[PEN-L:9305] RE: Re: RE: Re: JFK Jr and the Hubris of the Rich

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Eugene,

I was involved in one crash on March 17, 1979 at Port Orchard, Washington. I
was practicing emergency landings for my biannual review and an instructor
with me pulled the circuit breaker on the gear warning horn which on an Aero
Commander 114 which I was flying at the time, prevents the gear from coming
down. From the light coming into the cockpit I thought I had three green on
the gear lites and came in gear up; still on ground effect, I pulled back up
after ground contact and made it to Boeing Field. I still have the prop
which is curled 90 degrees on both tips--but curled symmetrically otherwise
asymmetric torque would have pulled the engine out of the airframe. It was
my dumb mistake as I was in the left seat.

In 1947 my father was Instructing trying to get hours to get on the
airlines. We were dirt poor and often my father would travel on three buses
just to instructo for an hour and didn't get paid if the student didn't show
up. He had a student who was an MD and very rich. My father had previously
told my mother that we would be getting some money with this student as his
student.

Jusdt before the day of this MD's first solo, My father overheard him
talking to his girlfriend saying that he was going to solo today and he
would "buzz" her house. My father took this guy up in a Taylorcraft to about
10,000 feet. He told the student to pretend that 9500 feet was the ground
and that he was buzzing his girfriend. My father then yelled "powerlines
dead ahead" and yanked back the stick and went vertical into a full stall
and then and slammed in left rudder and put the T-craft into spins from 9500
ft down to about 2000 feet. The student just about shit his pants and
couldn't get the plane out of a spin; the lesson was clear, he would have
been dead along with possibly someone on the ground. My father then told him
to fuck off and told him that his ego and arrogance were dangerous and that
he would not be the one to sign this guy off to go on and kill someone. My
father then called my mother and told her all bets were off as he could not
in conscience keep this guy as a student--money or no money.

Just like the other Kennedy skiing while filming and playing "football" on
skis at Aspen who was killed after being warned about his hubris, the
grotesque waste of newstime and air search and recovery resources is the
real indictment of this ugly star/celeb system along with the hubris of
those who run it or pimp for it.

Jim Craven




-----Original Message-----
From: Eugene Coyle [mailto:eugenecoyle@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, July 19, 1999 12:24 PM
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [PEN-L:9303] Re: RE: Re: JFK Jr and the Hubris of the Rich


Like Jim I am an experienced pilot -- with maybe more actual crashes than he
has -- and thought about JFK Jr's flight quite a bit over the last few days.
I
have an instrument rating and have myself become a bit disoriented at times
and
struggled to maintain trust in the instruments and not in my senses.

    The trip was foolish to undertake.  I'm recalling the hangar stories
that
the most dangerous pilots are those with around 100 to 200 hours -- like
Kennedy -- and doctors.  (Medical doctors, not Ph. D.'s.)  The latter kill
themselves at a disproportionate rate attributed to arrogance.  So Kennedy
might have had two strikes, low time plus arrogance, and the third strike
was
the haze.

Gene Coyle

Craven, Jim wrote:

> Response: Sorry about that; it was unintentional. VFR means Visual Flight
> Rules which means must have 1000 ft ceiling, 3 miles visibility, stay away
> from clouds. IFR means instrument flight rules which means you must be
> instrument rated and on an instrument flight plan; even then, to shoot an
> instrument approach (which is what I had to do to get into Martha's
Vinyard)
> there are ceiling and visibility minimums to continue an approach.
>
> CG refers to Center of Gravity which pilots calculate with weight and
> balance calculations before any flight where the aircraft is loaded or any
> flight planned distance trip.
>
> JFK Jr. could have requested flight following from Air Traffic control and
> would have been given a special transponder code (electronic device that
> sends out position and altitude continuously) that would have sent out an
> alarms in the ATC if JFK Jrs aircraft had descended too rapidly or gone
> below a minimum altitude.
>
> The bottom line is that the hubris of the rich strikes again. What if he
had
> gone into an apartment block or a row of houses? This punk thought he knew
> it all (now a cover story is being constructed that he had reservations
> about taking his sister-in-law to Martha's Vinyard and about his abilities
> as a pilot) but all in all, it is a terrible waste of search and rescue
> resources in my opinion. I have seen it over and over: If I am so rich and
> can afford this top-of-the-line aircraft, of course I must be smart and
> skilled enough to fly what I can afford to buy.
>
> Jim Craven
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Pollak [mailto:mpollak@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Monday, July 19, 1999 7:47 AM
> To: 'pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
> Subject: [PEN-L:9280] Re: JFK Jr and the Hubris of the Rich
>
> That was interesting.  But for us earthbound readers, what do VFR, IFR and
> CG mean?
>
> Michael
>
> __________________________________________________________________________
> Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak@xxxxxxxxx