JohnMitchell

One of my daughters lives in Sault Ste. Marie, MI, up on the Canadian border. This summer she flew to Salt Lake City to meet us for a family party. Her Delta Link flight out? Mechanical delay, 4 hours. Missed the afternoon flight out of Detroit, got put on the late flight that gets into SLC at midnight. Well, that flight had a mechanical delay, got into SLC at 2:30 am. Fine, at least my little girl made it to the party. Sunday morning flying SLC to Detroit, no problem. Valinda, I and some of the kids are in the minivan heading back from SLC to Seattle when I get a call from my daughter. Her flight from DTW to Sault Ste. Marie has been cancelled due to mechanical for the 2nd day in a row. Her boyfriend was making the 6 hour drive down to come get her. Delta was not helping her at all. We coached her to go get a voucher for a hotel room, which they did. They refused to give her a refund but I told her no worries. I called customer service and unleashed pissed-off-middle-aged-guy on them and got her a refund and a flight voucher. Mechanical delays or cancellations on 3 out of 4 flights? There's gotta be something wrong with Delta.

That's right! And I was wearing flannel and a Melvins t-shirt at the time.

Theplummeter is right. Whenever demand is projected to exceed capacity at a major airport, a whole list of initiatives get activated, from airborne metering delays, calls for release and expect departure clearance times to nationwide groundstops. I've done them all. With only one runway an airport's acceptance rate plummets. Add even a little weather and it drops further. Frustrating, but not much you can do.

Nope, it's all been done before, back in the "Convoy" days. Besides, ATC talk is waaay cooler than that. I have been busted for chatting with a pilot or two when it's slow, maybe they're flying a cool warbird, homebuilt or something, sometimes just saying Hi to someone I know flying thru my sector. I couldn't care less because I do the rest of the job really well.

Naw, I have a trainee today. I'm sitting behind him watching he run the planes around. More fun than a low pull contest.

Isn't that the truth? I've noticed the same thing.

hell yeah, we watch a lot of train wrecks around here, don't we?

But it would be cool driving the train.

Really smart people accept that they are not special in time or space, but merely typical.

Nova = Spanish for "Won't go!" That should be warning enough.

Interesting opinion. I have ~ 1800 jumps on Stilettos, loaded 1.3 to 1.4 ish, pretty tame. I've had my share of line twists but only one chop due to line twists. Frustrating more than exciting. As much as I've enjoyed the performance and handling and usually soft openings, now that I'm dabbling in wingsuits I may have to shop around for a canopy more tolerant of line twists.

I'm pretty happy with my GoPro2, but it's great having all these choices at relatively low prices. Hi quality video is a fraction of the $$ it used to be.

Ahh, I don't know that one. I'd start by looking at 1950's British transport planes. That riding was amazing. That guy is Superman.

Not for long.

We might be doing a little Vegas trip. Thanks for the suggestion. Looked pretty sexy cool.

Family or friend? Some people just can't help being an annoyance. Think he'll ever figure it out?

Good to hear. Skydiving's a lot of fun when you get the hang of it.

What f-ing douche bags. I'd like to see how they handled the hell you went thru to come back from that horrible event. It's still not too late for us to go kick their asses.

It would have been nice to say "Yeah, they asked me to because they think the people you have doing it suck!" I've been lucky to always the the part time weekend guy with a M-F job during the week. I work a little, I fun jump a little and keep it pretty mixed up. If some DZO treated me the way they hollered at you, I'd pack it up and leave too. I hope they learned something from you.

Joe damn near bounced on the jump before his record leap. He had a double horseshoe malfunction. Only the foresight of a rigger to put in a breakcord bridle on the reserve pilot chute saved his life. The lightweight bridle finally snapped and the reserve opened. To go back up and do it again? Mr. Kittinger, my hat is off to you.

Good sense of balance there, Twardo. Yeager is a true hero. So is Felix. And especially Joe Kittenger. I've met none of them, just know them thru video and their writings. I think Chuck just maybe has trouble sharing the lime light a little. Too bad, but "humble" and "ace fighter pilot" are often mutually exclusive.

Just don't let her read the incidents reports.

He must be at the top of the curve to be offered the nuke jobs. I had a friend that went that route, enjoyed it very much, plus lots of career opportunities coming out. Tell your son thanks for his service.

The poster above you is correct. The speed of sound is proportional to temperature, not density, a common misconception. Indicated airspeed IS proportional to density. That's why the U-2 is so tricky to fly at high altitude. It's flying just above its stall speed (IAS) and just below its critical mach speed. The two speeds converge to form a "coffin corner."

I don't know. It looks like they faked it.