Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: SunTracker on October 11, 2004, 12:04:22 PM
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http://www.seanet.com/~johnco/bush102.htm
Bush really flying in a Cessna 172 in 1976:
NOT LONG AFTER Reisner's delicate trip to Midland[summer 1976], Bush banged on the door of Susie and Don Evans on an otherwise placid Sunday afternoon and suggested to Don that they head out to the airport and spend a few bucks for a spin over the desiccated Permian Basin in a single-engine Cessna. Susie Evans, who had gone to elementary school with Bush, was a longtime Midland presence, and when she had been dating her future husband in Houston, she had frequently stayed at the Bush house. She had moved back to Midland, and after she had heard that Bush was back in town, she and her husband had frequently invited him over.
Her husband Don Evans... Willard... was a short, fastidious, narrow-faced oilman in his early thirties who was poised to assume control of the Tom Brown Company, one of the legendary older names in the West Texas patch. Bush had begun spending more time at the Evanses' apartment in the Windsor Courts, drinking cocktails with them and leaving his laundry for Susie to do. Bush liked Evans's politics, he liked that they were about the same age and that both of them had recent MBAs. He liked the fact that Evans's old man had landed on the beach at Normandy during World War II.
Evans said he'd love to go flying. At the airport he watched Bush stare at the controls, at the panel, and he realized that Bush-though not admitting it-had no idea how to fly the thing properly. After finally figuring out how to launch the plane, Bush pushed the Cessna hard down the runway. Evans screamed, "Give it some gas!" The Cessna's warning system was blinking and crackling. Bush tried to lift his craft fast, almost as if he were piloting a jet back in the Texas Air National Guard. The plane wobbled into the air, and the unsubtle maneuvering threatened to shove it into a stall. Now the rented plane was rattling in the sky over Midland
The endless petrochemical complexes, all the aluminum and steel and smoke stacks that pockmark the Permian Basin, were spiking up just below the aircraft. Bush nervously turned to Evans, put his hand on his knee and blurted in his self-mocking West Texas way, "Okay, Evvie, I’ve got it under control."
After more seemingly endless moments, he somehow got control of the plane again. He aimed the aircraft down, and the landing was as shaky and brutal as the takeoff. The plane careened off the runway and onto the desert. Evans sighed in relief. Then an unbelieving Evans braced himself as Bush suddenly and unexpectedly spun the plane and bounced back along the runway. Evans stared at Bush. He could see the fear and panic flooding his face. Bush pressed on. Evans had no idea why Bush wanted to go again. The plane wobbled uncertainly back into the West Texas skies, and Bush turned to Evans. "Hey," said Bush airily, as if he had just had an original, amusing idea, "let's fly around Midland."
The men began cracking up. Bush brought the Cessna back to the airport. It was the last time he flew a plane. Evans would be one of the three people at Bush's side in almost every public venture for the twenty-three years.
Minutaglio pg 175&176
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yah
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Bush nervously turned to Evans, put his hand on his knee and blurted in his self-mocking West Texas way, "Okay, Evvie, I’ve got it under control."
BS is BS and I have a problem with this line in particular. "nervously" and "blurted" just don't jibe with the quote. Someone is just trying to make Bush sound scared here. He has plenty of legit quotes to use without the BS embellishments.
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a landing that you can walk away from is a good landing
a landing where the plane is still flyable is a great landing
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I have to disagree with you MT. I flew after a seven year hiatus, and Bush's nervousness fits the mold pretty well.
I believe the story is true. Especially where it mentions he tried to yank the c172 off the runway (like a F102) rather than a gradual climb.
At the very least (if its false), the story was written by a pilot.
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what 172 warning system blinks and crackles?
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I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but I'd be willing to bet that we will soon see copies of memos supporting this story. Of course the originals will have been burned, but it's not the fact that the memos would have been fake as long as they were faked to support a good story, or at least one written by a pilot.
**Edit--If it was written by a pilot, then it was written by a melo-dramatic pilot.
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Originally posted by Dnil
what 172 warning system blinks and crackles?
Good question. Having flown 172s on several occasions I read over that thinking subconsciously it was in reference to the stall warning horn and that the writer was a non-pilot.
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the phrase "Give it some gas" seems to be false. The words Power or Throttle would be used here, unless changed to make life easier for a less-informed reader in which case then the story has been changed from the original and who says they haven't changed more.
As for blinking and crackling, I've seen stall warning lights installed on the panels of come C-172s that come on triggered by a mechanical switch in the stall warning horn.
I'd say this is based on a true story. After all, many a CFI has horror stories about trying to help an airline captain fly these docile Skyhawks without killing themselves.
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Get real. When someone puts all sorts of bogus detail into a gossipy story like this they're obviously blowing smoke up your butt.
Are we to believe Bush hadn't flown in years? In that case the flight was illegal, he needed 3 takeoffs and landings in the prior 90 days to be legal take a passenger. So we are to believe that he was so keen to take this guy flying that he violated FARs.
And if he was current in ANYTHING, he would have had no problem flying a 172.
Bogus from start to finish.
ra
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ra...wow.
I gathered from the story that Bush was not Pilot In Command. The other guy who rented the airplane was. All is well and good. Besides, I've aided and embedded FAR Violaters myself by letting them fly the airplane around and these people didn't have a certificate! oooh nooo!
And currency in a figher jet does not make you safe in a 172. I've flown with 737 captains who flare at 50 feet, break into a sweat when they approach the runway at the 'slow' speed of 70 knots. They're not used to it. They're not safe and it takes time to move down in aircraft performance just as it does to move up.
These guys can fly their jets to ATP standards and be very safe and competent in an emergency. They'll dig a smoking hole with a 172 if given a chance, go easy bro.
