Drunk Pilot... ugh this is not the PR GA needs.

[Wiltzius]

Just saw this on WBAY News in Green Bay. http://www.wbay.com/story/16509896/2012/01/12/authorities-say-pilot-who-landed-in-trees-was-drinking

The idea of drinking and getting into an airplane is just so beyond crazy to me.

[MickYoumans]

What is the penality for something like this? Will the FAA pull his license? I agree that was really foolish and not the publicity that GA needs.

[Floatsflyer]

Drinking and flying is not humourous and I hope the police, courts and the FAA throw the book at him, but you have to admit his precautionary landing, while not textbook, is novel, unique and a headscratcher. That picture of the plane in the tree will now become my personal image for the caption: Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous, but it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, neglect or incapacity.

[steveinindy]

but you have to admit his precautionary landing, while not textbook, is novel, unique and a headscratcher.

The only thought I had was "The sad thing is he probably couldn't have done that "nice" of a job if he had been sober". But in all seriousness, I'm with Floats on this one: let's throw the book at this guy.

[Bill Greenwood]

If i was going to try to land in a tree, (not being a bird), I think I might need a good stiff drink or two before trying it.
What kind of plane was this?

Oh, and after landing in the tree, he still had to climb down without falling. I wonder what he thought when he woke up the next morning, maybe, man that was some dream I had.

He will undoubtledly be suspended for some time.But then the FAA often requires some additional flight training.
I wonder how they will do this. Do they have anyone who is more skilled at tree landings than he is, or more current?
And beside the off field landing, he was pretty good at short field landing also, hardly any rollout.

And maybe the FAA can look at this in the best light and give him a 2nd chance? If he can successfullly demonstrate a short field take off from that location, they'll call it good and forget the whole thing.

Another conversation that I'd like to hear is when he calls up a good aviation attorney to represent him and he explains what the case is all about. hey, any good lawyer likes a challenge.

Speaking of lawyers and challenges, there is a case in the news now. That French diplomat, Straus-Kahn , is facing a charge of consorting with prostitutes. ( I didn't know the French were so stuffy, but apparently they are).
His lawyer's defense: how could the man know these ladies were pros, since they were not dressed like ones, in fact all the ladies at this party were not dressed at all.

[steveinindy]

According to the FAA registry, it's a 1969 vintage Cessna 150J.

[Floatsflyer]

That French diplomat, Sarkosi or whatever, is facing a charge of consorting with prostitutes.


Do not want to intentionally vear away from this thread but Bill, I must set the record factually correct. That Frenchman is neither a diplomat nor named Sarkosi. Sarkosi is the President of France. The person you're mentioning is the former disgraced head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominque Straus-Kahn, the same person who was charged and later acquitted of raping the New York hotel maid last year.

[Frank Giger]

He will undoubtledly be suspended for some time.

So will his plane!

:)

So the farmer who's trees the guy flew into is also a pilot. Watch there be no hurry (90 days) to take the plane down - at which time it belongs to him!

(okay, I know the NTSB will cart the thing off, but it's a nice thought)

[rockwoodrv9a]

If i was going to try to land in a tree, (not being a bird), I think I might need a good stiff drink or two before trying it.
What kind of plane was this?

Oh, and after landing in the tree, he still had to climb down without falling. I wonder what he thought when he woke up the next morning, maybe, man that was some dream I had.

He will undoubtledly be suspended for some time.But then the FAA often requires some additional flight training.
I wonder how they will do this. Do they have anyone who is more skilled at tree landings than he is, or more current?
And beside the off field landing, he was pretty good at short field landing also, hardly any rollout.

And maybe the FAA can look at this in the best light and give him a 2nd chance? If he can successfullly demonstrate a short field take off from that location, they'll call it good and forget the whole thing.

Another conversation that I'd like to hear is when he calls up a good aviation attorney to represent him and he explains what the case is all about. hey, any good lawyer likes a challenge.

Speaking of lawyers and challenges, there is a case in the news now. That French diplomat, Straus-Kahn , is facing a charge of consorting with prostitutes. ( I didn't know the French were so stuffy, but apparently they are).
His lawyer's defense: how could the man know these ladies were pros, since they were not dressed like ones, in fact all the ladies at this party were not dressed at all.

Bill - I bet he had a class 3 medical - so he must have been safe!

[Bill Greenwood]

Rockwood, I don't know where you have gotten the idea that EAA "sponsor and promote drunk flying in an unsafe manner". I have been an EAA member almost 30 years and I have never heard of seen then do such a thing.
Maybe you just saw a news story about the event.

