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Recruiting - 2020
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Everything posted by CHIEF
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Absolutely not a maintenance issue. It was a pilot proficiency issue. The pilot should have known about the blind spot, he wasn't paying attention early enough. He was directly over the B-17, it was under his nose, impossible to see from any angle unless the B-17 were to turn before the P-63 when the P-63 pilot could have seen it before his leading edge covered him up again. The air boss should have made the P-63 pilot aware that there was a B-17 under him, and to maintain altitude. Who knows? Too many planes in the air in a congested area, and too many changes in altitude. The P-63 never made any last second effort to avoid the collision, thus my hypothesis that he never saw him. These pilots pay too much money, or maintenance time to want to just fly straight and level. Who wants to buy an F1 car and drive it 60 mph around the track. Airshows are like that, and they are all "Newbies" in a sense. I bet none of them have over 100 hours of seat time in anything they fly due to cost. I remember when you could purchase a P-51 for between $300-500k. My dream plane. As soon as I made enough money to purchase one, that was what I was going to do, and people would get to watch me at airshows. Big dreams for a 16 year old. After being around Don and Howard, I realized that the purchase price was just a drop in the bucket. You needed to pour that much into it, annually, for maintenance and enough fuel to stay proficient, and this was on $2.00/gal 100LL. These warbird pilots are living their dream, however, they were completely unaware of how much extra dough you must have above the purchase price to be safe in it. Something that my time as a mechanic and being around warbirds, and their owners taught me. It was a bitter truth, and a crushed dream. I remember throwing full blown toddler temper tantrums when we had to go to church on Sunday night (my Dad was the song leader) and missing Baa Baa Black Sheep. No VCR, no recording it. I think my mom was the one that called ABC and had it moved to Tuesday night. I slept, ate, and drank WWII warbirds. Yeah, F8F, I was bourbon typing, had to look this morning and see what I had typed. CHIEF
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Thats the thing, this is 75 year old "cutting edge" technology. Basically flathead Fords going 450 mph. It is getting tougher and tougher to source parts, so mechanics and machinists are having to repair broken parts manually (welding, duck tape, remachining taking off material thickness). But the biggest problem, is the operating costs. These planes were designed to fly on 100/150 AV gas, they weren't designed to fly on 100LL, but 100LL will work at lower power at lower altitudes. 100LL fouls the plugs horribly, the plugs need to be cleaned after a 6-8 hours of flight. We had a crop duster at our FBO that used an AgCat with an O-650 P&W (single row), built in 1943. I cleaned his plugs every other day during spraying season. Also, the 100LL was bad on the brass valve seats. We eventually had a machinist make some out of billet nickel for extra hardness. Considering this, and the cost of 100LL, pilots can only afford to fly them a couple of hours a month. There is no way to maintain proficiency at the controls. You do not have the US government providing unlimited fuel and a sea of mechanics to maintain these aircraft, they are too cost prohibitive. CHIEF
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Old Warbirds are just inherently very dangerous. I was a mechanic at the FBO in Clifton, Texas during college. I knew three people who were killed in a P-51, an 8F8 Bearcat, and another warbird that I can't remember: Don Knapp, in 1989, cool dude. Owned a P-51D, a triple row Wasp F4U that won the 1949 Cleveland Air Race, and, at the time, the only Me-262 (all in parts in crates) known to exist. He ran his P-51 out of gas at the air show at Dyess, in Abilene (his home base) in 1989. My boss' wife was from Abilene, we would go out there every year for the airshow. Her brother was an A&P at the American Eagle repair facility, next door to Don, in the same sized hanger. I was lucky enough to get to sit in the cockpit of both the P-51, and the F4U. Another amazing airshow, we would go to, was in Breckenridge, Texas. My boss and Howard Pardue were pretty good friends. Howard had an extensive restoration facility at the airport. You could walk into his hangar, and there would be partially assembled Spitfires, P-51s, F4Us, you name it. His pride and joy was his 8F8 Bearcat, couldn't wait to get it in the air. Well he did, and it killed him in 2012. His daughter, Kimberly, was killed in a warbird, that she was piloting in 1984, at only 19 years of age. I never wanted to bring it up, and ask Howard what she was flying when she crashed, I guess you could also say I didn't know her personally, but he named his 8F8 after her. One year, my boss had this great idea to fly this piece of shit to Breckenridge: https://www.pietenpolaircraftcompany.com It was all painted up like the Red Baron, Iron Cross, the whole enchilada, from Clifton to Breckenridge, Stephenville was our midway stop to refuel (his wife was waiting with car gas). We had rebuilt the 1935 Lambert five cylinder radial to power it. It didn't have any pistons when we got it, but standard 350 Chevrolet pistons fit it perfectly. At that time, Stephenville had a crosswind runway, and the wind was out of the west, so away we went. On the climb out, the engine sputtered and begin to loss power, we were descending directly into a big power station with huge transformers, heavy gauge wire, etc. Asshole puckering moment, it cleared up after about 5-6 seconds. My boss just looked back, smiled, and winked. The control sticks were two sawed off baseball bats, no instruments, and a float gauge for the fuel level (it had a marked wire, you knew how much fuel you had by how far the wire stuck up out of the fuel cap). There were no trim tabs, so it was like fighting a Grizzly, the whole way. You could look down, and old farm trucks were pulling on you. We flew the highway, and made a deal to switch, as the pilot, at each town we came to (about 12 miles apart). It was absolutely exhausting. The only cool thing was spitting over the side, and realizing you had just spit 3000 feet. I also had the chance to buy a Cassutt from my high school history teacher and aviation teacher's FIL: https://www.cassuttaircraft.com But with less than 100 hours, he said we would have to rename it "Casket". Could have bought it for $5k in 1986. Also had a chance to buy a Pitts Special biplane that had been flooded in the Leon river bottom for $9500 around 1990 from a guy that lost his leg in an airshow accident, and had lost his medical. My Boss nixed that. Like I would have been with those planes, the people flying these warbirds are getting in over their heads. Their money lets them hotrod in hot planes that even airline pilots with thousands of hours aren't qualified to fly. In wartime, this was probably a daily occurrence you never heard about. The flight hours to be competent gets shaved by deep pockets. These planes are not very reliable, Howard was killed due to engine problems, Don had a faulty fuel gauge. It's dangerous enough to fly them with no one else in your airspace. Get them in close proximity and showing off and you get midair collisions. CHIEF
