Posts Tagged ‘capt.’
Monday, November 16th, 2009
I don’t know, it seems like writer William Langewiesche, currently residing in France, wants to have it both ways with his new book, Fly by Wire: The Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on the Hudson. He wants to rip on Sully, thusly:
“His performance was a work of extraordinary concentration, which the public misread as coolness under fire. Some soldiers will recognize the distinction.”
“Like it or not, [French pilot Bernard Ziegler] reached out across the years and cradled them all the way to the water.”
But then when Langewiesche gets a little blowback, he folds up like a deck chair, talking about how he’s surprised by Sully’s reaction, and how he’s neither pro- nor anti- fly-by-wire, and how he thinks cockpit automation is merely ”a part of the story,” anyway, of Flight 1549. Well, duh, it’s a part of the story.
But that’s Langewiesche’s “Truth About the Miracle on the Hudson” – that’s it, that’s all there is?
Haven’t read Fly by Wire myself. Probably would rather read it more than Sully’s less-techy book (mostly about the his Search for What Really Matters), which I haven’t read either. Oh well.

Obviously, there are pros and cons to Die by Wire. If William Langewiesche is now going around saying that, as he is, then there’s not much of a dispute anymore, we’ll take solace in the certainly that the bruised egos of French Airbus execs (who want Sully to thank Gaia for Airbus every chance he gets) will heal over time.
I don’t know, pretty cheesy (fromagey?) Monsieur William Langewiesche.
Pretty cheesy.
Tags: 1549, 320, a320, a320-214, aa, airbus, airlines, airport, airways, American, B., bay area, bird, book, books, button, california, capt., Captain, charlotte, chesley, Chesley b. Sullenberger, chesley sullenberger, co-pilot, Contra Costa, crew, d. c., danville, deal, ditch, ditch switch, ditching, east bay, f-4, f4, facebook, fans, fighter, flight, fly by wire, france, french, geese, hero, highest duty, hudson, II, iii, inauguration, international, Jeff Skiles, jew, jewish, la guardia, Langewiesche, lga, manhattan, my search for what really matters, N106US, nc, north carolina, ny, nyc, obama, phantom, pilot, reliability, river, safety, safety reliability methods, San Francisco, SFO, sign, signing, strike, sullenberger, sullenburger, sully, terminal, tour, U.S., Washington, William, William Langewiesche, Writer
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Monday, October 19th, 2009
East Bay local Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger is back flying for U.S. Airways, but he’s still had time to write a book and go on tour. Sully will be at SFO tomorrow, in case you want to drop by at 11:00 AM. Otherwise, it costs $90k to arrange an appearance these days, so this is a good deal.
After all, Sully is Your Homeboy, right?

The SFO Hudson Bookseller is located pre-security (near the BART Station) in the Main Hall of the International Terminal on the “G” Area side.
October 20, 2009 – Tuesday
When: October 20, 2009 – Tuesday 11 a.m.
Where: Hudson Books, International Terminal (near Bart) San Francisco
What: Sully Sullenberger will be signing his new book “Highest Duty My Search for What Really Matters”
Tags: (BART), 1540, 320, a320, a320-214, aa, airbus, airlines, airport, airways, American, B., bay area, bird, book, books, button, california, capt., Captain, charlotte, chesley, Chesley b. Sullenberger, chesley sullenberger, co-pilot, Contra Costa, crew, d. c., danville, deal, ditch, ditch switch, ditching, east bay, f-4, f4, facebook, fans, fighter, flight, geese, hero, highest duty, hudson, II, iii, inauguration, international, Jeff Skiles, jew, jewish, la guardia, lga, manhattan, my search for what really matters, N106US, nc, north carolina, ny, nyc, obama, phantom, pilot, reliability, river, safety, safety reliability methods, San Francisco, SFO, sign, signing, strike, sullenberger, sullenburger, sully, terminal, tour, U.S., Washington
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Thursday, June 18th, 2009
Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger got famous after running into these critters earlier in the year, but you don’t need an airplane to encounter monstrous Canada Geese. Oh no. Just head over to Fremont, CA. They’ve got thousands of ‘em.
Click to expand:

