When Men were Men

CW, over at Daily Timewaster (I think it's poorly named.  Based on my visitations, it should be Daylight Timewaster.  Yeah, he's pretty good,  anyhoo....) had a few pictures over the weekend from WWI.  Yesterday there was a picture of Charles Nungesser.  I recognized the name as a French Ace, but didn't really know much about him.

So.......Google is your friend, juvat! (as is this place, if you want to know how to pronounce his name. No...it's not Nun Guesser, Beans, more like nuh-jus-say')

Well, turns out he was the 3rd highest scoring French Pilot* in the war with a total of 43 aircraft claimed. While 7 were balloons, the rest were actual aircraft capable of maneuvering at a minimum.  In my eyes, a legitimate ace. 

C'mon, you guys!.... there's no lead required in shooting a balloon.  Granted there's AAA, but there's ALWAYS AAA. Shooting down a maneuvering aircraft takes some skill.  So, "Balloon Aces" aren't all that impressive to me.  Yeah....I know, they've got more kills than I, so who am I to argue?

In any case...stay on target!

What I read about LT Nungesser made me smile.  I think he was the prototype fighter pilot that established the notorious reputation fighter pilots throughout the world are still trying to live up to and live down.

I mean...just look at his expression.

Source

The smile says "I'm enjoying life!"  The eyes say "I don't care who you are....I can beat you."

Which pretty much sums up both his life and my whole fighter pilot reputation hypothesis.

Originally in the French Cavalry, he had captured a German vehicle which impressed the brass who approved his transfer to the Service Aéronautique where he scored his first victory, 31 July 1915.

Source

His next victory was another indicator of the fighter pilot mystique.  He and his mechanic took off without permission and shot down another German Aircraft.  He was placed under house arrest at that point.  In fact, the Wikipedia source describes his reputation thusly:

"He was a leading fighter pilot whose combat exploits against the Germans were widely publicized in France. Nungesser's rugged good looks, flamboyant personality, and appetite for danger, beautiful women, wine, and fast cars made him the embodiment of the stereotypical flying ace. He would sometimes arrive for morning patrol still dressed in the tuxedo he'd worn the night before and even occasionally with a female companion. "

I did that a lot also.  Showed up to fly in a Tux with a beautiful woman on my arm.  Ok, not really.  A crumpled flight suit and dropped off at the squadron by a beautiful woman....Mrs J.

Close enough.

However, the war was not all triumphs and medals for  Lt Nungesser.  He was wounded many times during his 3 years of combat.  Several wounds were quite serious.  Again from the Wikipedia source:

By the end of the war, a succinct summary of Nungesser's wounds and injuries read: "Skull fracture, brain concussion, internal injuries (multiple), five fractures of the upper jaw, two fractures of lower jaw, piece of anti-aircraft shrapnel imbedded [sic] in right arm, dislocation of knees (left and right), re-dislocation of left knee, bullet wound in mouth, bullet wound in ear, atrophy of tendons in left leg, atrophy of muscles in calf, dislocated clavicle, dislocated wrist, dislocated right ankle, loss of teeth, contusions too numerous to mention."

Still, he returned to combat, finishing the war with 43 victories. 

Never give up, never surrender! 

Post war, he was no less flamboyant.  He had a brief career in the movies appearing as himself in an air combat film.  Tried to sell some SPADs to the Cuban Government and finally met his end when he was lost in the North Atlantic trying to fly non-stop from Paris to New York...two weeks prior to Charles Lindbergh's flight.  His aircraft has never been found although there are theories that it made it to Maine.

So...Sarge, we should go look for him, next time I'm up in your neck of the woods...Neh?