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From the site referenced I think the poster was implying that Bush's entire service record is phony. That he should have trained in a T-41 (military 172 designation) and that this story supposedly refutes that. This is almost as bad as Rathergate.
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I can relate to the symptoms of relative unsafety in a 172. I got into flying high performance and twin engine airplanes for a while, and a good 3 months went by before I found my way into a 172 again. I'd become accustomed to 160-200 knot cruising speeds. Vref speeds of 90-110 and gear that went up and down.
Entering the pattern at my home airport in a 172 I found myself turning base to final at 100 knots with 2300 rpm. Whoops! Off with the power...oh yeah carb heat...flaps to 10...gear down? gear?! oh its down and welded. ook here we go, flaps to 20. Airpseed 65?!?! oh no! Verge of stall! wait...I'm ok. Boy...this sure is slow. Ho hum, la la la...oh we're here now. Flare, land. Sweet, only needed a few hundred feet of runway!
Thats short and choppy but I am replaying it in my head and those were my thoughts...it happens. When you're used to flying approaches at 140 knots 65-70 looks mighty slow.
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I gathered from the story that Bush was not Pilot In Command. The other guy who rented the airplane was.
I don't see where it mentions the other guy renting the plane, or even touching the controls.
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Hey, man, you don't talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he'll, uh, well, you'll say hello to him, right? And he'll just walk right by you, and he won't even notice you. And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll throw you in a corner, and he'll say do you know that if is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you - I mean I'm no, I can't - I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's, he's a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas...
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Originally posted by SunTracker
I have to disagree with you MT. I flew after a seven year hiatus, and Bush's nervousness fits the mold pretty well.
I believe the story is true. Especially where it mentions he tried to yank the c172 off the runway (like a F102) rather than a gradual climb.
At the very least (if its false), the story was written by a pilot.
I wasn't questioning the veracity of the story, only the style of the writer.
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Aha! My friend Eric, who is an Alaska Airlines pilot, mentioned this at our son's soccer game last week. He went onto explain how his father is a private pilot (Eric flew T-38's in the NG, now flies 727 and 737's) and took him up during some cloudy, eventually foggy conditions, turned the plane over to Eric while dad dug through the nav charts while they flew from Seattle to Ocean Shores on the coast. Now, I really don't know Eric's politics, we don't discuss them, but he seemed to be defending Bush by relating his own harrowing and scarey bit in the 172 they flew. He summary was basically this: Unless you fly it all the time, its rather spooky to be thrown at the controls of aircraft that you are not familiar with.
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I have only been flying newer 172s lately and no warning system there blinks or crackles. Blinking maybe on the annunciator panel and thats for oil,fuel,volts,vacuum type stuff. But for sure no crackling, and never has it been called a warning system.
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Originally posted by Dnil
I have only been flying newer 172s lately and no warning system there blinks or crackles. Blinking maybe on the annunciator panel and thats for oil,fuel,volts,vacuum type stuff. But for sure no crackling, and never has it been called a warning system.
The warning light I referred to is added on as requested by the owner. They're rare but they're there. I've installed basic warning lights and buzzer or beeper to be triggered by the stall warning horn. They don't come standard on C-172s now nor do I believe they ever did.
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The article smells of BS.
Among the things that would be very questionable, nobody "yanks" an F102 off the runway, that isn't exactly an F16. Yanking one off is a good way to stall.
And no 172 I have flown had a blinking warning that I remember. Maybe some models did, I just don't remember any.
Here is a picture of a 172 panel I took one day while flying:
(http://www.cpinternet.com/~tlong1/172pnl.jpg)
No stall warning light that I see.
dago
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Dago thanks for the pic!
Where we installed the lights on the 172s was to the left of the ADF needle. There was one light for primary vaccuum failure and the other we rigged to the mechanical stall horn in the wing with a switch. Just to give a visual.
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where's the ammo counter, i don see no ammo counter.
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I dont think we are doubting you at all golfer, just the story smells of fecal matter.
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Originally posted by type_char
I can't - I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's, he's a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas...
in the room the women come and go. Talking of Michelangelo.
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As a pilot the story rings true to me and it doesn't reflect all that badly on Bush.
The article was not written by a pilot but Evans clearly wasn't. He is obviously the source of the story and I don't think he meant it as a critique of Bush. Non flyers impressions of a flight are often way different to the pilot's. I could tell you stories!!!
The initial unfamiliarity with the controls. That makes sense. Every Cessna I ever flew had a different layout. Any pilot would look around to get familiar with it. A non pilot would think that was having 'no idea how to fly the thing'.
The over rotation would be a classic mistake by a pilot who last flew swept wing fighters. 'Give it some gas' was a pointless comment from Evans as undoubtedly the throttle was at full power already. Lowering the nose would have done the job. The wobbly flight would be typical for a pilot getting used to trimming again. Plus it's very bumpy on hot days in Texas.
The poor landing would be no shock given all of the above.
Taking off again and looking scared would be no surprise. The fact that he scared himself but took off again to try to do better speaks to some extent for his character.
It really depends on how you look at it whether the article makes Bush look bad. Most non pilots might think that. Most pilots have been there to some extent on one or two occasions. Not naming any names or anything, you understand!!
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Seems believable to me that Dubya would try something like that, and that he would be rusty after not having flown for years. It also reads like a story narrated by a non-pilot to another non-pilot.
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Um, did any of you actually go to the link and see what the sources were?
Then you go to those sources and you see what their sources were. Minutaglio's account sounds like Don Evan's wife was retelling it (check the sources). The other account of the same gag is Don evans by way of David Maranis.