[rockwoodrv9a]

Rockwood, I don't know where you have gotten the idea that EAA "sponsor and promote drunk flying in an unsafe manner". I have been an EAA member almost 30 years and I have never heard of seen then do such a thing.
Maybe you just saw a news story about the event.

Bill, I was sent an email by a friend who said that Kyle Franklin had performed a skit at Airventure showing him staggering with a beer in his hand and jumping into the same plane that is currently shown on the EAA site, flying it around in a manner that looks like he is drunk. I dont know if the link I put here will be allowed, but if not, go to youtube and search for Kyle Franklin - drunk pilot. What I found out was it was not at Airventure, but the 2009 Branson Airshow. That is why I deleted my post, but you must have read it before I deleted it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vH2yKfDq5Q&feature=related

The point is still valid - Kyle Franklin in his act pretends to fly a plane drunk and people laugh and think it is funny. Those putting on airshows, including EAA hire that guy to do the show. His name and photo of his plane are on the EAA site and in their press release. In my opinion that shows support for a performer that pretends to fly drunk and I don't think that is very funny or gives a good impression to the public about pilots. Driving or flying drunk is not funny. Some of us have had terrible experiences because of it. Contracting with a performer who thinks it is a good joke is supporting that type of behavior. That is where I got the idea EAA supports that type of behavior.

[1200AGL]

Relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3hL4seZpJo

I mean no disrespect. Someone posted that on another forum recently and I enjoyed that scene. Having attempted my first wheel landings this afternoon, I wish mine were that good.

[rosiejerryrosie]

Seeing what being drunk (or pretending to be) does to one's ability to fly an airplane should be a ringing condemnation of even trying to do it, as opposed to condoning it. That's why they put totally destroyed cars on display under "don't drive drunk" billboards. What IS funny is the guys ability to pull off the stunt....

[Dana]

It's such a rare thing that I suspect people will see it that way. It's almost comical, the clown climbed down and slept in the property owner's barn for a few hours before going for help. People might even see it the other way... "the guy was plastered, flying like an idiot, put it in a tree, and still walked away from it. Perhaps those things aren't that dangerous after all..."

[Frank Giger]

Rockwood - oh good grief!

It's an act, promoted as an act, and is clearly neither an endorsement or display of flying drunk. Everyone is in on the joke from the start, and nobody believes the pilot is intoxicated.

Sort of like at Rhinebeck when the "WWI veteran" hobbles up to the biplane with a cane and assistance and suddenly jumps in and "steals" the plane - it's clear the plane isn't being stolen.

When the Alabama Boys land a Cub on the platform of a moving truck it's not an endorsement of using vehicles on the highway for landings....

[rockwoodrv9a]

Rockwood - oh good grief!

It's an act, promoted as an act, and is clearly neither an endorsement or display of flying drunk. Everyone is in on the joke from the start, and nobody believes the pilot is intoxicated.

Sort of like at Rhinebeck when the "WWI veteran" hobbles up to the biplane with a cane and assistance and suddenly jumps in and "steals" the plane - it's clear the plane isn't being stolen.

When the Alabama Boys land a Cub on the platform of a moving truck it's not an endorsement of using vehicles on the highway for landings....

Frank. I am assuming that you have not had a drunk driver cause considerable grief to your family. Maybe your family has not been torn apart as the results of drinking. I have a good sense of humor and enjoy about anything that is funny and gives me a chance to laugh. A few of the things I do not think are funny is drunk driving, drunk flying, jokes about those with handicaps, jokes about racial or ethnic groups, or jokes that are degrading to women. How about jokes about how uneducated and redneck people from Alabama? Maybe some of those things hit close to home.

The flying done by Kevin in that video is incredible. I would like to know what he has behind that prop. I can hardly believe he is able to do what he does with that airplane. He has amazing flying abilities and that plane is about as tuned into flying as anything I have ever seen. I don't even mind him doing the skit - it is his choice. I know Kevin has had a rough year and I wish him the best.

The issue I have is with EAA sponsoring an act in a show designed to increase the awareness of general aviation among the public, and show a person who plays a drunk, flying erratically. Why is the skit funnier because he is drunk? Isn't there another scenario that would be just as entertaining? Maybe I am over sensitive to this issue. In fact, I will give you that and agree that I am. The problem for EAA and all pilots is that there are others that are overly sensitive to drunk driving or flying too. The fact that the head of the FAA was recently caught drunk driving doesn’t help either. Public perception is almost always more important than reality. Is the risk of hurting general aviation for a few laughs worth it when an equally impressive skit could be done that would inspire young people, our wife’s, and others to become pilots or even get in the plane? I don’t think it is.