Lt Nungesser's Victories

Date Time Unit Aircraft Opponent Location 1 31 Jul 1915 0530 V106 Albatros Nancy 2 05 Dec 1915 N65 EA Nomeny 3 02 Apr 1916 N65 Balloon Septsarges 4 03 Apr 1916 N65 LVG Hauts-Fourneaux 5 04 Apr 1916 N65 EA Hauts-Fourneaux 6 25 Apr 1916 N65 LVG C Verdun 7 26 Apr 1916 N65 LVG C Foret de Spincourt 8 19 May 1916 N65 LVG C Bois de Forges 9 22 May 1916 N65 Balloon Verdun 10 22 Jun 1916 N65 Two-seater Lamorville 11 21 Jul 1916 N65 Aviatik Seuzey 12 22 Aug 1916 N65 EA 13 25 Aug 1916 N65 LVG C Roye 14 14 Sep 1916 0706 N65 Albatros Falvy 15 26 Sep 1916 0745 N65 EA Le Transloy 16 26 Sep 1916 0805 N65 Balloon Neuville 17 26 Sep 1916 1045 N65 Albatros C Rocquigny 18 23 Nov 1916 1330 N65 LVG C S of Falvy 19 04 Dec 1916 1200 N65 Halberstadt W of Nurlu 20 04 Dec 1916 1305 N65 LVG C E of Lechelle 21 20 Dec 1916 1120 N65 EA Touy-le-Grand 22 01 May 1917 V116 Albatros D.III Poperinghe 23 01 May 1917 V116 Albatros D.III 24 03 May 1917 V116 Rumpler C Maraux 25 09 May 1917 V116 DFW C 26 12 May 1917 V116 EA Savy 27 12 May 1917 V116 EA 28 26 Jun 1917 V116 EA Drocourt 29 26 Jun 1917 V116 Gotha 30 16 Aug 1917 V116 Gotha Foret d'Houthulst 31 12 Mar 1918 Spa65 EA Craonne 32 31 Mar 1918 Spa65 Scout 1 Lagny 33 04 May 1918 Spa65 Two-seater Marquivillers 34 04 May 1918 Spa65 Two-seater Bouisancourt 35 15 May 1918 Spa65 Two-seater 2 Erchu 36 05 Jun 1918 Spa65 EA Château-Thierry 37 30 Jun 1918 1845 Spa65 EA Moreuil-le-Mothe 38 15 Jul 1918 1325 Spa65 Scout Grand Pre-Mericourt 39 14 Aug 1918 Spa65 Balloon 40 14 Aug 1918 Spa65 Balloon 41 14 Aug 1918 Spa65 Balloon 42 14 Aug 1918 Spa65 Balloon 43 15 Aug 1918 Spa65 EA 3 *So, juvat who were the two highest scoring French Fighter Pilots? #1 Rene Fonck--75 confirmed, 142 claimed Source #2 George Guynemer 54 confirmed  MIA 11 Sep 1917 Source

Lord Knows, I Tried

(Source)

Growing up, I loved football. Loved playing it, loved watching it.

Now?

The increase in the number of commercials and the growing ineptitude of the announcers make it almost painful to watch. It's been a few years, maybe five, since I bothered to watch any of the regular season games. On Thanksgiving I'll watch them because the family does. It's fun to sit with family, or friends, and watch the games on Thanksgiving. Maybe it's the tradition. But even that has become less than enjoyable. I'll watch the Lions and the Cowboys as they have always played on Thanksgiving.

But now there's a third game, typically that one gets switched off early and we all go to bed, satiated by that time with food and drink. The other two games are mostly background noise, something there while the meal is being prepped, folks are talking, and then sitting down to eat. In my Mom's house, when we sit down to eat, the TV is off. No exceptions. At my place or my brother's the TV is in another room so it's out of the way, it stays on but no one is watching. Again, it's background noise. Someone might check the score now and then but we only really pay attention when we're done eating.

Even then we tend to chat in front of the TV rather than actually watching it.

As to the announcers, some are okay, most are, in my opinion, incompetent. They talk too much, say obvious things (as in telling us what we just saw), and too many of them aren't all that bright. I swear if one more guy tells me how good someone is "in space" there had better be a spaceship and someone in a spacesuit. Damn it, what happened to calling it "in the open field"? Most of what they say is meaningless jargon.

Space. Yup, between most announcers' ears.

Most of the commercials go beyond suck. Every now and then there's a good one, an entertaining one, but they play it to death. Over and over and over. Drives me effing nuts it does. Most folks ignore that shite anyway.

So Saturday night I decided to sit down and watch football. I lasted maybe a half hour. Once the Colts had jumped out to a 14 - 0 lead and the idiot color commentator had used the phrase"in space" maybe three times in the same sentence, I had had enough. Decided to go blog instead.

