At Terminal Velocity even…

Five people were killed and several injured after a parachute landing a humanitarian airdrop failed to open, bringing a pallet crashing down into a crowd of people waiting for food north of Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp.

All the media is very carefully not saying which country was doing the airdrop when the defective parachute allowed the pallet of food to crash into the ground.

In their Op-Ed discussion of the Speech Joe Biden gave last night.

Pretty much everyone wonders what cocktail of stimulants and such was running through his veins last night. And how much more slurring of his words was gonna happen had they not delayed his entrance for timing so he could finish and get off stage before he blew up.

Give him credit, it was a valiant effort by Sleepy Joe.

Apparently it is gonna be a temporary floating pier. Technology that has been in use for decades, so not that big of a challenge engineering-wise. The Navy (and the Corps of Engineers)knows how to build those, even under fire. The harder part is keeping it safe

The issues I see are several-fold. Who is gonna do security at the point where it touches the land in Gaza? Israel? Egypt? The “UN” (hah!)?

Secondly, who is gonna provide cover for those ships, be they US Navy or private cargo, while they are unloading? Hamas has a thing with pipe and fertilizer rockets that are, actually, somewhat accurate. A ship in port, half unloaded, is a big fat target, as it the floating pier itself. Whoever is providing security is gonna have to deal with the fact that Hamas likes to shoot those rockets from apartment building and hospital roofs and parking lots and such. What’s gonna happen when, in suppressing Hamas rocket fire, the defenders of the port…either the US warships, the Israeli army or the Egyptians, kill a bunch of “innocent” “palestinian civilians”?

Thirdly, who is gonna provide inspections. We all know that someone will try to smuggle more weapons and ammunition in those truckloads of “aid”  Do you really think that Hamas and their ilk will not try to use the “aid” shipments as a conduit? I mean, we all know how honorable these people are, right? Who is gonna check those ‘Aid” shipments?

And do you really think that at some point, a Hamas “fighter” isn’t gonna detonate a truck on the pier itself?  Unless you are gonna provide drivers (and trucks that you will never recover) from the ships to the land, there will have to be “locals” and local trucks or trailers moving on that pier….

What’s gonna happen when the American servicemen at the gate to the pier are forced to shoot to keep someone from Gaza away from that gate? Then what? Or a truck bomb goes off at the gate?

This scheme is fraught with danger…..gonna get American servicemen killed, one way or the other.

And then we will be in that “war:.

There is NOTHING in Gaza that is worth brining the US into that mess.

May have paid for a verdict that Hannah Gutierrrez-Reed is culpable in the death of Halyna Hutchins of on his set, at the end of it, Alec Baldwin is responsible.

He held the pistol

He pointed it at his cinematographer

HE PULLED THE TRIGGER.

End. Stop. The gun was in his hands.

The responsibility was his, no one else’s. He should be jailed.

I think the delay before Biden entered the rotunda, and his VERY slow walk through the crowd was designed to make it so he has less time to kill in his speech It limited his exposure by a significant amount.

If all Ukraine wants is weapons to fight Russia, then why do they want (insist, actually) them as dollars? Why are they insisting that they come as “foreign aid” dollars that are unaccountable rather than actual hardware?

Lies about Jan 6th. He must think everyone is stupid. “you can’t love your country only when you win”….like all the Left was well behaved when it was Trump? Terrible double standards.

“Trust in our institutions”? Really? You all blew that 3 years ago.

Joe is losing it talking about the Pandemic and the vaccine….

Tell us again how great your economy is. Everyone but the Migrants are hurting. No one believes what you are saying. Not anyone who buys groceries or clothing or cars or pays rent.

Have you noticed how much Pete Buttigieg resembles Alfred E, Newman?

Yeah, does he really think that giving people mortgage funds for two years will make houses more affordable in the long term?

Yeah, Pell grants really made college more affordable.

Your reduction of student loan debt screwed those people who paid their loans. You only helped the Women’s studies and historical French literature (and basketweaving ) graduates who worked at Starbucks….

Please, define what percentage is a :”fair share”? How much is enough?

Lies, the “exploded deficit” was caused by increased spending. Funny how that works. Raising taxes is always offset by increased spending.

Tax the corporations yeah, that helps make for more jobs in the USA.

8.2% of a billion a year is a hell of a lot more than 20% of $50K a year.

You gonna bring back the retirement age to what they promised when I started payin’ into it? Back then it was full at 65.

Yeah, setting prices really worked in Venezuela, didn’t it?

You gonna cut those hidden taxes on Cell phones, cable bills etc? You complain about hidden fees.

You could cut the backlog by not allowing all those people into the US, and make ’em, stay in their home countries ….try closing the border.

What bullshit his logic is regarding the illegal immigrants. Oddly, Trump essentially closed the border, why won’t you?  Close the border instead of blaming others.

I’d really like to see anyone who is denied the right to vote. Especially a black person to whom the right to vote is denied. I think he’s full of shit.

Violent crime is down? Really? Where?

Kamala must have a spring in her seat, she pops up every other sentence.