On a side note – I love Alabama. My son was stationed at Rucker when he was trained to fly Blackhawks and has been back several times for updates and AH-64 Apache training. My son in law, who is currently serving in Afghanistan, is stationed at Maxwell AFB, and we get out to see our daughter and grandson several times a year.

[Frank Giger]

Frank. I am assuming that you have not had a drunk driver cause considerable grief to your family.

Unfortunately, I have. But I refuse to have that grief dictate to me on how to live.

[steveinindy]

Unfortunately, I have.

I'm sorry to hear that. :(


But I refuse to have that grief dictate to me on how to live.

I wish more people had that attitude.


I am assuming that you have not had a drunk driver cause considerable grief to your family. Maybe your family has not been torn apart as the results of drinking. I have a good sense of humor and enjoy about anything that is funny and gives me a chance to laugh. A few of the things I do not think are funny is drunk driving, drunk flying,

Try spending a few years as a medic who deals directly from the carnage that ensues from such actions. Better yet, try doing it in a small community where you know (or are related to) a large swath of the patients you tend to. If you don't laugh, you tend to start screaming, drinking, looking for clock towers to climb with a rifle or find yourself fellating the business end of a shotgun.

By the way, I'm speaking from experience here. Example: I transferred high schools the middle of my senior year. I was already an EMT and was working nights as such while finishing my diploma. The only picture of me that was featured in the senior slideshow at graduation was of me kneeling in the passenger seat of a wrecked car holding the head of one of my classmates (and friends) who was killed because she was driving drunk. She also killed a woman in another van. The pictures of the crash were shown during a memorial at the graduation to educate folks about the dangers or drunk driving (at the request of her family). The thing that no one in the audience realized was that I was effectively holding her brain in her skull at that picture. She was screwed at the point but her heart hadn't realized that she was dead yet.

The only folks who tend not to find humor in the stupid things people do are those who live sheltered lives and suddenly have the door to said shelter kicked in when it directly effects them.


jokes about those with handicaps, jokes about racial or ethnic groups, or jokes that are degrading to women. How about jokes about how uneducated and redneck people from Alabama? Maybe some of those things hit close to home.

I'm a Jew who likes to tell Holocaust jokes (the one about Jews and pizza is one of my favorites; I learned it from a rabbi). The problem is not that it's not funny but that some people can't recognize a coping mechanism or others who take themselves entirely too seriously. (Oddly enough, I know more goyim who get offended at Jew jokes than Jews. It's a pretty good sign you've found a person with some form of lingering guilt about their own actions). If you can't laugh at yourself, you have no business laughing at anything else.

[Bill Greenwood]

Steve, I really like humor, find that is is the oil that lubes daily life especially if that is stressful.
Example: I am reading about a Spitfire squad that is sitting in readiness if very bad weather, low IMC with cold rain. They are hoping to stand down and relax by the fire. The the phone rings, it is the hq and tells them to get two planes off to send out to patrol over a convoy that may be threatened by the Germans. The protest the weather, say they'll never see anything to make contact and may not even be able to find and get safely back to base to land. Most of all they don't think the Germans are going to be up in this murk either. They are told by HQ that their base has the best weather of all fighter command, and that the Germans may be up because the weather over France is improving. Hearing this, one of the Spit boys says, great if we need to divert we'll just go land in France.
I am often told by my girlfriend that I shouldn't make jokes about some subject or other, that it is in bad taste. I try, but really inside what I feel is that if a joke is really meant to be funny and not a disgiuesed insult it should not be off limits. I really like it when someone who is Jewish or some other ethnic or religious or racial or some such minority can have a sense of humor about anything, themselves included. Being uptight is not asset, really just shows that one thinks of themselves as inferior.
I loved it in the Congressional hearing when they asked the nominee to the Supreme Ct, where she was on a certain Christmas day and she answered that being Jewish she was probably having dinner at a Chinese restaurant . Even the Republicans trying to skewer her laughed at that one.
And Joan Rivers who said her face had seen more knives than Benihanna.
And Ricky Henderson talking about batting against Nolan Ryan, said " A good day against Ryan was going zero for four and not getting hit in the head."