Lucky you.

I might attempt Cowboys - Seahawks later, but only if there's nothing good on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or YouTube.

Hell, watching monkeys fling dung at each other is more entertaining than the NFL these days.

Yup, I tried, Lord knows I tried. But I just couldn't stomach it.



Postscript: The second game wasn't bad. Watched a lot of it. I like defense.

Udvar-Hazy Revisited

Whilst vacationing in the Virginia-Maryland area, our host thought it would be a fine idea to visit the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. What with him being a former Naval Flight Officer on the mighty Prowler (ECMO -Electronic Countermeasures Officer) who eventually transitioned to being a Naval Aviator (read pilot) flying F/A-18Cs, F/A-18Es, and then finally F/A-18Gs, aka the mighty Growler. (Logical given his previous experience in the Prowler, both being aircraft used for electronic warfare.) He, knowing that I was an aviation enthusiast suggested the trip. I wholeheartedly agreed.

Upon arrival he suggested going up in the observation tower, depicted above. I had seen this tower many times, but had no idea that one could actually go up in it.

"Why yes, yes, let's do that!" I offered.

But of course, first we had to see what was going on down on the display floor. There were a few changes since my last visit. One change is that at the entry way to the display area, there is no longer a P-51 to one's left. That red beauty has been displaced and there now is a P-40 on display. A beauty.

The Corsair is still to the right and the SR-71 still sits just below. I noted a few changes, many of which might be something I just missed before. Some of the aircraft have been shuffled around. I didn't see any new aircraft, but that's like expecting a little kid to notice something different in a candy store. There's a lot going on there...

No, I never get tired of this place.

Little kid in foreground, candy store in background.

I really do try to smile in selfies, but it always comes out as a bit of a smirk. And my friend The Florida Flyer always notes that I should smile more. I try, believe me.

Pretty good crowd there for the holidays.

I can't get enough Udvar-Hazy, I love that place...

Intruder

Connie

Stratoliner

The Last Gunfighter

The Mighty Tomcat

The Thoroughbred

The Hun

The nose section of Flak Bait is back at Udvar-Hazy.
Almost ready to be reassembled. Missing one engine still.

The He-219 fuselage (right) is "out back," perhaps to be reassembled?

Unsung hero of the Battle of Britain.
The Spitfire gets the glory, the Hurricane did the heavy lifting.

U.S. Navy JRS-1, this bird was at Pearl on the 7th of December 1941, she flew patrols in the aftermath of the attack.

Kingfisher, spotter for the big guns of the battlewagons.
Yes, the aircraft in the background is "kind of a big deal."

Fork tailed devil

Old Double Ugly Herself

The test pilot actually rolled this 707. Quite a feat, of course, she was quite an aircraft.

Son-of-a-Bitch Second Class
SB2C Helldiver

Sopwith Camel, I didn't see her last time I was there. A favorite of mine!

One of the outstanding fighters of the First World War

T-33, a lovely bird

Tante Ju in Lufthansa livery

Vietnam Stalwarts

Yes, we did go up in the Observation Tower, pretty nice view.

A great day spent with wonderful people. What more can a fellow ask from life?

I Miss the Deer

I took that picture from our host's dining room on Saturday, the 29th of December. Where he lives is very rural and rather hilly. Not something I expected being so near the Naval Academy. There are deer all over the place where he lives. Shortly after I took the photo, our host informed me that he had seen at least eight deer under that tree just a moment before.

That big lady on the right, she spotted me as soon as I went up to the window to take the photo. Cautious creatures they are, but in our host's neighborhood they are very used to people. We were walking The Nuke's hounds one morning and came across five deer near a feeding location (one of the neighbors feeds them). The dogs were all like, "What the heck are those? Can we chase them? Mom, come on, can we chase them."

The Nuke has her dogs well trained, she says sit, they sit, she says jump...

No, they don't ask "How high." But if they could speak English, I have no doubt they would. While the deer were distinctly nervous, they didn't run off. Bear and Kodi are rather large dogs too, but like I said, well behaved. So we all kinda sat there eyeballing each other from a distance of less than fifty yards. Reminded me rather of my youth.

