. . .
K “Last March while hanging around the hangar grounded by the weather, a few fly boys and girls were hangar flying the script for a movie about the New Zealand bug out estates that are all the rage among the parvenu jet set. And mulled the job opportunities. We posited three perspectives – the valiant and selfless pilot of one evacuation plane, the oligarch on another air ship, and a kleptocrat’s cute kid on the third bird who questions the insanity and absurdity of the scheme.”
J “Bugging out is not without bugs and not just the ones implanted on the windscreen. The first plane may never take off because of mechanical problems, the second air ship may be lost in transit because of navigation and communication difficulties occasioned by the Collapse, and the third bird may arrive to find tents, yurts, buses, campers and other structures and local folks trying to survive who are covering the runway and precluding a safe landing.”
. . .
J “The thinking is that the pilot’s family must be accommodated on the manifest. Imagine the pilot’s daughter caught in swelling traffic during the Collapse an hour from the airport compelling her father to stall the departure by claiming that the stall warning system is malfunctioning. She is trying to taxi her Gremlin to the airport while her dad is faking a gremlin in the cock pit.”
K “So let’s say they get everyone safely buckled into the air ship. Heat conspiring with altitude produces ‘density altitude’ that can ground a plane because the craft physically cannot lift off the ground. Phoenix may have arisen from the ashes, but the planes at PHX may not arise from the tarmac in the summer. WX is such a bugger.”
J “If they lift the craft off the ground and then the GPS system goes south, they are left with no idea whether they are heading north or south.”
K “The best laid plans.”
. . .
K “No one is going to inquire whether you have made three touch and goes in the last ninety days. However, can you make one takeoff and one landing in the next nine hours?”
. . .
K “Imagine the surprise in the cockpit when they come upon the LZ in NZ. ‘Robber Baron Estate traffic, N0666Whiskey turning final landing one three . . . Romeo Bravo traffic, 66Whiskey overflying the airport.’ No place to run (fly), no place to hide (land).”
J “They could squawk 7700 to their heart’s delight in a world that will be indifferent to their flight and to their plight.”
K “Some of the helpless villagers have silently squawked 7500 all their lives to announce that their existence was indeed hijacked.”
. . .
J “Even if they armed their jets and mowed down the little people down on the runway, they may not be able to rid the strip of detritus and dead bodies to make a safe landing.”
K “Dollars are shackles. If their money is no good, the wage slaves are suddenly emancipated.”
J “Someone on the ground formerly enslaved on the payroll has little incentive to assist his or her oppressor. And may perhaps harbor some resentment at his or her former master.”
. . .
K “So are we on a CFIT or an UFIT?”
J “We are UnFIT.”
. . .
K “If you want to make the gods laugh, just share your plans with them.”
J “We need to laugh.”
. . .
[See “‘Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich” in “The New York Times” by Evan Osnos dated January 30, 2017.]
[See the e-commentary on the prospects for the Empire and the planet passim.]
Bumper stickers of the week:
CFIT: Society’s flightpath
We are way behind the power curve
No place to run (fly), no place to hide (land)
What happens when you are running out of altitude, airspeed and ideas at the same time?
“Pull up . . . pull up . . . pull up.” . . . “Or level off if your airspeed is too low.”
Crank, yank and bank
Aviate, navigate, communicate
Fly the plane, fly it where you want it to go, tell someone about it
What are the two most dangerous words in aviation: “Watch this.”
Stay tuned
e-commentary 