Text 610, 86 rader
Skriven 2013-10-20 09:42:04 av Mike Luther (1:117/100.0)
    Kommentar till text 584 av Ed Vance (12259.windowsa)
Ärende: Re: SK
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Hi Ed!

 EV>NIIW  _.  ..  ..  .__  was the callsign of the USS Midway CVA-41
 EV>when I was onboard.

 EV> NIIW Is The U.S. Navy's Callsign for the USS Midway CVA-41 when
 EV> I was aboard it in the early 1960's.

Interesting.  The man who recruited me to get him his actual Instrument formal
pilot's license here at Easterwood Airport in College Station,Texas in 1968,
Dick Harris, was actually the 'commander' of the last formal flight off the
Midway before it was sunk.  Late in 1968 a new Beechcraft Barron N7826R showed
up in the hanger, right next to a doorway but hardly ever flew! I was the Chief
Instructor there and also was repairing airplane radios when just before
Christmas, this man walks up to me and says, "Mike,you know me but you don't!" 
Huh?  He told me he had over 10,000 hours as a Navy pilot, but when he left the
Navy, he never got his instrument rating! Would I ride with him and set him up
for a check ride?

I didn't have a multi-engine rating then but told him if they'd get Houston
Beechcraft to get me through I'd give him the same number of hours it took me
free toward his ticket.  He made the deal with his boss, a Dr. Ruble Langston
at Hanover Modular Homes, to let us fly down to Houston a couple days before
New Years to do that.  Took me 7+ hours to get my multi-engine endorsement.

But surprise!  He was a WONDERFUL instrument pilot but he wouldn't take his
written!  He told me, "Mike, the thunderstorms here are so bad I just can't
handle them!  You can, but I can't!"  I asked him, "Why?"  He said then,"You
know me but you don't!  I was on the last flight off the Midway just before it
got sunk out in the Pacific!  Remember that World War II movie when that S2
crash landed on an aircraft carrier, slid into the conning tower and caught
fire?"  I said, "Yes, I've seen that."  He said, "Well Mike that is real
footage!  That was my airplane.  The Japs shot me down,killing my tail gunner. 
I ditched us on that carrier and when we hit the tower and caught fire my
co-pilot was killed.  I was the only one that survived.  I paid the Navy my one
dollar fee and they then assigned me to the Midway to then fly a Thunderbird as
the captain of escort missions for the Midway.  The weather out there in the
Pacific was horrible!  The six Thunderbirds in my last flight took off into a
really bad thunderstorm collection.  It was so bad I was the only one to even
get back through them to the ship at the end of the mission.  When I got back
the Midway was sunk!  I didn't know what to do and with nobody to rescue me I
just ran my Tbird out of fuel and ditched it in the ocean.  I floated there
beating sharks off with my fists for a couple days until I was finally pulled
out of the water and survived.  But lost everything, including my rare stamp
collection that I was adding to from every port we touched. I even had an
inverted misprint Lindberg US stamp in it.  But the issue is still with me all
the time now.  The weather here in Texas with all the huge thunderstorms and
tornado stuff is worse than it ever was in the Pacific!  I just can't fly our
airplane in it.  You do a wonderful job at this.  You'll have to be our pilot!"

I said, "Dick, I don't work for you!"  He said, "I'll ask Dr. Langston if he
will hire you full time."  He came back a day later and told me to go with him
for the interview.  I did.  Ruble made a deal with me to be their pilot and off
I went into the most unbelievable political and horrible lifetime of
controversy I think anyone could ever be involved in.  I never knew that my
complete lifetime even by then of survival by having to live my whole life
figuring out how to keep people from lying, cheating and stealing would become
the total picture for my entire life even until this day at my age of 73 now. 
 But by looking down into the problems and making all your decisions in
multiple dimensions like you have to do to even survive a tornado in a Beech
Baron, then traveling through the fourth dimension to even get to land
somewhere safe, plus even the fifth dimension to survive later, to carry all
your companions upward in life, it is what is what you must do if that's what
your family and culture was put here for on Earth.

Yes, it's OK to earn a profit.  No matter what your culture.  But not to lie,
cheat and steal from others to do so.  Even though so many people did die in
the Titanic because the radio telegraph operator sent out the older distress
signal, " _ . _ .  _ _ . _  _ .. "  The old one before the new one, " ...
 _ _ _  ... " that he was supposed to have sent so it wake up the operator
sleeping in the Carpathia that sailed right past them! Then when the right call
was sent, they turned back and rescued what they did of those left alive.  For
which that violin that was recovered from the Titanic's orchestra was just sold
for over a $1,000,000 USD last weeK?

Sometimes even the simple sound of SOS to wake you up is right, rather than the
Morse Code sound of CQ, "Call Quarters", changed to the original distress call
"Call Quarters Distress" folks.  SOS does not mean Save Our Souls, or What
folks know as Save Our Ship.  Even a little sound can change the whole
dimension of your life!


Mike Luther N117C at 1:117/100

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 * Origin: BV HUB CLL(979)696-3600 (1:117/100)