I've encountered deer in the forest at very close range many times in my younger days. If they can't smell you, they don't feel really threatened (if they do, they run, very fast, in the opposite direction). Make no sudden moves and you can stare away. On The Missus Herself's first trip to the U.S., Christmas of 1980, she wanted to go up into the woods at the ancestral home of Yours Truly.

It was an overcast day, lots of fresh snow on the ground, and a tad chilly. Typical of Vermont in December back then. Not a hundred yards into the woods and I whispered to her to stop moving and look to her right. About a hundred feet away were a group of deer moving through the woods. They looked well-fed and healthy, they also looked really handsome in the snow against the backdrop of the pine trees.

"Wow!" she said.

"Pretty aren't they?" I asked.

"Yeah, can we pet them?" she wondered.

"Only if you can catch them." I answered.

It wasn't the first time that my love gave me the "you're an idiot" look, certainly wasn't the last.

We went down to Barnes & Noble on Thursday, I had a gift card burning a hole in my wallet. I saw a lot of Christmas trees out by the curb, somehow they reminded me of casualties on some recent battlefield.

Last week, they stood proudly in peoples' homes, decorated, lit by twinkling lights. Many of them had had children beneath them on Christmas morn, opening presents, laughing their childish laughter, happy and innocent. Now they are discarded, awaiting the trash truck, to no doubt be ground up into mulch. (I've written of discarded Christmas trees before.)

It saddens me to see Christmas pass. It always has. I'm a sentimental old sot, always have been, probably always will be. I've also noticed that many homes no longer light up their exterior Christmas displays. There are five houses in my neighborhood, mine included, to which that does not apply.

My lights will be lit until Epiphany, we'll light them up on this coming Sunday, then they will vanish to storage for another year.

I don't suffer from post-holiday depression, because I know the real meaning of the holiday. It's always there, in my heart, I just wish the rest of the world could hold that spirit of giving, joy, and love the year round.

But like I said, I'm sentimental.

As vacation winds down, I think back over the last two weeks and think of all the fun I've had. (No, New Year's Eve and the adventure of flights 5036 and 5557 don't count.)

While I had been somewhat disappointed to spend only one night in Alexandria, after a day or so, the bucolic setting for our Annapolis Christmas really grew on me. The other day, back home in Little Rhody, we heard a police siren, The Missus Herself remarked that she had not heard a single one of those where we spent Christmas.

The beautiful countryside was lacking in any sort of urban noise, notwithstanding the occasional jet heading into Baltimore reminding us that civilization wasn't that far away. It was a wonderful Christmas down there.

While I do miss the deer, the cats are ecstatic that we're home. That was the longest we'd ever been away from them in 15 years. So the past couple of days they've been rather clingy. Home is good, no matter where it is.

If my cats are happy, if The Missus Herself is happy, then I am happy.

Speaking of Adventures in Aviation

U.S. Air Force Photo

As you all might remember, I spent 24 years on active duty in the United States Air Force. In my youth, I was an aircraft maintenance kind of guy. While my primary duties in the eight-odd years I was a maintainer (yes, those were very odd years, though fun at times) I mostly spent my time aligning the Weapon Control System on the F-4D Phantom II. (I did work on the F-4C on Okinawa as well, but they made up only about a quarter of the wing.)

In my time on Okinawa, Kadena Air Base to be precise, I had occasion to visit the Land of the Morning Calm, 대한민국, or the Republic of Korea. Where, one magical day, I first laid eyes upon the woman who would one day be my wife. No, she didn't know that at the time, but I did, I was thunderstruck...

My heart was beating as fast and as hard as the bass line in that most excellent tune. Oh yeah, I was thunderstruck.

At any rate, in my wooing of this lovely lady I resolved to get an assignment to Korea. Shouldn't be too hard, after all, most guys did not want an unaccompanied tour to the remoteness of the Korean peninsula. It wasn't quite as modern in the '70s as it is now. Technically it was a military dictatorship under an ex-general name of Park Chung-Hee. Not a great guy, but he did keep the Northern hordes at bay. Korea is now a much more attractive assignment, what with all this...

