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Right Angle: Backstage 08/29/23

Bill has to crack out the parachute he always keeps under his desk and prepares to Eject! Eject! Eject!

All of the usual kernels of Deep Thoughts embedded in a great deal of chaff, plus so much talk of amusement park rides and skydiving experiences that Bill has to crack out the parachute he always keeps under his desk and prepares to Eject! Eject! Eject! All this and so much less on this edition of Right Angle: Backstage!

35 replies on “Right Angle: Backstage 08/29/23”

Also fascinating discussion about burning new neurons and creating new pathways (synapses I guess) into your brain. I was a corporate instructor and not very technical until I taught myself to play the piano from authentic note-for-note transcriptions. I re-engineered my career, became very technical, and thanks to Elton John, have had a stellar IT career.

Fascinating discussion about eye-hand coordination and your brain figuring out where a baseball will be based on its trajectory. From the shortstop position I ran out to short/mid center field for a fly ball periodically turning my head to make a note of its location. On the last turn of my head toward the infield the baseball was nowhere to be seen so I quickly threw up my right bare hand behind my head and the ball landed smack dab in the middle of my palm. Then the center fielder caught me.

It’s almost like God knew what He was doing when He engineered our brain-eye interface. ANYBODY who believes in the Religion of Evolution (i.e. monkey business) is excercising amputated-eyeball quality BLIND faith. I’ve only got enough faith to believe God did it… just as He said He did it.

Rumor spreadin’ ’round
In that Texas town
About that shack outside La Grange
(And you know what I’m talkin’ about)
Just let me know if you wanna go
To that home out on the range

I know that this is done for the membership, and it is my favorite content on BW(dot)com, but does anyone else think that if Bill wants to do another membership push that putting BackStage out on Rumble and YT for free for a short time would generate some new members?
Maybe cut them up into shorter segments with a tag “see what you’ve been missing” type of headline.

I always watched the free YouTube releases and occasionally they’d drop a backstate episode. I signed up for membership just for the backstage episodes and for several years now considered it money well spent.

This is not a trivial thing, at least not in my case. This is the only thing I subscribe to and pay money for. This is an exceptional site. Bill, Scott and Steve are men after my own heart. In another life we’d be friends and they’d give me grief about what a grumpy old phart I am. Just like all my other friends do.

Backstage makes these guys “real people” and I like the real people I’m seeing. I second your motion.

Scott Ott, in a Lazlo bungled counter to the uppercut, commented about the ether. That explains so much. Ether binges can really twist reality. “get those damn bats outta here!”

Alright then …

Why would you jump out of an airplane that’s operating more-or-less correctly?

Answer: I would not do so voluntarily.

On airliners I usually try to get an aft bulkhead aisle seat. No one behind me kicking my seat, no one behind me stowing gear under my seat, usually the first to be served when the stewardesses roll out their carts and most important of all very close to the restroom. Many aircraft have some sort of emergency exit in the tail area too. (During the safety brief before the flight they kind of gloss over that fact and just point to the rear of the aircraft.) The ride isn’t the best on the plane but you’re about as far from engine noise as you’re going to get. After landing you can remain seated until the herd is mostly deplaned and walk off after the crowd is done doing what crowds do. It’s the perfect spot to eavesdrop on the stewardesses too. Which can be both entertaining and informative.

After about my two dozenth flight the novelty and wonder of sitting in a window seat wore off and it just became a matter of enduring the ordeal as comfortably as possible. If I never fly in an airliner again that’s fine with me.

I don’t even want to talk about parachuting. I’ve jumped because that was in my job description. I never found it particularly “fun”. Maybe because I’ve seen some gawd-awful results from jump accidents. Which still make me shudder even decades later.

Scott? You need a pair of Corcoran Jump Boots. They’re comfortable, built for parachute landings and they’re not cheap. Like north of $250 today, I just looked them up … I wore a pair of Corcorans in the Middle East until they rotted off my feet. I couldn’t get another pair until I got back to the States. Where I was at the USPS doesn’t deliver and Amazon had not yet been invented.

