Sitting here trying to kill time and an eventful weekend comes to mind.
Supposed to fly from VA to Pensacola for a weekend airshow. Gorgeous early Summer Friday, we fly a low level route. Get on first point of the route somewhere in Southern NC. Allowed to fly as low as 200', speed can't be supersonic. Fuel isn't too much of an issue, we're only going to be low for 20-30 minutes, then climb up with the airliners for last 2-300 miles. We're boogying along, about 100' (remember when I just said 'as low as 200', that might come to bite your humble scribe), 450 knots or so and it's time to climb up to Mogul's airliner altitude and soar with our new quitter, Airbus Pilot. The instant we begin to climb, a thin black streak shows up right in front of me, the fiberglass nose explodes and I hear and feel a big 'Clunk'. Engine instruments are normal but something isn't quite right and Old Slug.go is puzzled. Other guy, Chub, says something about 'We need to get out of here.' Well, I'm thinking he thinks we need to eject. Fuck, no, you are not! I tell him 'No, stay with the jet.' You never say 'Don't eject', because if the other guy doesn't hear 'Don't', yer fooked. He says, 'I mean we need to get higher, now!' Well, during this exchange we had probably gained 5,000 feet with a 6 G pull so the point was moot. All right, now, what the fuck just happened? We figured we had hit a power line or something, like one of those really big ones you see that are 200' in the air. Radar is dead, because that big CLUNK was the sound of the radar breaking the power line after it blew through the nose. Now radar has 400 knots of wind blowing on it and it's broken. This is getting expensive. OK, can't make it to Pensacola, where is nearest military field...USN/USAF base near ATL. We tell Center we're declaring an emergency, headed to military field. Landing gear indicator shows nose gear not down, well fuck, this is really going to be expensive. Overhead the field another aircraft that was airborne comes up and checks our landing gear out. The guy tells us, in the best Jeff Spicoli voice, 'Dude, you're pretty fucked up'. Nice, is that your professional opinion? But, God loves fools and drunks...landing gear was down. We land, limp our crippled jet to Base Operations. As we're getting out, a Navy Captain in dress uniform walks up to us and says, 'Boys, come with me'. We know we are just fucked. He escorts us to the back of the jet, away from the crowd, looks us right in the eye and says, 'The most important thing for you to do is get your story straight.' Win! 'Sir, we've been working on that for 20 minutes', says Chub. 'Good'. He turns and leaves.
After any accident you have to give blood and piss, no problem. Chub, big tough Irish guy, is deathly afraid of needles and PASSES OUT!
More good karma, my best man from my wedding lives in Atlanta and he picks us up and houses us for the night.
We need to start drinking, before reality sets in. We go to a bar called 'Beer Mug', Chub hooks with some chick. He claims he took her out to the parking lot and did her doggy style over the hood of my friend's car, a Ford. We start calling her 'droF' when she finally came back in, because ford backwards is what is probably pressed into her stomach.
Remember that 200' thing? Well we were at 100', if not lower, but the actual altitude of the power line we hit (in a climb) was 205'. The fact we were in a climb never came out of the investigation. I would survive to fuck up again.
God loves fools and drunks.