Of course it is the Assault Weapons. And “High Capacity” magazines.. Yeah, that’s the problem. Not crime and criminals.

Hamas is hidden by the civilians (and the UN)…. the civilians help to hide and protect the Hama fighters and leadership. Admit that too, Mr. President.

Wow, he got out just in time. His stumbling over words and phrases was becoming worse nd worse.

think that if they tell us that despite our lying eyes the “Biden Economy” is better than the Trump economy?

Perhaps they believe that if they say it often enough people might start to believe them?

(and it seems to be always women who do stupid shit like this)

Overstepping their bounds and making proclamations about shit that they shouldn’t be messing with..(and, of course, making assumptions about shit that they know little about). But the “Assistant Under Secretary for Health for Operations” RimaAnn O. Nelson felt that it should be banned. (With a Name like RimaAnn, is there any doubt?)

(after all, the woman in the photo, Greta Friedman, apparently didn’t mind being kissed)…

(you can read it better in the link above the memo)

She had no authority to ban the photo, no real reason to (except her perception that it was a “Non-consensual act”) ….

And her boss overruled her.

But was she fired? Demoted? Removed from any position of authority? See, that’s the real question. If she her judgement is that poor, should she have any authority at all?

One thing you know you can expect from any Democratic President during any Ste of the Union speech are the words “Fair Share” and “Rich”

They are gonna complain that they are not paying enough.

Also, expect “Unfair” and “Disadvantaged” as an excuse for those who made really bad choices in life.

I expect “Corporate Greed” might be uttered at least once.

Any other buzzwords you expect?

We (Aaron and myself) departed M54 just before noon, Checked out of the hotel, Ubered to the airport, filled the plane with 100LL (I like to watch ’em do it to make sure I don’t get filled with Jet-A, as that is a Bad Thing….) I did complain that they charged us a parking fee even though we bought fuel, which is usually waived if one buys a minimum of fuel (and we bought 80 gallons), we did a weather briefing (1-800-WxBrief) ,filed a flight plan on ForeFlight, hit the head, preflighted the plane, closed the door, taxiied, did the runup, called Nashville Clearance on the cell phone for our IFR clearance and squawk code, lined up  announced on the CTAF and took off. Climbed out (and, weirdly, I got vertigo Big Time for a few seconds on the climb….wanted to correct for a nonexistent right turn) in IMC after about 600 ft. Got back on the instruments, stopped trying to turn left (nstead of flying straight), shook off the vertigo, called Departure and got assigned an intermediate heading for the climb,..kept the climb to 3000 ft, then got cleared On-Course and cleared to 7000 ft…then up to 9K. We cleared the clouds at 2500 ft more or less, then cruise climbed up to our filed 9000 ft at about 155 knots.

Once at 9K, we set the cruise power to 70%….30 inches of manifold pressure and 2350 rpm at 17 gph per side. 189 knots or so. Closed the cowl flaps and gained a knot or two. We didn’t get the Cylinder Head Temps too high, but they did climb. What with the tailwind we were pushing 220 knots ground speed at times..(yes, I actually flew somewhere and got a tailwind….!)

2.3 hours to KPTK. An approach to 9R via the RNAV, (but it was visual inside of 10 miles) lots of crosswind, Approach wanted 170 knots or better to the initial approach fix…which we did. But then we hadda slow down….which is actually hard in the 340…. I went low, then high, then found the glideslope and followed it down. Winds were—challenging: 160 at 10 ish so a pretty good crosswind…..plus some turbulence on the short final.   Not my best landing, not my worst. Aaron learned what I meant then about getting the 340 slowed down to the proper airspeed for the final approach (we were carrying a LOT of energy from the high speed approach to the initial fix), but we got slowed down, dropped flaps, gear, and flaps…. and landed…As I said, not my best landing, but it was OK.

Unloaded Aaron and his luggage, fueled, hit the head again, filed a flight plan for 10K, and off I went home. While we were doing that some REALLY rich Saudis showed up in a custom 737 . (Aaron has the details at the end of his post)

Flight home was silky smooth until I was descended by ATC over South Bend, Michigan City and such… then it got really turbulent, so much so that I decelerated from 175 down to 130 knots. Dangerously sharp turbulence for a bit. Winds were straight from the south., so I got the RNAV for the correct runway direct to the FAF ((YOPHU)  and settled into a slow descent to 2200…Wind speeds were 18 gusting 34…..made for a bit of crosswind and a LOT of gust correction and gust factor. I ended up crossing the numbers  (20) at 90 knots airspeed but 60 knots groundspeed. The crosswind was fun as the gusts were sharp and ever changing.

Ran it out to the end and then taxiied slowly (to give the turbos a chance to cool) to the hangar.

Was, over all, a really good trip with Aaron and a fun weekend.

And stayed in their lane and out of stuff they shouldn’t be in….

And if maybe they didn’t screw up so much and waste so much money….

Then perhaps the states, both Liberal and Conservative, might not have such a huge number of citizens that want to secede