That kills ya……

It’s the ground when you hit it after falling 720 feet .

This sorta-kinda falls (ahem) into the FAFO category, I think.

“Often a woman sets out to change her man…..and when she succeeds, she finds she no longer likes what he is”

Texas style.

Dude tracks down his stolen truck, holds thieves at gunpoint for the cops.

Thief pulls his own gat. Get ventilated for his efforts.

Police say “Good Job”

Dead thieves brother says “‘A vehicle is not worth taking someone’s life” Well, apparently the thief thought it was. He pulled a gun to try and get away, and that worked out poorly for him.

And, to my mind, stealing someone’s property is akin to stealing a bit of their life….the time and effort they spent working for that money to buy that item….truck, house, jewelry, etc.  is their life……they could have been doing something else rather than work. Work is using up your life for compensation.

If more thieves got this sort of treatment, and the owners did not have worry about prosecutions for it, there’d be a lot less theft.

Sorry (not really) your brother was killed dude, but he got what he deserved.

After nearly three weeks of fucking around by Ram I finally got the 3 parts that Ram Engines owed me so we could finish the new engine install.

I had to threaten to stand in front of their booth at the Oshkosh Fly-in and tell everyone I could about my experience (and their organization’s incompetence) but they finally got off the dime and sent the parts. So I don’t have to do that. here is no excuse for their failure….But finally, I have the parts.

Should make noise with the engines either today or Monday, and then we have to do the adjustments to make ’em run well.

God willing I should be flying in a week.

This study shows the mass shooting deaths by state…..By state. Not by city where the data would be more useful, and where we all know what the story would be….large Urban areas rather than small towns….

It also hints but does not say what the demographics are….the race/ethnicity/poverty level of the shooters OR the victims…..But it does point out that there were no mass shootings in either Hawaii or Alaska….You can draw your own conclusions.

It is interesting that, although they try to correlate gun laws to shootings, there seems to be an inverse effect….the tighter the gun restrictions the (marginally) more shootings…but not enough to make any real conclusions. What they DON’T do in this study is look at any of the other factors. Race (and percentage of that race in the surrounding area), economic level, education level or ethnicity. These are all greater factors than gun laws.

Kinda  hiding the truth, really.

It isn’t like there aren’t mass shooting at least weekly on the south side of Chicago, in primarily black and poor neighborhoods, usually related to a bar or a party or other gathering…..or the most dangerous place at 2:30 Am, “jus’ stannin onna cornah, minin’ my own bidnes’…” And there are nearly zero in a tiny downstate town like DeLand or Ogden or Taylorville. But lump all the towns in a state together to hide the real truth.

Has done screwed the pooch. His Sweetheart Deal wasn’t as sweet as he thought, or at least the judge took some of the icing off….

Having said that, I wonder what else is in the works.

Is this a real situation or one contrived by the Biden folks?

One never knows.

Biden names new Emmett Till monument as US grapples with racist history.

Look, It was a long time ago. at what point does the blame stop? I wasn’t there. My Dad didn’t do it, HIS Dad didn’t do it. Stop blaming us for it. In fact, start applying the same metric to Black crimes.

At what point will they quit flogging a kid’s murder from 68 years ago? It seems every place they can find is to become a sacred site…His hometown, the church where his parents attended, the courthouse where his accused were sentenced, etc.

The kid wasn’t a hero, he was a victim. His life wasn’t anything special, he wasn’t touched by God, he didn’t accomplish anything. Yet his name has become a sacred word in the Leftist led Black movement.

Enough.

And it was two housewives with children in strollers talking.

“I expect at any moment they will indict Trump for leaving his cocaine in the White House”

I may or may not have spit some of my ice cream soda on the floor when I heard that.

Firewood, that is.

Split about a cord today before it got too hot. . The handmade 40+y ear old woodsplitter just Keeps on Keepin’ On. It’s 0n it’s 4th (used) engine but other than hoses it’s never needed anything else. I did have to put a new (Amazon/Chinese) carburetor on this engine as the old one had too many issues and a rebuild kit was more than the new carb, but hey….

Now I gotta let it sit and dry for a week or so and then toss it in the basement for stacking and cut some more rounds to split. I need one more cord, more or less, for this winter. .

Scheduled for 8 AM  and the weather was, if not perfect, at least acceptable.

Preflighted the Apache, started the engines, warmed ’em up…listened to the ASOS, chose the runway, taxiied….did the runup. Did a procedures briefing as to what happens during takeoff emergencies, which surprised the instructor, but I didn’t want there to be any question as to who was doing what if we actually lost an engine on takeoff or what the plan would be if we did.

Waited for an arriving aircraft to land and clear the runway, then pulled out, lined up, advanced the throttles and took off.

My first time in an Apache…..Not too bad of an airplane…..kinda heavy in the controls, even with trim…..and the trim is up on the ceiling, which takes some getting used to. You trim a LOT in this airplane… Flaps and power changes make a HUGE difference in the control feel, but again, trim.

Up with the gear, and turned crosswind. And, of course, the instructor did an engine failure. Not simulated either…..

The plan had been for me to fly a bit and get used to the aircraft then do some engine out drills…….but he changed the plan.

I did “The Drill” ….throttles, props, mixtures full forward, gear and flaps were already up, but I made sure….Identify, verify, and secure the dead engine/prop. Not a big deal, and the Apache flew fairly well with the left engine out. Having satisfied him that I knew what to do, we restarted the left engine and left the pattern.

Then I did some flying, dodging clouds, some steep turns, a couple of stalls just to get the feel for the aircraft, and we turned back to the airport to do an approach… Set it up in the 530, put on the foggles…. the instructor started playing ATC, giving me vectors. Got onto the GPS “Localizer” and….aaaand another engine failure…and another “Drill”….I did the approach to minimums, and then called missed and went around. Restarted the engine and we climbed into the pattern..

We flew away from the airport and  then back in. Entered the pattern on the downwind, (Had to go wide ’cause I was a bit fast, and there was another (slower) single engine plane in front of us), turned base and set up for final… GUMPS and all that and my final was perfect….until it wasn’t. As the mains touched we floated and the nose dropped and I chose to apply power and go around. The instructor asked why I didn’t just pick up the nose and hold it to lose energy. I explained that I didn’t wanna cause “Pilot Induced  Oscillation” (which can happen and causes quite a few accidents) and that I felt that Go Around was the better option. He thought that I should have held it off and landed but agreed that Go Around is always an option…..(Trust me, it is always an option, and often the best one)…besides, I was the PIC…my call.

We re-entered the pattern and I did a much better landing the next time, then taxiied back and took off and did one more GPS approach…Had no issues except getting my crosswind correction figured on the last 5 miles…but I got it handled and the last 2 or so mile approach was smooth. Never took the foggles off, but I did look up when he told me to at about 100 ft on short final and did a nice smooth crosswind landing.

Overall my skills haven’t deteriorated that much. The plane was unfamiliar to me, so that took some getting used to (I really miss my 340) but I can still fly a twin well, and I can still handle engine out emergencies reasonably well, even “unexpected” ones. I am confident that I can fly the 340 as soon as we get the final missing part from Ram.

All told it was a good morning.

So 1.8, 2 landing, 2 approaches and a go around.

Now if Ram Engines can pull their thumb out, and get us the parts and pieces they forgot to send with the engines, I can be flying in MY plane soon.

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