a pair of jets flashed by pursued by missiles and streams of tracer. The scenery and the bright sunshine, like a glorious day in the Western Islands of Scotland, added to the air of unreality.

It was not easy to score top marks at Orenburg. Yadkar Akbulatov, a senior instructor, said in 1961, ‘Don’t imagine that Yuri was an infallible cadet, a child prodigy. He wasn’t. He was an impetuous, enthusiastic young man who made the same slips as any other.’ His worst marks were for his landings. He was in danger of failing Orenburg completely if he could not get his aircraft down without bouncing on his tyres. Akbulatov flew with him a couple of times to see if they could iron out some faults. ‘I took him up and watched him carefully. On steep banking turns his performance wasn’t absolutely perfect, but in vertical dives and climbs he put on a show that made me see stars from the g-load. Then came the touchdown. It was faultless! I asked him, “Why can’t you always land like that?” He grinned and said, “I’ve found the solution.” He put a cushion under his seat so that he could get a better line of sight with the runway.’ From now on, Gagarin never flew any aircraft without his cushion.

There is only one unsolved case of hijacking in US aviation history - that of DB Cooper. A man, actually going by the name of Dan Cooper (it was later reported incorrectly by the media) bought a one-way ticket for flight 305 between Portland International Airport and Seattle, Washington. Shortly after take-off, Cooper whispered to an air stewardess to take a note from him, and that he had a bomb. The note requested she sit next to him and that he was hijacking the place. She did as told, and with some trepidation asked to see the bomb. Cooper opened up his briefcase enough the stewardess to see eight red cylinders in two rows. He gave her his demands - $200,000, four parachutes (two main and two reserve) and a fuel truck standing by in Seattle to refuel the aircraft as soon as it landed. This was communicated to the pilot, who in turn made the authorities aware of the situation. When the plane landed in Seattle, Cooper let all of the passengers go in exchange for the money, which the FBI had quickly assembled from nearby banks. As the plane was being refuelled, Cooper discussed his intended flight plan with the cockpit crew; he made a number of requests about altitude, direction, and even the position of the aircraft’s wing flaps. He also requested that the aircraft take off with the rear staircase deployed, however the captain refused - yet Cooper said he would lower it himself once they were airborne. Eventually, the aircraft took off, Cooper politely asked the remaining flight steward to join the crew in the cockpit and close the door. He did so, and at around 8pm the pilot saw the warning sign that the rear stairs had been lowered, and he and the rest of the crew felt a change in air pressure, indicating that the rear door had been opened. Dan Cooper - or whoever he was - had parachuted out with the money. He has never been found, and no additional information about the case have ever since come to light!

Some has been written about the reaction of our forces to the bombing of the “highway to death.” The criticism revolves around the lack of apparent remorse or guilt, and perhaps even bloodlust, at bombing the relatively easy targets. Everybody reacts to the stress of war and life and death decisions differently, and to narrow the image one would construct of an individual to his reaction immediately following the events of any battle is superficial and simplistic. Naval aviators are a strange mix of people—utterly homogeneous in certain respects, particularly to the casual observer, and radically different in their core and substance. Very few naval aviators show honest emotion easily; they’re not supposed to fracture the military bearing that has been instilled in them through years of training and detached experience under the stress of carrier aviation. Anger is the easiest emotion to display because it is the natural, instinctual outlet for stress and fear. But even expressions of anger might be as diverse in their reaction to a common event as physical violence or the mere raising of a voice. Most emotion comes out at the officers’ club, or on liberty in a foreign port, where the beer either softens or heightens aviators’ feelings to the edges of their flexibility, which often is not very far. Virtually all naval aviators are college graduates—some from state colleges, some from the Naval Academy, even a few Ivy Leaguers. This is their greatest obvious commonality—a college degree and mutual survival of the weeding-out process to get where they are in the navy. Many are religious, many are not, and the greatest of the values shared by the men is a trust in their comrades, a dedication to their country, and an absolute focus on their mission. It is exceedingly difficult most times for an outsider to register where a naval aviator is “coming from.” The uniform, the haircut, and the navy-speak contribute enormously to the building of a stereotype. So do the mannerisms of each individual; some express the control of emotion in reserved stoicism, others in an outburst of emotional release through inappropriate laughter or anger. Still others never express emotion at all. But the emotion is there, it has to be; despite years of training and desensitizing to hide the race of the heart and the sickening chill in the stomach, anyone who has landed on an aircraft carrier, never mind fought in a war, knows what fear and exhilarating intensity are.

on August 14, Lieutenant David Graben was hit hard by anti-aircraft fire while flying a rescue mission for a downed CIA T-28 in Laos. Zooming his burning jet up to 39,000 feet, he starved the fire of oxygen, then glided down to Korat for a safe landing.

