Two TINS!
This in an e-gram from frequent Leaper-From-Behind-The-Drapes DL Sly, who also maintains a fan club at Cassie’s place (since it appears that HF6 cribbed Sly's sigmoticon – sorta):
Well, oddly enough, Sly's tale reminded me of a TINS!
Okay – I distinctly heard both of you say, “Gee, what a surprise…”
Philistines.
Ennyhoo, I think most anybody who’s had more time in the pay line than Saker has in the Army has a “you didn’t see me” story, and some are probably even true.
This one is.
Back in the mid ‘80s, during the Reagan Ramp-Up of the military following the Carter Castration of same -- and we actually had enough fuel to do year-round training missions instead of flying just enough to maintain currency – we set up a tactical training area in the Pine Barrens of southern NJ that was larger than at least three of the sovereign nations that belonged to the UN. We’d practice flight-of-two, nap-of-the-earth, single pilot, with minimal references to our 1:5,000 maps until we could fly for a half hour looking at nothing but terrain, then when the wingman called, “Set!” pick up the map and, within ten seconds, spot our location to within 10 meters just by using the MkI eyeball.
No GPS.
And holding the map with one hand, while controlling the cyclic with the other hand, and holding the collective with the other other hand. In a Loach.
No autopilot.
No *doors*.
So, you can probably picture it getting a bit breezy in the cockpit, what with trying to keep from drifting into trees, avoiding A-10s (did I mention we trained with A-10s a lot? No? Okay – we trained with A-10s a lot, too) working in one of the aerial gunnery ranges, and dodging stray cattle egrets, great blue herons, and turkey buzzards.
With no doors.
Weeeeeelllllll, one gloomy afternoon an hour before darkfall, my buddy Norm and I had just crossed a jeep trail and it was his turn to fly lead. As soon as he pulled 50 meters ahead of me, I -- rotten basset that I am -- immediately called, “Set!”
I observed the following, in sequence.
Norm came to a hover.
A heron came lumbering up out of the trees to his right.
Norm maneuvered left to avoid the heron.
Norm’s map, obeying it’s own special Law of Inertia, remained where Norm *had* been, fluttered forlornly for a second, then dropped down into the trees.
“I dropped my map.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. I think it landed near the jeep trail.”
“I can see it from here. It’s on a bush under that old sycamore. I’m gonna land in that field at my 10 o’clock and go get it.”
So, Norm landed in the field and cut through the woods to the jeep trail, not realizing that around the bend, a man and a small boy were walking along the jeep trail toward the sycamore from the opposite direction.
I watched as Norm trotted up, chatted with the two for a minute, then nipped into the woods, grabbed his map, and popped back out onto the trail.
He stepped close to the man, clapped him on the shoulder, then turned to the boy and did the same. Then he turned and trotted along the jeep trail back the way he’d come, turned and waved to his new acquaintances, then plunged into the woods toward the field where he’d left his Loach.
Now, while all this was going on, I was in a lazy orbit about a quarter mile away, and you can’t *hear* a Loach through the trees at more than 200 meters. And, since it was dusk, I blended pretty well with the trees. I zipped on over to the field Norm landed in and lit up the area with my landing light. Two minutes later, Norm was strapped in, his aircraft was running, he pulled pitch, I turned my landing light off as soon as he cleared the trees, and the two of us departed the area.
Norm told me the man and boy he’d met on the trail were a father and son from a farmhouse about two miles away, and were out for a nature walk. When Norm met them, he’d said hello, asked them where they were from, then said, “Good -- that mean’s I’m close.” He then nipped into the woods and returned with the map.
Dad said, “Where did you come from, anyway? There’s nothing up that direction for twenty miles.”
Norm replied, “Ha -- tell me about it. I started out at dawn to get here to pick up this map.”
“You *walked* all this way? Through the *woods*? And you found that map just by looking around?”
That’s when Norm clapped the guy on the shoulder.
“Sir, you’re an American, right? You love your country, right?”
“Y-y-y-e-e-e-s...”
“I shouldn’t tell you this, but – well, you’re an American, and you and your boy -- well, we do this for *you*. We do it all the time for training, but if we ever have do it for real -- well, I’ve said too much already. Look, if any body asks, You. Didn’t. See. Me. Okay?”
“Sure! I mean, no, no, didn’t see a thing.”
Then Norm turned to the boy and said, “Your Dad is a good man. Always remember that.”