No doubt my sainted mother-in-law would look upon all that with a rather gimlet eye and make sotto voce remarks about "crazy women." Things were loosening up as the Olympics in Korea approached but were still pretty staid. If the kids had been out on the street like that back in the day, old Park's police would have probably scooped them up as being folks of rather loose morals. Bit harsh I thought, but things have changed a lot.

But even back in the more sedate days of my youth, Korea was a place I liked rather a lot. Mostly because of The Future Missus Herself but I liked the people. Tough but fair. Didn't hurt that most of the ladies were awfully cute as well.

But, as you might gather, all that has little to do with C-130s and air travel. However, at this point you might understand my rather fervid desire to get to Korea. In the absence of an assignment there, Mother Air Force gave me 30 days a year to do with as I pleased and flights to Korea from Kadena ran every day.

Yup, every day.

Space available was pretty easy in those days, again, not many people actually wanted to go to Kunsan. The more "fun" base was Osan, up north nearer to Seoul. (Also within artillery range of the Norks as I recall. Pretty short jaunt for a fighter bomber with Commie Crap painted on the wings as well. But the bars were right outside the gate. Also Seoul, the big city, wasn't far away. An easy bus ride in those days. These days, not so much. Korea is now the land of the six-lane highway and everyone has a car.)

The distance from Kadena to Kunsan is around 667 miles, a rather short flight for a modern airliner but a bit of a plod for mighty Hercules. I don't remember the actual time to fly there on a C-130, but it felt like hours and hours. Flying in the back of a C-130 is rather a lot like flying in someone's basement, or garage if they have a lot of equipment, including stuff on wheels, flying with you. Also, when you're on the ground and want cool air (particularly on Okinawa in the summer months) you get hot air. Once aloft, and I mean way up there in the sky, where the air outside is well below zero, well dontcha know the air conditioner is blasting cold air all over you.

It's also noisy as Hell. Those four big turboprops put out a lot of thrust and a lot of noise.

Go to your basement, if it's winter, open all the windows and doors. If it's summer pipe in heat from somewhere. Now put that video on and turn it WAY UP. If you're feeling really adventurous, make a sandwich from stale bread, have a bag of chips that you wouldn't buy if you went shopping, and toss in a piece of something which looks like it might have been fruit at some point in its existence.

Now make sure you run that video on a continuous loop for a couple of hours. Also, make sure you're sitting in a lawn chair with really hard webbing (i.e. a really cheap lawn chair) and give yourself no leg room (for the true effect, park a riding lawn mower directly in front of you, make sure it smells like oil and gasoline). Also, have 50 of your closest friends jammed in there with you as well. Actually, make sure you include a few people you really, really don't like as well.

That approximates the C-130 experience to some extent. If you could mount your basement on some sort of gimballed platform so that it can be constantly vibrating the entire time, they would be even better.

All that being said, I liked the Herky Bird, she's reliable as Hell even if she ain't all that pretty. I rode them a lot when on Okinawa.

There was one memorable flight to Korea in which Your Humble Scribe was travelling with a buddy, also bound for a spot of leave in the Land of the Morning Calm. We were actually near one of the very few windows (kind of a porthole actually) on a C-130 so we could at least see something other than the other passengers and the tied down equipment. Our view consisted of the left wing of the aircraft, some sky, and if you really stretched, the ground.

At some time well into the flight, buddy Al nudged me, with a rather worried look on his face. As I opened my eyes to see what he was on about, he gesticulated frantically towards our porthole. There, to what did my wondering eyes appear, were two C-130 engines. Only one of which actually had a spinning prop. The other, the inboard one as I recall, was not spinning. It was, what we in the aviation bidness call, feathered.

(Source)

(Juvat actually wrote about this topic back in March of 2015. A very good post I might add...)

Anyhoo, I saw the engine was not doing anything, I saw no smoke, no fire, nada. Turning to Al I screamed, "WHAT? WHAT ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT, WE HAVE THREE MORE!"

He seemed rather taken aback by the whole thing. We didn't turn around (note in that map above that the bulk of that flight path is over water) as we were past the halfway point, wouldn't make sense to go back, just press on. Which we did.

When we touched down in Korea, Al happened to notice all of the emergency equipment lined up alongside the runway. Which proceeded to chase us down the runway as I recall. Seems someone was taking the situation seriously, I wasn't, not really.