And the human brain is shrinking because we don’t have to know nearly as much as we used to (we ask our phone) and survival doesn’t depend on smarts anymore (we keep people alive that Darwin’s idea would have allowed to be dead).

Early in my career, say 1978, I’m in Bill’s stomping grounds, Burbank “Municipal” Airport (Yeah, that long ago). I was flying home from San Diego on Air Cal, and we made a quick stop in Burbank to get more passengers, and to top off with fuel. Passengers getting their belts on, door about to close, pump truck under the wing fueling us up…with lots of smoke coming out of the truck. Then more smoke. Then LOTS of smoke. Just then, two flight attendants come running down the center isle and with very firm, very loud voices, tell us to exit the plane AT ONCE!. And they meant it. Leave EVERYTHING she said and again, she meant it. It was clear that the fueling truck had caught on fire of some sort, and they cleared us out of the plane, down the old stairs before there were jetways, and we ran, RAN, to the safety of the terminal. I looked back to see the tanker billowing with smoke.
I recall one brief moment exiting the plane, where an older woman fell right in front of me. I could have just trampled her, as others were trying to trample me from behind. I didn’t help her up, but I did grab the headrests of the seats on both sides and just pushed against the force of the panicked passengers behind me, just for about 4 seconds, so the lady could get back up and head down the center isle to the exit, then we all kept going behind her.
Bill’s story of buttering the fat passenger, or buttering the edges of the emergency exit, brought back this true experience of mine, one which I hadn’t thought of in 40 years. It’s hilariously funny until it’s your time to rush off a plane, then it’s just pretty terrifying.

You stopped mid-story!
What was on fire? Did they put the fuel truck out? Tow it away from the plane? How long did it take to get everyone back on.
So many details and yarn left to spin.
Did you have enough time to get a drink or six?
Those of us who grew up on Paul Harvey (and now Mike Rowe) want to know The Rest of the Story.

Well, since you asked….. a short 1 hour in the terminal, plane was fine, it was the pump on the truck which was smoking. Never saw flames. Before I better understood AV fuel, I thought we’d go up like a gallon can of gas being filled by a guy smoking a cigarette. We all would have gotten on sooner than the 1 hour, but a few of the passengers had to refuel themselves at the bar in order to get back on the plane. I was freaked out only because I had left my backpack with my precious TI-59 inside of it. I panicked that someone might steal my advanced technology!
That was an event way less scary than loosing an engine on a 757 on climb out of SFO, Northwest Airlines this time, resulting in a dramatic yaw, then a way-over correction, big yaw again, then an angled nose dive right at Travis AFB, gained flight speed, stabilized, slow flat turn back to SFO and the smoothest landing ever. Passengers went from tears to cheers at that moment.
Northwest had us wait 3 hours until they could pull out a DC-10 from the service hanger and put it at another gate. As we walked up to the new gate, Top engine cowling was open, fluids sliding the the skin at the plane’s tail and onto the concrete. Puddles everywhere. OHHHHHH KAAAAAAY. I’m out. Nope. Not flying today. Pulled my bags…drove home. Two Northwest mishaps in 1 day would have killed me, virtually!
All this, and you’d think I’d would never have made 120 trips across the Pacific in the years to come.

Ah, you remember Timex Sinclair 1000! My work associate bought one and he thought it was better than gold. And Quarterdeck office systems, and, and, and…..

and you were spot on about the “what’s that thing you have on your hip?…It’s awesome!” comments. I ignored the “Geek!” catcalls.

Steve talking about volunteering at the radio station to jump out of an airplane had me instantly quoting Les Nessman.
If you know, you know.

I live in Southern Az, there are fussures 10 ft wide due to ground water consumption in some places and theyhave gone across roads. Sad part of this is that the water hasbeen used to grow different crops; pecans, hay, that is then shipped to mostly Arabic countries. So basically we r shipping our water to countries that in some cases are not our friends

My Wife makes the airline reservations, last flight she placed us in the over wing row. We get seated and before the flight attendant asked, I told her that BOTH OF US are responsible for getting everyone out of the exit. I do not think she will choose those seats again.

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