As Norm turned along the jeep trail, Dad said, “Wait -- are you gonna *walk* all the way back?”
Norm just said, “Nope. I signaled the ship back at my base when I found the map, and they’ll meet me at the PZ. That’s what we call the pickup zone. You didn't see me!”
Then he zipped into the woods.
Remember what I said I did right about then, because it was getting dark?
Turned on the landing light.
Now, picture *yourself* on a jeep trail in the twilight watching somebody you "Didn't. See." wearing grey coveralls and a vest with all kinds of bulky pouches and has just notified "the ship" twenty miles away step into the woods and a quarter mile away, a motionless searchlight up in the air turns the woods into daylight…
This in an e-gram from frequent Leaper-From-Behind-The-Drapes DL Sly, who also maintains a fan club at Cassie’s place (since it appears that HF6 cribbed Sly's sigmoticon – sorta):
But I digress. Here's what Sly sent:Aw, chicken! 0>;~P
Posted by: HomefrontSix at April 8, 2010 05:05 AM
Followed this link from B5:
http://gizmodo.com/5511236/the-thrill-of-flying-the-sr+71-blackbird
My Pop hooked me on the Blackbird when I was a kid. As a radar man he had a personal affinity for them thar' flyin' machines, and the Blackbird was his all-time favorite. I knew all about the fuselage expansion at high altitude, the special fuel and lubricants that they had to invent, etc.
He just happened to be on duty when the first one flew it's racetrack run across the West coast. The radarmen in the little bubbles along the West coast were not informed of the imminent arrival of our new spy plane. My Pop says he looked at his screen and saw a blip come on the edge. With the next sweep, the blip had jumped almost halfway across his screen. He notified his commander of the new *intruder* and, of course, wanted to notify McChord. To which he was told, "Never happened, son. You didn't see a thing."
Pop said in the course of that short conversation, it became true. He couldn't *see* a thing.................anymore.
Okay – I distinctly heard both of you say, “Gee, what a surprise…”
Philistines.
Ennyhoo, I think most anybody who’s had more time in the pay line than Saker has in the Army has a “you didn’t see me” story, and some are probably even true.
This one is.
Back in the mid ‘80s, during the Reagan Ramp-Up of the military following the Carter Castration of same -- and we actually had enough fuel to do year-round training missions instead of flying just enough to maintain currency – we set up a tactical training area in the Pine Barrens of southern NJ that was larger than at least three of the sovereign nations that belonged to the UN. We’d practice flight-of-two, nap-of-the-earth, single pilot, with minimal references to our 1:5,000 maps until we could fly for a half hour looking at nothing but terrain, then when the wingman called, “Set!” pick up the map and, within ten seconds, spot our location to within 10 meters just by using the MkI eyeball.
No GPS.
And holding the map with one hand, while controlling the cyclic with the other hand, and holding the collective with the other other hand. In a Loach.
No autopilot.
No *doors*.
So, you can probably picture it getting a bit breezy in the cockpit, what with trying to keep from drifting into trees, avoiding A-10s (did I mention we trained with A-10s a lot? No? Okay – we trained with A-10s a lot, too) working in one of the aerial gunnery ranges, and dodging stray cattle egrets, great blue herons, and turkey buzzards.
With no doors.
Weeeeeelllllll, one gloomy afternoon an hour before darkfall, my buddy Norm and I had just crossed a jeep trail and it was his turn to fly lead. As soon as he pulled 50 meters ahead of me, I -- rotten basset that I am -- immediately called, “Set!”
I observed the following, in sequence.
Norm came to a hover.
A heron came lumbering up out of the trees to his right.
Norm maneuvered left to avoid the heron.
Norm’s map, obeying it’s own special Law of Inertia, remained where Norm *had* been, fluttered forlornly for a second, then dropped down into the trees.
“I dropped my map.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. I think it landed near the jeep trail.”
“I can see it from here. It’s on a bush under that old sycamore. I’m gonna land in that field at my 10 o’clock and go get it.”
So, Norm landed in the field and cut through the woods to the jeep trail, not realizing that around the bend, a man and a small boy were walking along the jeep trail toward the sycamore from the opposite direction.
I watched as Norm trotted up, chatted with the two for a minute, then nipped into the woods, grabbed his map, and popped back out onto the trail.