Al chided me for my indifference and said, "If it isn't such a big deal, why were all those fire trucks out there when we landed?"

"Just in case." I answered.

"Just in case what?" Al wanted to know.

"Hell Al, we fix radars, how would I know? Maybe in case the aircraft blew up or something. Just because you can't see a problem doesn't mean there isn't a problem." I was grinning when I said that. Al didn't find it amusing, he was a jittery sort as I recall. Nice enough guy, just kind of high strung I think.

The other adventure I had on a C-130 involved that same Kadena to Kunsan run. But this would be the last one of those, I was departing the semi-tropical isle of Okinawa and was bound for an assignment in Korea. Finally.

Went to the Military Airlift Command (MAC, they don't it that anymore, more's the pity) terminal to fly to Korea and see the love of my life (we had already been married for seven months at this point). I wasn't traveling Space Available, no sir, I had orders, I was traveling Space Required. We boarded the aircraft, taxied out, did a circuit of the field, and landed.

"Hhmm, short flight," thinks I, "hhmm, methinks this is still Okinawa."

Sure and begorrah it was still Okinawa.

We were told that one of the engines had blown an oil pump (something I did once in a VW Jetta, no fun on the ground, less fun in the air) and that after they swapped it out, we'd be on our way.

After a good eight hours, a captain in a flight suit sought me out.

"Sarge, hi, I'm the pilot of that C-130 you want to go to Korea on."

"Uh, hi sir, how are ya?"

"Er, I'm fine Sarge, but we have a problem, we can't go to Kunsan today, we have to go directly to Osan. Do you still want a ride?"

"Hhmm, I reckon I'll pass Cap'n. While my Korean is good enough to find a bus to Kunsan, I'd probably get there after curfew," (which ran midnight to four in the morning), "and I'd rather not mess with that. I live in downtown Kunsan."

"Uh, I thought you were PCSing* there, how can you live downtown?"

"My wife is already there."

"I thought Kunsan was a remote tour, no families allowed?" The good captain was starting to be a bit confused.

"My wife is Korean, she's from there." I answered, yes, with a bit of a smirk. You know how we enlisted like to tweak our officers from time to time. Bless their hearts. (And no, I would never, ever do that to Tuna and Juvat. Well, maybe some, a little.)

"Ah, okay. So tomorrow is soon enough?"

"I've waited a year, I can wait one more day."

The captain walked off, I thought it was kind of cool of him to come talk to me personally, he could have left that to the passenger service guys. Good man that captain.

Me? I went back to my barracks, got my old room back and drank beer and played pinochle with my mates. They were surprised, and happy, to see me.

I told them I just couldn't leave without another game of pinochle and a bunch of beers. Ya know, for old time's sake. It was a good night.

But wouldn't you know it, when I finally got home and started explaining to The Missus Herself why I was late, she already knew. That was always the case, I think the Koreans knew more about our operations than we did. Probably be on CNN these days.

Sigh...

For another great tale of aerial encounters of the no fun kind, go read this. Dave (or Fuzz as his mates called him, see below) is a long time Chanter, Phormer Phantom Phlyer, airline pilot, and an all around good guy. (But don't tell him, you know how pilots are.) He spins a good tale as well. His old blog has many good flying tales, go through his archives, I did, you'll enjoy it. Just clean up after you've left.

Lt Fuzz of Beetle Bailey fame, and Dave's doppelganger.
(Fair Use)

Flying can be very exciting in a no fun kind of way. Probably why pilots make the big bucks. Or so I'm told...



* PCS = Permanent Change of Station

New Year's at 27,000 Feet

If you're a follower on Facebook, you may know the story of the New Year's Eve had by The Missus Herself and Your Humble Scribe.

We headed to Reagan National, arriving at about 1300 Eastern Standard Time to catch a 1500 flight (AA 5036) to PVD (the airport, not the eye condition).

Long story short, we arrived back at our abode in Little Rhody around 0200, New Year's Day.

A friend of mine described Gate 35X at Reagan National as "America's least favorite gate" and the Bombardier CRJ-200 as "America's least favorite jet." All that really means is that Gate 35X is where all the regional flights start and end out of Reagan. It's the puddle jumper area of the airport, the CRJ-200 is the puddle jumper.

