Halloween Darwin Awards Aviation Style!
RIP TO THE “PILOT’S PILOT”
BOB HOOVER
whom both Chuck Yeager and Jimmy Doolittle called,
“the greatest stick-and-rudder pilot who ever lived.”
From WWII fighter pilot to ’50’s test pilot, to show-stopping aerobatics, Bob did it all.
GODSPEED, BOB
THE AVIATION COMMUNITY WILL NEVER BE THE SAME.
Story: http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/simply-the-best-10490510/?no-ist
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Halloween Darwin Awards Aviation Style!
Ladies & Gents, From the FRIGHT Deck . . .
It’s my favorite holiday of the year, and time to share one of my favorite posts for some good, if morbid, Halloween guffaws . . .
a 2016 Updated post!
But First . . .
THANKS TO YOU
Book sales this period have donated $1,000
to the Orphan Charities:
CONGRATULATIONS! AND HAPPY AVIATION LITERARY ADVENTURES!
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This year for Halloween, I decided to dress as the (second) scariest monster I could think of . . .
Bunny was going to dress as the “First Lady of Scary”, but instead she’s gonna go as Melania Trump!
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Cloud Formation Spotting, Aviation-style
Do you ever lay back in the grass and imagine formations in the clouds? Well, guess what: you can do that with weather radar as well! While I shared a couple of them with you earlier this year, I saved one frightfully special figure for this Halloween post! Check these out:
RADAR BUNNY
Aw, so cute!
Oh, really? Just look at all that scary red and yellow!
As one pilot put it, the “bunny” from the freaky movie, “Donnie Darko!”
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RADAR DUCKY
You’re the one…
if you grew up on Sesame Street, you’ll know that line!
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And finally, the best and scariest for last . . .
RADAR WITCH!
This is so frightfully good, it’s downright scary!
Can you see the witch with the big hat cackling?
“Wahahahaha, I’ll get you, my Pretty! And your little dog, too!”
— — —
My favorite Halloween costume: a blind pilot!
And Now . . .
The Darwin Awards—An Updated Encore Post
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“The Darwin Awards
salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it…”
Following are a few aviation-related “Darwin Awards”*, most of which can be found at darwinawards.com.
Forgive the gallows humor, folks, but I for one am happy to see these would-be, wannabe and inadvertent aviators excluded from the aeronautical gene pool . . . and from our world’s cockpits. Direct links to the full reports can be found in the titles below.
1.) Mile High Club Epic Failure…
Aircraft: PIPER PA-34-200T,
The pilot in command’s improper in-flight decision to divert her attention to other activities not related to the conduct of the flight.
2.) JATO (Jet-Assisted Takeoff)…’67 Chevy-Style
Now debunked as urban legend, this story is nevertheless the most popular Darwin Award of all time. Presumably, a moron strapped a military JATO rocket to his ’67 Chevy Impala, lit it off, and vaporized on the side of a mountain at 300 mph. The only piece of the machine not atomized was the rear bumper with a sticker that read, “Hows my driving? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT.”
——————
3.) “Flying while Intoxicated” . . .
Or, “Hold my beer . . . watch THIS!”
After throwing down a few at a local pub, a Private Pilot hopped in his new Piper PA-32. Without a proper preflight, he attempted to takeoff…with the gust lock still installed. An anti-theft device, the Gust Lock freezes the control yoke full aft, mimicking a steep climb.
Climb steeply our hero did, according to witnesses going “straight up in the air like an acrobat,” followed by, “a nose dive.”
4.) DB Cooper and his fans…
—More info on this at Wikipedia
4.5) D.B. Cooper Wannabe Redux…sorta…
His world crashing around him, financial consultant Marcus Schrenker opted for a bailout. A bail out of his plane, that is.
Attempting to fake his own death, Schrenker made an emergency distress call from his Piper Meridian, then parachuted out, leaving it to crash.
Scrambled to assist, Jet fighters reported the door open and no evidence of a pilot aboard. Authorities quickly caught on, and nabbed the wannabe Darwinian within 3 days.