He stepped close to the man, clapped him on the shoulder, then turned to the boy and did the same. Then he turned and trotted along the jeep trail back the way he’d come, turned and waved to his new acquaintances, then plunged into the woods toward the field where he’d left his Loach.
Now, while all this was going on, I was in a lazy orbit about a quarter mile away, and you can’t *hear* a Loach through the trees at more than 200 meters. And, since it was dusk, I blended pretty well with the trees. I zipped on over to the field Norm landed in and lit up the area with my landing light. Two minutes later, Norm was strapped in, his aircraft was running, he pulled pitch, I turned my landing light off as soon as he cleared the trees, and the two of us departed the area.
Norm told me the man and boy he’d met on the trail were a father and son from a farmhouse about two miles away, and were out for a nature walk. When Norm met them, he’d said hello, asked them where they were from, then said, “Good -- that mean’s I’m close.” He then nipped into the woods and returned with the map.
Dad said, “Where did you come from, anyway? There’s nothing up that direction for twenty miles.”
Norm replied, “Ha -- tell me about it. I started out at dawn to get here to pick up this map.”
“You *walked* all this way? Through the *woods*? And you found that map just by looking around?”
That’s when Norm clapped the guy on the shoulder.
“Sir, you’re an American, right? You love your country, right?”
“Y-y-y-e-e-e-s...”
“I shouldn’t tell you this, but – well, you’re an American, and you and your boy -- well, we do this for *you*. We do it all the time for training, but if we ever have do it for real -- well, I’ve said too much already. Look, if any body asks, You. Didn’t. See. Me. Okay?”
“Sure! I mean, no, no, didn’t see a thing.”
Then Norm turned to the boy and said, “Your Dad is a good man. Always remember that.”
As Norm turned along the jeep trail, Dad said, “Wait -- are you gonna *walk* all the way back?”
Norm just said, “Nope. I signaled the ship back at my base when I found the map, and they’ll meet me at the PZ. That’s what we call the pickup zone. You didn't see me!”
Then he zipped into the woods.
Remember what I said I did right about then, because it was getting dark?
Turned on the landing light.
Now, picture *yourself* on a jeep trail in the twilight watching somebody you "Didn't. See." wearing grey coveralls and a vest with all kinds of bulky pouches and has just notified "the ship" twenty miles away step into the woods and a quarter mile away, a motionless searchlight up in the air turns the woods into daylight…
Thanks for sharing.
If I remember correctly, you would have been in the Northern sector of the pinelands or actually the dwarf oaks. Certain people would have been informed of, "said Blackbird Flight", beforehand.
Bill, there is a quality in your style of writing, which many forget. There are more than one side to this story and you try to reflect both of them. You show your view from the bird, but also from the viewpoint of the man and his son on the ground. To me, this adds to the *TINS* factor.
Grumpy, the dwarf oaks (and pines) are down around Chatsworth. They're normal trees, but they go dwarf when they root in that one area -- transplant them out of the area and they become normal-sized trees. Interesting area.
The dwarf oaks and pines are more north towards Warren Grove. They had a incidental fire there a few years ago. You gave good counsel to Pogue, it is a bad place, not to be a good neighbor.
SPINS specified "no flares inbound or in the break" and an F-16 pilot from one of the Air Guard units salvoed in the break for his buddy taking pictures. The smoke hung around for a week.
Not that you're *mischievious* or anything.....
heh
0>;~}
The flares/fire incident ranks right up there with the firing into a school, thankfully it was a weekend.
Always said the LOACH was the better bird but I didn't know about the transporter........
Ah..........better then what?
There are odd things in the Pines. I knew a guy who was jacking deer one night and shot at a pair of green eyes moving toward him -- when they didn't stop, he and his bud hopped into his pickup, and whatever the eyes belonged to did a Jurassic Park dance on the truck. I saw the scratch marks, and the metal on the roof was scored -- a *lot*. Looked like somebody had taken a three-tined rake to it.
BTW, we never operated single-ship in our Tac Area at night, and all of us older guys carried at least three knives and a -- *ahem* -- survival-enhancing projectile weapon .
Later, they moved it indoors. Sure enough, it was still seeping Special Fuel onto the floor all along its centerline. I sniffed. I may have to turn in my Autistic card, though, as I did not lick.