Once a country is included on the “counterinsurgency” list, or any other such category, a move is made to develop a CIA echelon, usually within the structure of whatever U.S. military organization exists there at the time. Then the CIA operation begins Phase I by proposing the introduction of some rather conventional aircraft. No developing country can resist such an offer, and this serves to create a base of operations, usually in a remote and potentially hostile area. While the aircraft program is getting started the Agency will set up a high frequency radio network, using radios positioned in villages throughout the host country. The local inhabitants are told that these radios will provide a warning of guerrilla activity. Phase II of such a project calls for the introduction of medium transport type aircraft that meet anti-guerrilla warfare support requirements. The crew training program continues, and every effort is made to develop an in-house maintenance capability. As the level of this activity increases, more and more Americans are brought in, ostensibly as instructors and advisers; at this phase many of the Americans are Army Special Forces personnel who begin civic action programs. The country is sold the idea that it is the Army in most developing nations that is the usual stabilizing influence and that it is the Army that can be trusted. This is the American doctrine; promoting the same idea, but in other words, it is a near paraphrase of the words of Chairman Mao. In the final phase of this effort, light transports and liaison type aircraft are introduced to be used for border surveillance, landing in remote areas, and for resupplying small groups of anti-guerrilla warfare troops who are operating away from fixed bases. These small specialized aircraft are usually augmented by helicopters. When the plan has developed this far, efforts are made to spread the program throughout the frontier area of the country. Villagers are encouraged to clear off small runways or helicopter landing pads, and more warning network radios are brought into remote areas. While this work is continuing, the government is told that these activities will develop their own military capability and that there will be a bonus economic benefit from such development, each complementing the other. It also makes the central government able to contact areas in which it may never have been able to operate before, and it will serve as a tripwire warning system for any real guerrilla activities that may arise in the area. There is no question that this whole political economic social program sounds very nice, and most host governments have taken the bait eagerly. What they do not realize, and in many cases what most of the U.S. Government does not realize, is that this is a CIA program, and it exists to develop intelligence. If it stopped there, it might be acceptable but intelligence serves as its own propellant, and before long the agents working on this type of project see, or perhaps are a factor in creating, internal dissension.

Holtz ended up writing down a list of 107 things in five different categories — things he wanted to achieve as a husband, things he wanted to do spiritually, things he wanted to achieve professionally, things he wanted to achieve financially, and things he wanted to do personally. Holtz’s list included some pretty audacious goals, such as becoming the Notre Dame football coach, meeting the president of the United States, landing on an aircraft carrier, and appearing on The Tonight Show — crazy things that would have caused most people to laugh at him for even considering. But guess what? Not only did Lou Holtz become the head football coach at Notre Dame, but he also led his team to a national championship. Among other things, he enjoyed dinner with Ronald Reagan at the White House, was a guest on The Tonight Show, met the pope, shot not one but two holes in one at golf, jumped out of an airplane, went on a safari in Africa, and, yes, he even landed on an aircraft carrier. To date, Lou Holtz has crossed off 102 of his 107 lifetime goals.9

Helicopters Nothing has done more to change the face of wilderness rescue than helicopters. They land in remote areas that were inaccessible to aircraft only a few years ago. If the spot isn’t flat enough, helicopters have been known to land on one skid while a patient is quickly loaded. When there is no spot to land, they have hovered with a rescuer hanging from a rope or cable, a rescuer equipped to attach the patient to the hauling system for evacuation. Helicopters go where the pilot wants because of the rapid spinning of two sets of blades. The large overhead blades create air by forcing air down. The pilot can vary the angle at which the blades attack the air and the speed at which they rotate to vary the amount of lift. The entire rotor can be tilted forward, backward, or sideways to determine the direction of travel. Without a second set of blades spinning in an opposite direction, the helicopter would turn circles helplessly in the air. Some large helicopters have two large sets of blades spinning in opposite directions, one fore and one aft, but most helicopters used in the wilderness maintain stability with one small tail rotor. When they are close to the ground, the spinning blades build a cushion of air that helps support the helicopter. This cushion of air varies in its ability to work, depending on its density. Rising air temperatures and increasing altitude reduce air density. So trying to land a helicopter on a mountaintop on a hot day is dangerous, and the weight of one person may prevent liftoff. Air density also is altered by the nearness of a mountainside. The downward shove of air by the blades can recirculate off the mountainside and reduce lift. One of the greatest fears of mountain flying is a sudden downdraft of air that can slam a helicopter toward the ground. Downdrafts are not only dangerous but also unpredictable. Add to air density and downdrafts the possibility of darkness and fog and wind, and you can understand that even if a helicopter is available it may not be able to come to your rescue.