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My minor was history, if I took four semesters of a foreign language I would have a B.A. One of the things that really stuck with me, in a military history class, Dr. Pierce (my professor) had a hypothesis that rifled barrels were the most significant development in warfare. He said it was what ultimately won the American Revolution, and was responsible for the carnage of the Civil War. The accuracy of rifled barrels has single-handedly killed more humans than practically anything else. CHIEF
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Was about to post the same thing. CHIEF
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The protesters need to start taking all of their guns and ammo, then target other police, kill them, and take their guns and ammo. Kind of a domino effect to get armed. CHIEF
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So the Russian options are freeze to death in a subzero foxhole or get drone attacked by sitting 2-3 deep around a cozy campfire? I don’t think we have seen the highest daily death rates for Russians yet. They could loose 200k this winter without a single Ukrainian getting within rifle range. CHIEF
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Well the kid had minor head injuries, and was released. Probably went and had a triple meat, triple cheese. CHIEF
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SB, I happen to have the solution for your esophageal dilemma, it's my solution for when I get the same inevitable diagnosis: CHIEF
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CHIEF Jr.'s sleeping spot on fall evenings when it rains. A few beers, some moonshine, a citronella candle for skeeters, and rain hitting a metal roof. CHIEF
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I think Pink Floyd sang about him when he took the “Union Jack” during the Falklands CHIEF
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If he needs some "broken crackers" to put in his chili, he can find them all whining over on Texags. CHIEF
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2023 Transfer Thread - Texas Capitalized, ATM Victimized
CHIEF replied to closetojumping's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
The Sleeping Giant has holes in his pockets. CHIEF -
2021 - Is inflation finally back in the conversation?
CHIEF replied to Reagan1k's topic in Business and Markets
Does this take into account decreased volume?. Less pies mean you need to make more on your pies if you are selling less pies. CHIEF -
Buy a few hundred Toyota Hulux and mount M-134s in the bed. M-134s have been around since 1963, so we should have quite a few available, and 7.62 ammo is cheaper than 20mm. Serves a dual purpose, shoot down Iranian drones, and cut through Russians. Even civilians have a few: CHIEF
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Texas is undefeated with Quinn. It's gonna stay that way. You pearl clutchin' motherfuckers better get on the train, or look like the sad motherfuckin' pussies that you are. I don't even know how your anemic, inbred, paranoid ancestors even crossed the Ocean to get to America. They would be ashamed. Be a man, be 40. CHIEF
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OOOH TRIXIE. CHIEF
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I don’t know. Maybe stealing money from people for exercising their 1st Amendment rights shouldn’t sit well with most Americans. “I may not like what you say, but defend your right to say it,” has gone completely out the window. It’s censorship under the guise of “ misinformation.” Only PayPal gets to determine what disinformation actually is. CHIEF
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Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
CHIEF replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
If the Mississippi schools hold onto Leach and Kiffin, Texas8&4 won't be beating them for a long time. They will be looking up at Alabama, Miss State, Ol' Miss, and probably LSU. With the rise of Georgia, Tennessee, and possibly Kentucky in the East, a conference championship will never be in their cards. CHIEF -
Ousted as head coach at Washington. Well, tan, and rested. Maybe he is the "magic bullet" that needs to come in and make PK's defense hit on all cylinders. We still need to get pressure on the QB though. CHIEF
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Texas Recruiting Notes 2023: Strippers, Monkeys, and 5-Stars
CHIEF replied to Machinator's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
I just wonder if Oklahoma shitting the bed dries up donations and ticket sales. If there was a buyout, would they be able to pay it? CHIEF -
Quinn "La Joya" Ewers - The Man The Myth The Mullet
CHIEF replied to Coach pop a bitch's topic in Football
One, and it is him. CHIEF -
CHIEF
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Mrs. CHIEF is in Houston, and doesn't want to drive all the way back to Granbury to pick me up and drive all the way to Austin. Cleburne is a big railroad town. I'm jumping on an Amtrak at 2:52pm and will get off in Taylor at 5:36pm. My BIL's office is about 20 minutes away. You can bring your own booze and snacks on board. Total cost was $23.00. So for DFW peeps its $30 to downtown Austin, then $46 back to DFW on Sunday. Choo-choo is ur friend. CHIEF
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She is a 56 year old smoke show. Im not sure you want to see that. 56 years old, no kids, and a cat, imagine that. CHIEF
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