The next day comes to early evening, Dad tells me to get into the truck and said, "We're going up to Wharton State Forest, after we pick up your Grandfather and his two fox hounds and let them run." We set up camp with a fire, we brought wood to start and burn and water to put it out. We also had a large thermos of coffee. One dog had a deep bass pitch bark, that was dominant close to us. The other had a high pitched yap, that was dominant at long range. Both dogs had different barks in relation to the hunt. This went from, "Where's this dang fox?" to "I'm snapping at his tail." The dogs knew silence was not an option and at daybreak to come back to base camp.
But let's back to the really serious stuff, we need to scare the kid. They started to talk of Mother Leeds and her 13th child, but something happened that was not in the plan. Things got real quiet, too quiet, like a real spooky quiet. Then, we heard a Piney's jeep, He stuck his head out the window and said, "Break camp, put your fire completely and follow me.and follow me." Sure enough, there lie the two dogs dead were my Grandfather's two dogs. Their heads appeared to be completely torn off, not cut or shot. I don't believe it was just the kid that was spooked. We looked a short distance down the road, there lay the fox, who met the same fate. For all of us, it was more than just a little spooky.
Was that your official Red Ryder carbine action, two hundred shot, range model, air rifle or your pump-up pellet gun?
0>;~}
It was smaller, had a larger caliber, and only came with seven rounds. Made by Gyro-Jet.
Each round will go through ⅝" plywood at fifty feet.
*scrabbling sound of Sly dashing off to google*
Like I said, there are odd things in the Pines. And there are at least two types of critter that don't like people at all...
That's a weird story, Grumpy... makes you wonder what exactly is out there that we don't know about yet.
Saker, you write, "This is how urban legends get started." How do you *know* that this is an urban legend or even a legend? Don't forget this was a thriving metropolis in its time. There was a thriving business of mining of bog iron for the Revolutionary War. All of a sudden, everything started to shut down, for supposedly no reason. There were a some pockets that stayed in the same region, we call "Pineys", they would not leave their own enclaves. They would not move into other areas of the Pines. Are you saying they were this way because of an urban legend or a legend? Just how how many "ghost town are up there in the pines?" Why?
Like BillT wrote, "There are some odd things in the Pines."
A place called Ong's Hat was a nice little community of about twenty families in the early 1800s -- it was also a way station for the stage line running from Burlington to Cape May. Stage coach stopped there one day, the passengers got out and stretched, and after switching horses, the coach resumed its trip to Cape May.
On the return trip, two days later, the stage stopped at Ong's Hat to switch horses and everybody was gone.
The only woods I regularly wander through are those in western PA and southern Quebec, where strange stuff doesn't usually happen. But that's okay. I'd prefer to speculate on weird stories from a safe distance. :)
The very idea cuts me to the quick.
*checking big black book of statutes of limitations*
@BillT, We'll discuss your rebuttal at a later time. This oughta be a good one, oh boy!
*Did* that...
2. Saker getting through Basic and AIT was pretty much a given, and, not having had the kind of detail assigned as Bill mentions, means she paid very close attention to what Her-Mentor-Bill said, and did precisely the opposite.
3. If she shows up in the thread protesting otherwise, it just goes to show how good Bill is at inspiring misplaced loyalty.
And Bill, they keep telling my platoon it's not too late for that kind of thing. We came back from FTX yesterday and half the platoon got absolutely plastered. I think they're worried that we'll go crazy during our two weeks of outprocessing. Of course, it probably didn't help that half the junior platoon got arrested while we were gone. *sigh* I am surrounded by hooliganism.
@ Grumpy- Thanks! It's really not too hard anymore, though. Not as much of an accomplishment as it probably was for most of the people on this site. I think the first real challenge is lurking downrange.
Nope, the only bad piece of advice Bill gave me was to tell me to join the Air Force.
Thus proving John's point.
And the sojurn with the clippers earned me points. I took that bullet for the platoon.
Let's take a look at your words and try to explain. You write, "I am a perfectly normal individual who happens to entertain some doubt....." Do you see a normal individual as having issues? By the way, what is 'doubt'? What are 'issues'? Are they connected? Please pardon the rotten pun, "But the devil is in the details". Doubt is two or more points of view, with some evidence, even in a 'playful sense'. But in the serious sense, 'Doubt' is the person,'hung on the horns of a dilemma.'
What are 'issues' and are they connected? 'Issues' are the body's response to unresolved serious doubt. If we have no issues, therefore we have no doubts. If we have no doubts, we have no thinking. I just don't see Saker in that mold.
This is just my thinking.
As always,
Grumpy