When you’re in need of a rescue the approaching thump-thump-thump of rapidly rotating blades is a joyous sound. To give the helicopter rescue the greatest chance of success, a suitable landing zone will have to be found. The ideal landing zone should not require a completely vertical landing or takeoff, both of which reduce the pilot’s control. The ground should slope away on all sides, allowing the helicopter to immediately drop into forward flight when it’s time to take off. Landings and liftoffs work best when the aircraft is pointed into the wind because that gives the machine the greatest lift. The area should be as large as possible, at least 60 feet across for most small rescue helicopters, and as clear as possible for obstructions such as trees and boulders. Clear away debris (pine needles, dust, leaves) that can be blown up by the wash of air, with the possibility of producing mechanical failure. Light snow can be especially dangerous if it fluffs up dramatically to blind the pilot. Wet snow sticks to the ground and adds dangerous weight. If you have the opportunity, pack snow flat well before the helicopter arrives—the night before would be ideal—to harden the surface of the landing zone. Tall grass can be a hazard because it disturbs the helicopter’s cushion of supporting air and hides obstacles such as rocks and tree stumps. To prepare a landing zone, clear out the area as much as possible, including removing your equipment and all the people except the one who is going to be signaling the pilot. Mark the landing zone with weighted bright clothing or gear during the day or with bright lights at night. In case of a night rescue, turn off the bright lights before the helicopter starts to land—they can blind the pilot. Use instead a low-intensity light to mark the perimeter of the landing area, such as chemical light sticks, or at least turn the light away from the helicopter’s direction. Indicate the wind’s direction by building a very small smoky fire, hanging brightly colored streamers, throwing up handfuls of light debris, or signaling with your arms pointed in the direction of the wind. The greatest danger to you occurs while you’re moving toward or away from the helicopter on the ground. Never approach the rear and never walk around the rear of a helicopter. The pilot can’t see you, and the rapidly spinning tail rotor is virtually invisible and soundless. In a sudden shift of the aircraft, you can be sliced to death. Don’t approach by walking downhill toward the helicopter, where the large overhead blade is closest to the ground. It is safest to come toward the helicopter from directly in front, where the pilot has a clear field of view, and only after the pilot or another of the aircraft’s personnel has signaled you to approach. Remove your hat or anything that can be sucked up into the rotors. Stay low because blades can sink closer to the ground as their speed diminishes. Make sure nothing is sticking up above your pack, such as an ice ax or ski pole. In most cases someone from the helicopter will come out to remind you of the important safety measures. One-skid landings or hovering while a rescue is attempted are solely at the discretion of the pilot. They are a high risk at best, and finding a landing zone and preparing it should always be given priority.

Roy managed to line up, put it down and pull up, continuing his tradition of surviving rough landings. ‘When I eventually landed, Les Winter, the man who usually flew the aircraft, came out of the flight tent. “Christ, Riddel,” he said. “Look what you’ve done to my plane!” I thought he might have been pleased to see me.’ ‘How on earth did you manage to fly it?’ I ask with a certain incredulity. With that same air of bewilderment, he tells me he isn’t