First, they got Oakland, now they have Fremont.
Is San Francisco next?
Tags: 1540, 320, a320, a320-214, airbus, airlines, airways, American, B., bane, bay area, bird, california, canada, canadian, capt., Captain, central park, chesley, Chesley b. Sullenberger, chesley sullenberger, county, crew, danville, fremont, geese, golden gate park, hero, hudson, II, iii, N106US, pilot, safety, safety reliability methods, strike, sullenberger, sullenburger, sully, sully's bane
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Friday, May 8th, 2009
Let’s journey to insular, “secretive subdivision“ Westwood Highlands, on the slopes of Mount Davidson. Now whoever laid out and named the streets there must have had a sense of humor, because Hazelwood Avenue and Valdez Avenue are together forever, entwined through the ages.
Hazelwood, of course, was the captain of the oil-tanker Valdez when it spilled its guts all over Prince William Sound and beyond two decades ago. It was like the Cosco Busan oil spill excepting that it involved about 200 times as much petroleum.
Click to expand:

So that might be on your mind the next time you visit this small neighborhood of “minimal bungalows.”
Another thing that might strike you about Westwood Highlands was that it was one of the earliest planned residential communities in the United States, where property owners all would agree to be governed by a commons set of controls and restrictions. At the very least, that means “No Black People” is what that means.
Of course WestHigh wasn’t the only place in the world where this was the case, but it’s sort of funny when “born and raised in San Francisco” NIMBYs start talking about all the rules and customs they honor, they always leave this history out.
Here you go, this is typical. Just substitute “black people” for “in-law apartments” and “white people” for “single-family.”
IN-LAW UNIT AMNESTY
“Editor — Mayor Willie Brown’s recent re-election pledge to attempt to legalize the city’s illegal in-law apartments is unjust. Almost a hundred years ago many of San Francisco’s neighborhoods were designed and zoned for single-family use.
Our neighborhood, Westwood Highlands Homeowners, was so designated in 1924. Its status as such is further ensured by the mandatory covenants, controls and restrictions to which all Westwood Highlands residents must agree. Moreover, Proposition M, the voter mandate that states that the diversity of San Francisco’s neighborhoods be preserved, would be violated under this amnesty plan. People who move to single-family areas like ours because they enjoy the safety, convenience, parking and uncongested atmosphere that our single-family tracts have to offer have every right to do so.
In recent years, several city politicians have floated this illegal unit amnesty plan. In every case the plans have been abandoned. Mayor Brown should also give up on this unfair, unwise and unjust idea.
DAVID BISHO
President, Westwood Highlands Homeowners Association San Francisco”
You see? It’s the same argument. “My neighborhood was founded on the idea of ______, therefore it can never change.”
Little pink bungalo houses, for you and me and all the other pink people, and let’s keep it that way, for as long as we can, for as long as we can…
Tags: association, baldwin, baldwin & howell, brentwood, capt., Captain, covenants, DAVID BISHO, Dong Fang Ocean, exxoin, Exxon Valdez, fha, Hazelwood, homeowners, howell, Jeffrey, Joe, joseph, Joseph Hazelwood, Joseph J Hazelwood, Joseph Jeffrey Hazelwood, mangels, med, Mediterranean, mount davidson, oil, president, racism, racist, Residential Development Company, restrictive, s/r, S/R Mediterranean, SeaRiver, spill, tanker, valdez, Westwood Highlands, Westwood Highlands Homeowners
Posted in streets | 2 Comments »
Sunday, February 8th, 2009
Popular Bay Area local Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III was just seen on the East Coast in his debut interview on 60 Minutes. Not that I ever watch that show, but I’ll check it out tonight, just for kicks. The reminder that his interview with Katie Couric was going to be on tonight came from the spike in traffic this blog just received.
It seems America is still curious about the issue of whether Sully is Jewish (see below for the online search terms people are trying right now), a question that probably wouldn’t have occurred to me otherwise. The Jewish Post of New York (Your Gateway to the Jewish World) looked into it and signs point to no. But that’s O.K., right? A better question might be why he was prepared to act correctly on that day.