[Floatsflyer]

:cool:I'm a Jew who likes to tell Holocaust jokes (the one about Jews and pizza is one of my favorites; I learned it from a rabbi). The problem is not that it's not funny but that some people can't recognize a coping mechanism or others who take themselves entirely too seriously. (Oddly enough, I know more goyim who get offended at Jew jokes than Jews. It's a pretty good sign you've found a person with some form of lingering guilt about their own actions). If you can't laugh at yourself, you have no business laughing at anything else.[/QUOTE]


So Steve, something else I find out about you........you're a member of the tribe, a fellow luntsman. One more commonality we can talk about when you buy me that beer when we meet at the Vintage cafe.

I gotta tell ya, I've been flying for 37 years and I've only met about 6 fellow Jews who do the same and I live in one of the largest cities in North America with a fairly large Jewish population. One of them is my cousin who I fly with to Oshkosh yearly. I once asked my father why there are so few Jews in aviation. He replied, "because they haven't figured out how to make any money at it yet."

My Boobie(that's grandmother for all you gentiles) used to tell me in her stereotypical eastern european accent that if God had meant for me to fly, he would have given me wings.

When I joined the skydiving club while away at university, my mother wrote me(yes Steve, there was a time before the internet and email) and told me that if I fall on my head there would be no one around to take care of me. That's Jewish guilt. This is the same mother who I took up flying to a hotel for lunch and I literally taxied to the front entrance. She loved that.

Ya now, if Orville & Wilbur were Jewish we'd all be flying around like the Jetsons by now!

I've always wanted to start up a Jewish pilots club similiar to the real existing Jewish motorcycle clubs but I can't come up with a snappy name for it like they have: Kikes on Bikes and Yids on Wheels.

[steveinindy]

I've always wanted to start up a Jewish pilots club similiar to the real existing Jewish motorcycle clubs but I can't come up with a snappy name for it like they have: Kikes on Bikes and Yids on Wheels.

There's a Jewish flying club already: It's called the Israeli Air Force. ;)

[rockwoodrv9a]

It is looking like I am not explaining myself very well. I have no problem with jokes and humor. The Monty Python movies are some of my favorites. Im sure I have told my share of off color and for sure, not politically correct jokes. And I have laughed at them when told by others. The issue I have is the perception of the public at an air show sponsored by the EAA. I would not have a problem with the drunk pilot skit IF the show was closed to only EAA members. But it isn't. How can the EAA expect any credibility when they are asking for changes in the medical requirements when they are paying for a show showing a drunk pilot? I don't think they can. I think we have about best this to death now and obvious we all have different opinions. That is fine and as it should be.
Happy flying!

[Frank Giger]

The thing is that they're not showing a drunk pilot. They're showing a pilot with amazing skills who uses the opaque ruse of being drunk as a pretext for demonstrating them.

Hate to ruin it for you, but Dean Martin was drinking tea all those years, not whiskey; and Foster Brooks was stone sober during his act as well.

Anyhow, as the bumper sticker says, Shalom, Y'all...

(Jew 2.0 here, btw)

[danielfindling]

There is/was a Jewish flying club in the Detroit area called the Chai Flyers. Chai is a Hebrew letter and a word spelled with the letters het and yud and means to "life".

Shalom!

[Floatsflyer]

There is/was a Jewish flying club in the Detroit area called the Chai Flyers. Chai is a Hebrew letter and a word spelled with the letters het and yud and means to "life".

Shalom!

Daniel, and a Shalom to you too! Wow, I've obviously been hanging out in the wrong flying circles all these years. In less than 12 hours I have come to know 3 additional Jewish flyers(includes Frank if he's serious about the Jew 2.0 and Shalom y'all remarks). That's 50% more than in my entire flying life. I'd like to hear from others. Seven more and we'll have a minyan!

Thanks for letting me know about the Chai Flyers. I'm checking to see if they still exist. It's also worth pointing out to the non-tribe members that "Chai" is pronounced "high" so they get the joke reference.

[Bill Greenwood]

Ok, Rockwood, in a perfect sense the "drunk pilot" act might have been better if it was done as just a crazy farmer act , as has been done for decades and if Kyle or any pilot would have left off the part about pretending to drink a beer or to be drunk.
Why don't you write that suggestion, politely to Kyle ,and ICAS the airshow professional organization and magazine. I am sure Google or EAA will have the adresses.

Please be aware that Kyle lost his wife in a tragic airshow accident just 2 years ago; due to an engine failure and fire, and no alcohol was involved.

[Frank Giger]

Clarification - Jew 2.0 = Christian. You know, ultra-reformed. :)

But one does see a few "Shalom, Y'all" bumper stickers around. One must go to a kosher BBQ to fully appreciate the fullness of the Southern American Jewish community.