Now I don't feel that way, if you've ever flown out of Fresno, there is a gate there which is somewhat famous for never, ever, having a flight leave on time. It's almost as if it were in California.

Oh wait, it is.

At any rate, there comes a time when a thing which has always worked perfectly in the past has a moment when almost nothing seems to go right.

So it was to be on New Year's Eve of 2018.

Boarding was delayed, eventually we got on a bus to ride out to the aircraft. Yes, a bus. For the magic of Gate 35X is that it is where one catches a bus to get to an aircraft. No jetway, no stroll down a long telescoping corridor to board a plane. Nope, you ride the bus to the jet, then walk across the tarmac to climb a Rube Goldberg looking contraption to get on the aircraft.

Which we did.

We taxied out, sat for an unconscionable length of time, a long enough time period that I suspected aircraft system problems, not waiting for our turn to take off problems.

Bingo. I got bingo...

The pilot described it as a "maintenance issue" which would "not reset." In maintainer terms, a circuit breaker kept popping. Reset it and it would pop again. A sure indication of electrical problems with which one should not take the jet up into the wild blue yonder.

So we did not.

So back to the terminal we went, back to Gate 35X. Yay us.

After a rather breathless wait (about an hour), maintenance said, "We fixed it, you're good to go."

So we repeated the evolution. Guess what?

Yup, circuit breaker did it again. When the pilot came on over the intercom he sounded pissed off. As we disembarked to go back to Gate 35X the pilot was standing in the cockpit entrance. As I passed him, I remarked, "Maybe it's time to break out the wiring diagrams."

He shook his head and said, "Yup, somebody needs to do just that."

Computers have turned aircraft maintainers into box pullers. Swap the box, try again. But sometimes it's the wires between the boxes. Or two boxes contributing to a problem which makes the diagnostic computer scratch its head (metaphorically of course) then tell itself, "Pick one, ya got a fifty-fifty shot."

This time, the computer picked wrong and back to the terminal we went. Hello Gate 35X, my old friend.

Where we waited.

Now this is actually a tale of two flights to Providence: AA 5036, the 1500 flight, and AA 5557, the 1350 flight. AA 5557 actually broke first (not a pilot scheduling problem, not a crew rest problem, something actually broke on the jet) and a lot of people on that flight switched to AA 5036. Which, if you've been paying attention, we boarded and taxied out to the runway upon twice. Yup, twice.

Now the magical American Airlines notification system was keeping me apace of the developments with AA 5036. They kept changing the departure time, but always to something implausible, like ten minutes from now (not possible, the bus ride takes that long) or ten minutes in the past. (Which I also consider not possible as if American Airlines have invented a time machine, they could go into the past and fix the jet before it broke, or something.)

Anyhoo, I do believe that particular notification application needs a little work. The algorithm is, ya know, faulty. As in crap, as in "if anything goes wrong, make something up, anything." (At this point I'll make a snide remark about "self driving cars" and the absolute insanity of thinking that might actually happen anytime soon. Software is hard. DAMHIK)

So where were we? Ah yes, back in the terminal (at Gate 35X). As I'm pondering the mysteries of air travel and posting of our adventures on Facebook, my phone chimes. "Hhmm, a text message..."

"Oh bother," says I. The flight, she is cancelled. AA 5036 is no more, it's an ex-flight to Providence and if American Airlines hadn't nailed it to the perch it would be pushing up the daisies, it would have rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible, it would...

But I digress.

Up to the counter I went and asked the nice lady, "Now what?"

"I can transfer you to the earlier flight, well, what was supposed to be the earlier flight, flight AA 5557."

Looking first one way, and then the other, I asked, "Seriously? You still have hopes for that one?"

"Well, yes. It's broken but maintenance says they can fix it. Not fast, but today."

"Well, I'm game, let's do it."

So I did. And we waited...

And waited...

People were leaving, going to go get a hotel room (on New Year's Eve mind you), or making other arrangements. One lady tried to talk a few people into catching the train to Providence at about $240 per ticket. No takers, but she left, to do just that, catch a train.