The Cap’n
Of course we have a lot of knucklehead pilots up there, so how do we get more like Sully? He stands out with his military experience, the amount of experience he has generally and the number of hours he has spent cogitating about accidents. It’s nice to know that he and his ilk won’t be forced to retire at age 60 (which, until recently, was a hard and fast rule.
And speaking of Sully’s future, it looks like San Francisco politico and Sullenberger family spokesperson Alex Clemens of Barbary Coast Consulting and the famous The Usual Suspects website will have his hands full sorting through all the offers, including one from Richard Branson of Virgin Air.
Anyway, here are some of the search terms people across America are using today:
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Tags: 1540, 320, 60 minutes, a320, a320-214, airbus, airlines, airways, American, B., bay area, bird, burnett, california, capt., Captain, charlotte, chesley, Chesley b. Sullenberger, chesley sullenberger, co-pilot, Contra Costa, county, crew, danville, daughters, ditching, east bay, f-4, f4, fans, fighter, flight, geese, german, google, hero, hudson, II, iii, Jeff Skiles, jew, jewish, Katie, katie couric, Kelly, keywords, la guardia, lga, lorrie, manhattan, Mayor, N106US, nc, north carolina, ny, nyc, obama, phantom, pilot, reliability, river, safety, safety reliability methods, search, strike, sullenberger, sullenburger, sully, terms, texas, U.S.
Posted in Uncategorized, bay area | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
The thing you’ve got to realize, is that sometimes things just happen. It’s not your fault, it’s not anyone else’s fault, it’s just, you know, things happen. Kind of like the time spokesmodel and romance novel cover-boy Fabio got hit in the face with a bird when he was on a roller coaster. Whose fault was that?
That’s something to ponder when you consider the whining of some of the passengers of famous Flight 1549, piloted by Bay Area local Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. You see, they gots to get more money than they’ve gotten so far from U.S. Airways

Of course, the airline isn’t done talking with people yet:
“US Airways Vice President Jim Olson says that an insurance claims specialist is contacting passengers and that they’ll be reimbursed for expenses or losses above $5,000. The airline wants to ensure no passenger is “losing money for the inconvenience or anything lost during the accident,” he says”
But that doesn’t stem the whining. Obviously, this was a traumatic event, but unless passengers want to allege something about defective engines (as Geraldo Rivera seems to be doing) or negligent bird vigilance by somebody, then maybe these passengers should be happy to take the five G’s, file any additional claims and then move on with their lives.
Just saying.
An old story:
A grandmother is sitting at the beach, watching her young grandson play in the water. Suddenly, an enormous wave crashes over the boy’s head, and when it recedes, the boy is gone, washed out to sea. Frantic, the grandmother cries out to God, “Lord, what has my grandson done to deserve this? Please bring him back to me, and I’ll forever be grateful to you!” Moments later, another enormous wave crashes against the shoreline, returning the boy to the beach, soaked but unharmed. He begins happily digging in the sand, oblivious to what just occurred. The grandmother looks at the boy, then raises her head to the sky. She shouts, “He had a hat!”
Today, this tale could be updated by replacing the word “hat” with Blackberry, or cell phone, PSP, whatever.
Oh well.
Tags: 320, a320, a320-214, aa, airbus, airlines, airport, airways, American, B., bay area, bird, button, california, capt., Captain, charlotte, chesley, Chesley b. Sullenberger, chesley sullenberger, co-pilot, Contra Costa, crew, D.C., danville, ditch, ditching, east bay, f-4, f4, facebook, fans, fighter, flight, flight 1540, geese, hero, hudson, II, iii, inauguration, Jeff Skiles, jew, jewish, manhattan, N106US, nc, north carolina, ny, nyc, obama, phantom, pilot, reliability, river, safety, safety reliability methods, strike, sullenberger, sullenburger, sully, U.S., Washington
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Saturday, January 24th, 2009
Well thousands turned out in Danville today to welcome hero pilot Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger III home. He’s been a bit busy lately, of course.
He’ll spill the beans about famous Flight 1549 to Katie Couric on 60 Minutes, February 8, 2009.

