{"id":232,"date":"2007-05-12T15:51:30","date_gmt":"2007-05-12T22:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=232"},"modified":"2007-11-03T15:18:26","modified_gmt":"2007-11-03T22:18:26","slug":"son-of-saturday-morning-catch-up-blogging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=232","title":{"rendered":"Son of Saturday Morning Catch-Up Blogging"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, I cede the battle<\/a>.\u00a0 Our ground squirrels and pack rats are smarter than the traps I set out for them.\u00a0 For now, they have the run of the property.\u00a0 For now, they scoff at me.<\/p>\n

Vermin take note: I have not ceded the war.<\/p>\n

Yesterday’s news today: our first 100-degree day; regular gas finally breaks the 3-dollar barrier.\u00a0 The first is an\u00a0immutable\u00a0fact of nature.\u00a0 The second is not, but our betters would have us think it is.<\/p>\n

Everyone – from left to right – agrees that gas prices are manipulated by the oil companies.\u00a0 Everyone agrees that mankind is overfishing and depleting the oceans.\u00a0 Everyone agrees that we’re capable of destroying life as we know it with current stockpiles of nuclear weapons.\u00a0 Why, then, do so many resist the notion that we might be contributing to global warming?\u00a0 Hey, I don’t know.\u00a0 Can one of you clue me in?<\/p>\n

In a previous entry\u00a0I vowed to pedal my bicycle all the way up Freeman Hill.\u00a0\u00a0The\u00a0hill is part of a short 10-mile training route, but it’s steep.\u00a0 Anyway, I did it.\u00a0 Twice.\u00a0 It wasn’t any easier the second time.\u00a0 Donna and I rode this morning but neither one of us felt like tackling the hill.\u00a0 We’ll go on a longer ride tomorrow morning to atone for today’s wimpage.<\/p>\n

We’re flying to Missouri Thursday for a short visit with my dad.\u00a0 It’s going to be hot and humid (no, check that, extremely humid<\/a>).\u00a0 Dad’s been having a rough time, but my sisters and step-sisters say company still cheers him up.\u00a0 I hope we can help in the cheer department, even if it’s just a little.\u00a0 We’re bringing an interesting book about pigeons<\/a> we both enjoyed, and if he’s up for it we’ll read it to him.<\/p>\n

Speading of reading to dad, my sister Charleen has been reading\u00a0parts of my blog to him.\u00a0 Ever since she told me, naturally, I’ve had blogger’s block.\u00a0 Are my stories seemly; do they reflect credit upon the Woodford name; how many ways have I offended thee,\u00a0et cetera<\/em>.\u00a0 I have a novelist friend<\/a> who rarely, if ever, writes about sex.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because he has to live with his wife!\u00a0\u00a0When I sense that fatherly presence looking over my shoulder as I write,\u00a0I know where my friend’s coming from.<\/p>\n

But maybe dad will like this story:<\/p>\n

At Kadena Air Base, in the early 1990s, I\u00a0was number two of a four-ship air combat tactics mission.\u00a0 After two engagements, three and four called bingo (the preset fuel level at which you start your recovery) and flew home, so there were only two of us left.\u00a0 Lead and I had enough fuel to fly a couple of intercepts on each other, then we too hit bingo and started home.<\/p>\n

The fighter wing at Kadena had a “Red Baron” program.\u00a0 The way this worked, certain F-15 pilots (you had to be a four-ship flight lead and fairly senior, as I recall), so long as they had extra fuel after completing\u00a0training missions, were allowed to intercept other F-15 flights proceeding to or from the\u00a0overwater working areas.\u00a0 The idea was to train pilots to keep a good visual lookout, to keep their heads on a swivel.\u00a0 If you managed to roll in behind a flight before anyone saw you, score one for the Red Baron.\u00a0 If they saw you in time to react defensively, good on them.<\/p>\n

We knew a buddy of ours was flying Red Baron between our position and the island of Okinawa, so we started our recovery in tactical formation, line abreast with two miles of lateral spacing, an ideal formation for checking each other’s six.\u00a0 We\u00a0contacted the Red Baron on a prearranged radio frequency to work out altitude blocks.\u00a0 We agreed to stay in the zeros to fours\u00a0(20,000-24,000 feet, 30,000-34,000 feet, etc); he agreed to stay in the fives to nines\u00a0(25,000-29,000, 35,000-39,000).\u00a0 This\u00a0guaranteed a minimum\u00a01,000 foot vertical separation so we wouldn’t have a midair with the guy in the event we closed without establishing visual contact.<\/p>\n

We didn’t want to use our radars to find him, and we didn’t expect him to use his radar either.\u00a0 Since it’s somewhat easier to eyeball another airplane when you’re looking down on it, we climbed right up to our training ceiling of 50,000 feet – the bottom of a zero to four block, as agreed – and turned west toward Okinawa.\u00a0 About a minute later, while glancing north at lead, I saw something gray flash between us, heading east.\u00a0 It was the Red Baron, also level at 50,000 feet, no doubt looking down and trying to find us.\u00a0 In our block.<\/p>\n

Talk about a close call.\u00a0 We were on opposite headings with a closing velocity somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 knots, exactly co-altitude, all three of us within a tiny patch of air two miles wide.\u00a0\u00a0If the pilot flying Red Baron had been a little to the south my wife – and his – would have been widows.\u00a0 If he’d been a little to the north\u00a0I’d have been looking at a fireball and\u00a0thinking Holy Shit!<\/p>\n

As it was, all I could do was key the mike and say “Uh,” to which lead responded, “Say again?”\u00a0 Lead never saw the Red Baron.\u00a0\u00a0The Red Baron\u00a0never saw us.\u00a0 If I hadn’t glanced at lead at precisely that second, I wouldn’t have seen a thing.<\/p>\n

That’s why you don’t cheat on altitude blocks.\u00a0 Remember that next time you fly!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, I cede the battle.\u00a0 Our ground squirrels and pack rats are smarter than the traps I set out for them.\u00a0 For now, they have the run of the property.\u00a0 For now, they scoff at me. Vermin take note: I have not ceded the war. Yesterday’s news today: our first 100-degree day; regular gas finally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,3,14,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bicycling","category-flying","category-military","category-personal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}