Charged with willful destruction of an aircraft and knowingly and willfully communicating a false distress message, he was sentenced to 51 months in prison and fined nearly 1 million dollars.
5.) Sling Blade‘s a genius compared to these two…
After successfully refueling a plane and taking off, they quickly found that even the simplest Cessna has a few more controls than the most sophisticated Toro. (Flight path strikingly similar to #3, above.)
 |
| —Quote by the inimitable Frank Zappa! |
6.) Let there be Lighter…
When one tank proved troublesome, said guard peered into the gas tank to diagnose the problem, then lit a match…
7.) What time is it, Captain? It’s Kaboom time! (Hamas terrorist style)…Or, Divine Retribution, Darwinian Style!
While not really aviation-related, I want to end with a bang—involving terrorist Darwin recipients!
A member of the military wing of Gaza’s ruling terrorist movement Hamas, who went by the name of Khalout Majid (until he went kaboom), died when a bomb he was guarding went off …
 |
| Would you like a ticket in Evolving… |
Back in 1999, in Jerusalem, the switch away from Daylight Saving Time raised havoc with Palestinian terrorists. The Palestinians refused to live on “Zionist Time,” with dire consequences:
 |
| …or De-volving? |
. . . the bombs had been prepared in a Palestine-controlled area, and set to detonate on Daylight Saving Time. But the confused drivers had already switched to Standard Time… As a result, the cars were still en-route when the explosives detonated, removing the terrorists from humanity’s genetic considerations.
Halloween Darwin Awards Aviation Style!
2016 UPDATES . . .
While it’s always a challenge to find aviation-related Darwin updates each year, here’s a couple gems I thought you’d enjoy!
Halloween Darwin Awards Aviation Style! Honorable Mention 2016
While this paraglider, who called himself “Bruno,” survived, he applied for his aviation Darwin Award in spectacular fashion, by leaving 3,000 Vancouver residents without power for several hours on the night of April 16, 2016, while authorities rescued him.
An embarrassed local paragliding club issued this statement: “Bruno” is not a member of the local paragliding community, whose members all have pilot ratings, and only sanctioned flying is done under strict conditions. This “rogue” flight casts us all in a bad light.
LOOK! UP IN THE SKY! IT’S A BIRD! IT’S A PLANE! IT’S A…PLANK!
Excerpt from Darwin.com: “‘Planking’ is the peculiar wit of lying flat as a plank in unusual locations–train tracks, fire hydrants, clotheslines–and posting public photographs, spreading joy.
“This Australian craze had infected poor Mr. Acton B., a (former) planking enthusiast who was not aware that Balconies Are The #1 One Cause of Gravity-Fed Darwin Awards.
“Not knowing he was doomed to repeat the lesson…
“Camera ready, the 20-year-old stretched himself out face-down on the railing, arms by his sides, stiff as a plank, balanced. Down he fell. Descent of man.” 
Thirsty for more? Here’s a link to a blog with a few aviation-related accidents I found:
http://www.gremline.com/index_files/page0029.htm
Halloween Darwin Awards Aviation Style!
- Cap’n Aux Books: http://amazon.com/author/ericauxier
- Stranger Than Fiction!: http://capnaux.com/?p=56
- Blogging in Formation: There I Wuz! Best Instructional Moments: http://capnaux.com/?p=47
- There I Wuz! Volume 1: http://www.amazon.com/There-Wuz-Adventures-Decades-Sky-ebook/dp/B00L2SHOSU/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
- There I Wuz! Volume 2: http://www.amazon.com/There-Wuz-II-Adventures-Decades-ebook/dp/B00YHFPM7U/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
- There I Wuz! Volume 3: https://www.amazon.com/There-Wuz-Adventures-Decades-Sky-ebook/dp/B01FET9SIQ
Halloween Darwin Awards Aviation Style!
- Gremline, an online aviation safety digest, examining lessons from dumb pilots…
- Sadly, even professional pilots need to be culled from the herd from time to time…
- Additional Wikipedia link…
- Urban Legends–multiple Darwin Award links, and debunks
- Get the book, “Darwin Awards: Evolution in Action,” at Amazon.com (and don’t forget to order My Books while you’re there!)