May 5th 2018 was one of the first nice spring days the beautiful State of Maine had seen since being captured by the long nights and cold days of winter. Ursula, my wife of nearly 60 years and I were driving north on the picturesque winding coastal route and had just enjoyed the pleasant company of Beth Leonard and Gary Lawless at their interesting book store “Gulf of Maine” in Brunswick. I loved most of the sights I had seen that morning but nothing prepared us for what we saw next as we drove across the Kennebec River on the Sagadahoc Bridge. Ursula questioned me about the most mysterious looking vessel we had ever seen. Of course she expected a definitive answer from me, since I am considered a walking encyclopedia of anything nautical by many. Although I had read about this new ship, its sudden appearance caught me off guard. “What kind of ship is that?” Ursula asked as she looked downstream, at the newest and most interesting stealth guided missile destroyer on the planet. Although my glance to the right was for only a second, I was totally awed by the sight and felt that my idea of what a ship should look like relegated me to the ashbin of history where I would join the dinosaurs and flying pterosaurs of yesteryear. Although I am not privileged to know all of the details of this class of ship, what I do know is that the USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) first underwent sea trials in 2015. The USS Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001) delivered to the Navy in April 2018, was the second ship this class of guided missile destroyers and the USS Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002) now under construction, will be the third and final Zumwalt-class destroyer built for the United States Navy. It was originally expected that the cost of this class would be spread across 32 ships but as reality set in and costs overran estimates, the number was reduced to 24, then to 7 and finally to 3… bringing the cost-per-ship in at a whopping $7.5 billion. These guided missile destroyers are primarily designed to be multi-mission stealth ships with a focus on naval gunfire to support land attacks. They are however also quite capable for use in surface and anti-aircraft warfare. The three ship’s propulsion is similar and comes from two Rolls-Royce gas turbines, similar to aircraft jet engines, and Curtiss-Wright electrical generators. The twin propellers are driven by powerful electric motors. Once across the bridge the landscape once again became familiar and yet different. Over 60 years had passed since I was here as a Maine Maritime Academy cadet but some things don’t change in Maine. The scenery is still beautiful and the people are friendly, as long as you don’t step on their toes. Yes, in many ways things are still the same and most likely will stay the same for years to come. As for me I like New England especially Maine but it gets just a little too cold in the winter!

This, the profoundest of all mysteries, would be left for the living to ponder. Soldiers who survived also would struggle to reconcile the greatest catastrophe in human history with what the philosopher and Army officer J. Glenn Gray called “the one great lyric passage in their lives.” The war’s intensity, camaraderie, and sense of high purpose left many with “a deplorable nostalgia,” in the phrase of A. J. Liebling. “The times were full of certainty,” Liebling later wrote. “I have seldom been sure I was right since.” An AAF crewman who completed fifty bomber missions observed, “Never did I feel so much alive. Never did the earth and all of the surroundings look so bright and sharp.” And a combat engineer mused, “What we had together was something awfully damned good, something I don’t think we’ll ever have again as long as we live.” They had been annealed, touched with fire. “We are certainly no smaller men than our forefathers,” Gavin wrote his daughter. Alan Moorehead, who watched the scarlet calamity from beginning to end, believed that “here and there a man found greatness in himself.” The anti-aircraft gunner in a raid and the boy in a landing barge really did feel at moments that the thing they were doing was a clear and definite good, the best they could do. And at those moments there was a surpassing satisfaction, a sense of exactly and entirely fulfilling one’s life.… This thing, the brief ennoblement, kept recurring again and again up to the end, and it refreshed and lighted the whole heroic and sordid story. In Moorehead’s view, the soldier to whom this grace was granted became, “for a moment, a complete man, and he had his sublimity in him.” For those destined to outlive the

Crappy weather conditions moved back in while the jet jockeys were playing over Nam. Rain began to fall in sheets across the Flight Deck. We, the flight service personnel, had to stand in the downpour awaiting the recoveries. Soaked to the bone, my teeth were chattering. The A-4 Skyhawks came in first and taxied forward. I intentionally positioned myself in the exhaust path of the A-4s just to warm up. Because of the low ceiling, landing conditions were hazardous. A couple of aircraft missed the wire and had to rocket off the angle deck, circle around and try again. Lieutenant Commander Sonniksen caught the wire on his first attempt. I hate to admit it but the guy is one hell of a pilot.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Once upon a time our politicians did not tend to apologize for our country’s prior actions! Here’s a refresher on how some of our former patriots handled negative comments about our great country. These are quite good JFK’S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60’s when De Gaulle decided to pull out of NATO. De Gaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible. Rusk’s response: “Does that include those who are buried here?” De Gaulle did not respond. You could have heard a pin drop. When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of ‘empire building’ by George Bush. He answered by saying, “Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.” You could have heard a pin drop. There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying, “Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?” A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: “Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?” You could have heard a pin drop. A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Germany and France. At morning tea the Frenchman complained that the conference should be conducted in French since it was being held in Paris. The German replied that, so far as he could see, the reason that it was being held in English was as a mark of respect to the other attendees, since their troops had shed so much blood so that the Frenchman wouldn’t be speaking German.

The question was asked why torpedo nets were not used by the fleet, and why captive balloons were not employed. The answers are very simple. Due to the restricted area, and the need for seaplane lanes for taking off and landing, torpedo nets could not be used. Balloon barrages were considered undesirable because they interfered with our own aircraft over the fleet. Probably, the best answer is that these items were not available in sufficient quantity at that time.