Eventually we were down to fifteen people. Fifteen diehards who were determined to get to Providence by air that very night. It was us versus the airline. They were hoping we'd all leave, we were calling their bluff. "Maintenance says they can fix it, we believe them."

And we waited.

One of my fellow passengers remarked to me, "I talked to a gate agent, he said that there is only a 20% chance of the flight going out tonight."

To which I replied, "A gate agent. Not an aircraft maintainer. And what is this alleged 'expert' basing this on? Their talent in making garbled announcements over the PA system."

The fellow chuckled and nodded, seeing my point.

Eventually though, the maintainers came through (which swelled this old maintainer's heart with pride) and we boarded the bus. To the jet we went and we taxied.

We stopped. All awaited with bated breath for the aircraft to continue with no discouraging announcements from the pilot. I do believe that we willed that aircraft to move and to then lift into the air once upon the runway. Which it did.

We flew through a cloud-shrouded, rainy, blustery night. We lost sight of the ground soon after take off and didn't regain sight of old Mother Earth until we broke out of a very low ceiling on the approach to Providence. A sigh of relief was heard as the jet touched down and we taxied into PVD (the airport, not the eye condition).

So The Missus Herself and Your Humble Scribe greeted the year 2019 at 27,000 feet, somewhere over New Jersey I think.

Now I could take that as a bad omen, or I could take it as a prime example of "Shit happens." I tend to go with the latter. At any rate, I wish you all a most prosperous, and happy, New Year.

Totally off topic (hey, I let you do it, so I can do it too) here's a song I heard on the radio whilst vacationing down in Maryland. Yes, Maryland, only one day in Virginia, which surprised me, that wasn't in the plan. But no plan survives contact with real life. You can take that to the bank. The only reason to have a plan is so you don't appear clueless, or unprepared. But yes, I digress. I really like this tune, hadn't heard it in a very long time.

Hey, it was the '80s. I loved the '80s.

Happiest of New Years to the staff and readership of Chant du Départ

Good morning everyone.  Tom here (aka Tuna).  Sarge was airborne during the change of years, so I thought I'd take the liberty and wish you all a Happy New Year.

I started last year with a post about resolutions.  Those didn't fare too well, as I still read the comments on blogs and facebook posts (Trolls are evil), I haven't lost much weight, but I have lessened my addiction to facebook.  WRT that one, I've learned to tune out the garbage (unfollowing some folks), and reduced my political rants (at least there- can't say the same for here at the Chant).  I've also tried to lighten up around here, at least recently.  Will it continue?  Jury is still out.

2018 was up and down in the Tuna household.  We accomplished a wonderful 25th Anniversary trip up the Rhine River during a fabulous cruise, but also struggled with some health issues within the same household.  There's a very bright spot on the very near horizon with that however, so we're happy and hopeful.

Tuna and the missus on that cruise

Work was good, but always a challenge.  Sometimes I wonder if I'm making a difference and actually accomplishing anything.  Apparently I am however, because I still seem to get paid, so that's a bright spot.  I expect more of the same in 2019 as MIW (Mine Warfare) for the Navy is always last to the trough, yet we aren't starving.  Ok, maybe we are, but that means I'm still employed.

Bests of 2018?  Definitely that cruise, which I highly recommend.  Best movie?  Toss up between Dunkirk and Bohemian Rhapsody.  The latter was just last week so it's more on my mind.  It was a two hour phenomenal concert that was also great show.  See it when you can if you haven't already.

Best photo I took?  How about this one?

Got a bit of sunset, which I love, and nautical, which is just cool.

Although this one was very much lauded on my faceybook feed:

TV?  Probably Ozark on Netflix.  Dark as hell, but it really draws you in.  At least it did for me.  The Crown and Daredevil also captured my interest.  Network TV?  I know I watched some, but none of it was memorable.

Music?  Discovered this and lost track of how many times I listened to it.

Hopes for 2019?  Happiness, health, and a home.  Yes, that last part is kind of cryptic, but maybe I'll share more on that later this year.

As for your resolutions, may they be lofty, easily achieved, well accomplished, and to the benefit of others.

I truly hope the new year brings you happiness, prosperity, love, and whatever else you might need.  

Tuna out!

Post script:  Turns out Dunkirk was a 2017 movie. Oh well.