A tribute to an amazing adventurer about to talk on the very difficult.
Disney???
“A 61 year old guy locked in a multi-million dollar carbon fiber dildo doused in ten tons of gas flying in 100 degree below zero weather 9 miles high for three and a half days with no sleep and no toilet.”
I’ve really enjoyed your last 2 editorials.
Oh Yeah, there is that…
you go from being a racist one week to a cop out politically correct weiner the next…and here I thought you had a spine. j/k Tom. I like all your stuff…these naysayers are the weiners…ignore them.
I do.
Nice as usual Tom, also thanks for the link I will be checking in on his adventure.
Tom, 2 comments: first, how can I read the ‘non-disney’ version of your editorial?
Not to put down the efforts and pain tolerance of Mr. Fosset and his digestive system, I found the book, “The Gossamer Odyssey: The Triumph of Human-Powered Flight” to be also very impressive.
Incredible human horsepower and clever intellect solves one of the greatest dreams of humanity: to fly under one’s own power. A great book.
I filled out the application and submitted a resume to that prgram to be the pilot of the aircraft. I think they got about 2,000 applications.
Basically, they were looking for a category 2 bicycle racer or better who could fly a light plane. Perfect. I thought I was a shoe-in. Obviously not. It was an incredible effort. I was told the temperature inside the cockpit was over 100 degrees and the pilot had to maintain a cadence in excess of 100 rpm to remain aloft. Incredible.
Wow. You have been around.
So are you a pilot? glider? private pilot? other?
I can fly a '152, 172, some gliders and I actually steered a Yankee Air Force B-17G thorugh a turn while flying in it over Grosse Ile here in Michigan. Oh, I flew some kind of low wing Piper a couple times two… What was that? A Tomahawk I believe, that was a nice airplane and fun to fly. Like being in a fighter plane. I flew that with a flight school out of Detroit City Airport. Very fun.
I went to private pilot ground school, finished it, took some flight lessons and then just never went back. In the military I was around and in aircraft so much in made sense to learn as much as I could. It was also part of my job to know aircraft.
Little known fact: The money I used to open the store was originally going to be used to go to school at Embry Riddle in Arizona for Aviation Operations. I had been to school for computers and school in the military so that seemd like a logical progression. Then I opened the store…
Someday I have to go back to that. Occasionally we have customers fly in with their own aricraft to the local airport, Detroit Metro. I usually meet them at the airport or they take a crew car to the store. Some of them have had beautiful, beautiful airplanes and I am always envious.
Last fall a client flew in with a brand new Pilatus PC-12. I think I put a post up here when he did. That plane was oppulent- beautiful interior, full avionics, glass cockpit, brand spankin’ new. I drove them back out to the airport and he gave me a tour of the aircraft and let me sit in the cockpit. Awesome.
A lot of our customers are pilots and I am always a tirfle envious. Well, until 9/11/2001 I was envious…
My suggestion: go get some more training, solo, and get certificated in a 152 and maybe, if you are adventurous, a glider. Then you will have had about 95% of the fun I have had in aviation. Since the profession has profoundly changed (not for the better), the last 5% is not worth it. Believe me.
I would love to fly one of those Schweitzer sailplanes out over the desert where they get those incredible, long duration flights.
That is a must do.
No need to learn how to soar (but that would be nice), just learning how to manage the things and the always bleeding altitude is a lesson that always stays with you–and it can save your skin when later the powerplant in a single decides to quit on you.
So where is a copy of your non-disney editiorial?
Hey Tom, did you never try aerobatics? I did the C152, 172, 182, Cherokee route to the PPL and then got into a Rockwell 114 for my first complex single (retractable, undercarridge, variable pitch prop) and a bit of speed. But I got bored and had the opportunity to get a rating on a Pitts S2A, now that was fun! I took the aerobatics ratings and had a real blast, nothing like hanging inverted from a harness in an open cockpit for putting a smile on your face.
One question and an observation from your article. What is Leadville 100? I’m surprise that you made no mention of Richard Branson the self-made multi-millionaire who had a vision to think of the challenge and oversee the project. In 1986, his boat Virgin Atlantic Challenger 2 crossed the Atlantic in the fastest ever time. A year later, he crossed the Atlantic in the hot air balloon Virgin Atlantic Flyer with veteran balloonist Per Lindstrand, setting new records which stood until 1991, when the pair flew the Pacific Ocean in another “Flyer” balloon, setting a record distance of 6,761 miles.
Bare in mind that he has completed all his previous projects the next one doesn’t sound so off the wall: On September 25, 2004 he announced the signing of a deal under which a new space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, will license the technology behind SpaceShipOne to take paying passengers into suborbital space.
you do what…ignore the pundits or have a spine;-)
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