Lorrie Sullenberger with her husband in Danville today. Click to expand
We’ll just have to wait…
Tags: 1540, 320, a320, a320-214, airbus, airlines, airways, American, B., bay area, bird, burnett, california, capt., Captain, charlotte, chesley, Chesley b. Sullenberger, chesley sullenberger, co-pilot, Contra Costa, county, crew, danville, daughters, ditching, east bay, f-4, f4, fans, fighter, flight, geese, hero, hudson, II, iii, inauguration, Jeff Skiles, jew, jewish, Katie, Kelly, la guardia, lga, lorrie, manhattan, Mayor, N106US, nc, north carolina, ny, nyc, obama, phantom, pilot, reliability, river, safety, safety reliability methods, strike, sullenberger, sullenburger, sully, U.S., Washington
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Thursday, January 15th, 2009
Airline pilot and local Contra Costa County webmaster (www.safetyreliability.com!, that’s his URL, srsly) really pulled the fat out of the fire today by properly ditching his crippled Airbus 320 into the Hudson River. Will he make an appearance at the upcoming Obama Presidential Inaugural Celebration or State of the Union address? (Signs point to YES.)
This former USAF fighter pilot will be soon be the talk of his small East Bay hometown: Danville, CA . [Update: It's happened already - the MSM has staked out his family's "spacious house" and talked to the neighbors, so the fam is hiding out in the dark, sustaining themselves on take-out fast food delivered by friends. Well, here he is, the man with "twinkly, fatherly eyes"]

www.safetyreliability.com The eye twinkling here is assisted by on-camera flash catchlights and Photoshop’s unsharp mask (USM) function, set at 20, 60, 0. Click to expand
Did he or co-pilot Jeff Skiles of Oregon, Wisconsin press the Airbus 320 “ditch button?” Maybe. That jet certainly floated like a cork for a while. Apparently, “pressing the guarded “DITCHING” button causes the pressurization system to send a “CLOSE” command to:
- the outflow valve,
- the emergency ram air inlet,
- the avionics ventilation inlet and extract valves,
- the pack flow control valves
thereby making the aircraft fuselage as watertight as possible and hopefully enabling it to stay afloat long enough for everyone to get out before it sinks.” The More You Know… Hey Boeing, do you have something simple like this?
It appears ”Sully” did a masterful job all around, especially when you consider the fact that the temperature of the water was “likely much colder” than 20 degrees(!), per WCBS. (You know, some captains don’t always go the extra mile for passengers when the ship is going down.)
N106US from less eventful times, in its old livery. Via Drewski2112 Click to enlarge.

And speaking of safety, has any large (100 passengers or so and up) commercial jet airplane gotten in a crash that killed a paying passenger in America since the end of 2001? I can’t think of any flights where that’s happened. Good for us. The trend is our our friend, isn’t it? Of course, the fashion these days is having large jets with just two engines (instead of three or four). When you’re heading into a flock of birds, it would probably be nicer to have more engines than less, but this kind of thing is a fairly rare occurance.
Now, San Francisco’s SFO has had its fair share of birdstrike victims, including Virgin America Flight 837 (yes Air Colbert, named after Stephen Colbert) and, speaking of Virgin Airlines, a Virgin Boeing 747 back in 1995. Let’s hope the growing geese population of the Bay Area doesn’t start hanging out at airports. But let’s leave that issue for another day.
Today, it’s three cheers for old-school, safe, reliable, Facebook.com cover-boy, possible nominee for U.S. Senate representing New York Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III!
[Update: For some odd reason, a colossal number of people are searching Google right now using the terms "sullenberger jewish?" and "wesley sullenburger jew." I don't know the answer, but the question itself must be, in the words of famous local playwright Josh Kornbluth, "Good for the Jews".]
Tags: 1540, 320, a320, a320-214, aa, airbus, airlines, airport, airways, American, B., bay area, bird, button, california, capt., Captain, charlotte, chesley, Chesley b. Sullenberger, chesley sullenberger, co-pilot, Contra Costa, crew, D.C., danville, ditch, ditch switch, ditching, east bay, f-4, f4, facebook, fans, fighter, flight, geese, hero, hudson, II, iii, inauguration, Jeff Skiles, jew, jewish, la guardia, lga, manhattan, N106US, nc, north carolina, ny, nyc, obama, phantom, pilot, reliability, river, safety, safety reliability methods, strike, sullenberger, sullenburger, sully, U.S., Washington
Posted in airlines | 20 Comments »