Vice Admiral William S. Pye relieved Admiral Kimmel on 17 December 1941 as temporary Commander of the Fleet. He was number two in the fleet echelon of command and assumed the job as additional duty until a regular relief arrived. Admiral Pye was hard put to decide whether to take action in relieving Wake Island. He had two task forces near enough to the island to subject the Japanese forces to an aircraft carrier raid. But to do so required him to risk the loss of a carrier, which at that stage he could ill afford. Hindsight proves that action even against the land-based planes of the Japanese from the Marshall Islands only about 500 miles away would have been successful. But Wake is nearer to Japan than Hawaii, and holding it would have been impossible without changing the whole complexion of the war which lay ahead. The relief of Wake would have prevented the capture of military and some 650 civilian personnel which the Japanese took into custody. There were a number of other considerations involved, including the state of the weather, the shortage of fleet oilers, and the lack of loading and unloading facilities at Wake. As it appears now, Admiral Pye acted wisely, about 22 December 1941, in sacrificing the manpower on Wake without risking the loss or crippling of one or more aircraft carriers. 7.

I have to ensure that everyone has a voice,” Aaron said when I asked him about his most important responsibility as a team leader. “There were times when it was awesome to have the flight engineer’s opinion, but there were a couple times where he treated his perspective as the end-all be-all.” That was when Aaron intervened. He asked others on the crew to offer their view. “Tom, what do you think?” “Petty Officer Robbins, what about you?” This is an important point about psychological safety: it needs to be cultivated lest crucial voices be lost. Making sure that everyone is heard is not a matter of good manners or inclusivity for its own sake. Rather, it’s what helps to keep an aircraft in the air and to safely land it.

Varner must have recognized quickly that Markel was exactly the kind of person that Charles Koch was searching for to fill the corporate ranks. If there is a single example of the prototypical Koch employee, it was Lynn Markel. He was born and raised on a farm outside of Dodge City, Kansas, so he was accustomed to a seven-day workweek. He attended Kansas State University and had no illusions that a college degree conferred on him anything more than the right to work hard for a living. After graduating, he became an officer in the US Air Force, where he served for four years, so he learned to think of himself as part of a larger organization and put the needs of his teammates before his own. Markel had moved to Wichita right after his stint in the air force to work as a financial controller with the Cessna Aircraft Company. Working for a large, publicly traded firm hadn’t agreed with Markel. There was a lot of bureaucracy to contend with; he wanted to be more entrepreneurial. He left Cessna and joined a large real estate firm that was expanding rapidly. But that firm went bust, and Markel landed in his current job as chief financial officer for the chain of television stations.

Dragons are not specifically disallowed in the airspace over Washington, D.C., but it must be said that Orm the Beautiful’s presenece there was heartily discouraged. Nevertheless, he persevered, holding his flame and the lash of his wings, and succeeded in landing in the National Mall without destroying any of the attacking aircraft.

Never Doubt His Plan A cargo helicopter flying over Alaska had some engine trouble. The pilot did excellent work to get the aircraft down, but electrics had been damaged, meaning he couldn't radio for help. He knew a search party would be looking for him, but there was such a vast area to cover. Being from a family of deep faith, he started to pray for God to send the rescuers in the right direction. Just when he thought it couldn't get any worse. One day while out getting freshwater, there was an electrical fire in the helicopter. He stood at a safe distance and watched it going up in flames. Then the gas tank exploded. He fell to his knees as it did. Watching his pride and joy go up in smoke felt like pouring salt on his wounds. He cried out to God, "I give up, I ask you to help me, and this happens. A few hours later he heard a distance sound, he perked up, he couldn't see anything, but it kept getting closer. Next thing he saw a helicopter in the distance, it was the coast guard coming to rescue him. When they landed, he ran over and gave them a big hug—asking how in the world did they find him. It turned out the smoke from the wreckage had travelled over 300 miles with the wind. The rescue team had followed the smoke. Sometimes what looks like a disappointment is God positioning us for a new level. If your helicopter is on fire today, so to speak, instead of being bitter, complaining, being upset. Have a new perspective, trust in God's plan. It may not make sense now. Being stranded is tough; being in the pits of life will feel uncomfortable. The setbacks, the closed doors can be discouraging, but you have to remind yourself. It's not working against you; it's working for you. Now you only see in part, but one day you will see in full.