Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
|
|
|
batten down the hatches estebanana
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login  | |
|
   
estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
|
 RE: batten down the hatches estebanana (in reply to keith)
|
|
|
Nah, I chit bigger than this typhoon.
I been in a real typhoon in Micronesia. I flew through a typhoon in an an Air Micronesia 727- Lightning hit the plane and knocked out both the pilots. The stewardesses were screaming. Panic and terror spreading through the cabin I lifted myself out of the seat against the mounting gravity forces which pinned everyone helpless in their seats.
The plane yawed violently and pitched over onto one side, in this position I used the handles on the overhead storage doors as foot holds and used my expert rock climbing techniques to make my way to the cockpit door. I prized the jammed door open using a bent spoon and extracted the pilots single handedly trussing them to the handles of the in flight refrigerator to keep them from being tossed should the skin of the aircraft fail and create a gaping air sucking wound in the fuselage.
With the pilots thus secured and the stewardesses calmed, I strapped myself into the pilots seat just as we were about to hit the typhoon broadside and be ripped to shreds by 400 mile per hour winds. I looked out the window to see if my engines were still on line and pulled back on the throttle to gain airspeed, I could see black smoke issuing from the starboard engine nacelle. I gunned other engine and cut the starboard engine, I wasted no time doing a restart after I calculated enough water had passed though the engine to extinguish the fire. Expertly I restarted the starboard engine and pulled the nose of the Air Mike 727 down to gain speed, we at good altitude but with shear force crosswinds looming ahead I needed the speed generated by a healthy dive.
Once I had enough speed I pulled up the nose and began a strong steady climb, the aircraft shook, but I held the yoke steadfast and punched through the pockets of low wind I sensed in the air with my extrasensory intuitive piloting knowledge. After what must have been 7 minutes that seem like 7 hours I crested the nose of the regal metal alloy bird over the upper lip of the mouth of a massive typhoon. Once we made it to the stillness of the center of the ring of the typhoon I took off the fasten seat belt light and asked the stewardesses to be an emergency cocktail distribution break with orange juice for the kids and orange juice with vodka for the adults. Being that I have a iron constitution for drink, I myself imbibed several drinks in order to fortify myself for the landing.
After quaffing down the last gulp of orange & vodka I allooped the aircraft over the far lip of the typhoon and pulled us up and over the rim with the ease of Wilt Chamberlian making a slam dunk. I cursed the NBA for several minutes in a vodka fueled diatribe about the uselessness of zone defense whilst checking the radio for any sign of the Ponape flight control. I heard silence, but I paid not heed. I dead reckoned the plane to a fly circles of Sokhes rock while I scanned the runway. The fight tower had been knocked out, all one story of it. The runway was eaten and ripped by high tides and storm waves into a deeply rutted path of gouged and slashed coral. Quickly I deployed the landing gear and made for the main drag of Kolonia Town, the muddy street was packed with innocent people wondering were I would set down this injured bird. I circled the soccer field at the jr, college thrice in hopes to move off any kids. Once cleared, I banked the plane hard to the left pulled the nose up and floated the airliner down into hundred meter long futbol pitch.
The usual inflatable ramps were a button push away and I engaged them. I hopped out of the side door and ran to the back of the plane where some debris from the storm had lodged in the tail door. I unhinged the door pins and the hatch popped up. I used the hand crank to lower the stairs and rigged the of the goal netting as safety slide. The stewardesses and I helped all the passengers off the plane and waiting family members were driving pick up trucks onto the field to claim them. The two pilots were taken to hospital for concussions.
Once the area was secured and I had turned the situation over to the local agent for Air Mike, I had a call made for a car to pick me up and take me to the Village Hotel. Then after I was ensconced on the main veranda of the hotel I ordered a plate of mangrove crab and a bottle of fine French wine. I drank the vintage while I watched the remains of the the typhoon be chased away by a fragment of a the clear white moon. The next day I would begin my intensive scientific research, and the real trouble would show its pocked face and orange betel chewing maw.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jul. 8 2014 1:44:38
 |
|
estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
|
|
RE: batten down the hatches estebanana (in reply to keith)
|
|
|
I was drinking coffee so strong it made me have a lapse of concentration.
Anyway, thank you all for your concern, we seem to be doing ok. Heh,heh, these news casters here in Japan don't know the rage of a full tropical typhoon down on the equator. By the time the average typhoon gets north of Okinawa it's diminished in force. However the extra intense rainfall can cause mudslides which trap older persons in homes, cars and while out farming. Things like that worry me more.
I did fly through a typhoon in 1988, but I embellished on the truth somewhat, as I was not in the pilot seat, I was really sitting on the stewardesses lap. Anyway, we did in fact crest the over the crown of the typhoon and we flew down into the calm center. It was special as the pilot was very good. From the windows we could see an open space around us about 40 to 60 miles in diameter and at the outer rims we could see dark grey storm clouds. The middle was sunny and calm.
When we landed at Kolonia the pilot flew parallel to the runway coming in from the east whipped out to sea a bit and then banked the airliner quite radically to turn it into wind and line up the runway. I'll never forget that. Weeks or months I watched perhaps the same pilot do that trick again, but as viewer on the tarmac. That day I was with my half sisters grandfather who was a fighter pilot in WWII and Korea who chuckled and said that was a fighter pilot style landing.
More worried about older folks being flooded than my own roof being torn off by wind. So far our area on the Western side of Kyushu has not been hit very hard. The typhoons make landfall about 60 miles south of here and cross land, I think it diminishes the power and they are spent up making the travel from Okinawa. The islands below Okinawa did have some evacuations, but that is more than 800 miles south of here, and I think they made it though in fair condition.
I'm always in hopes these typhoons bear down on us and then flip a left hand turn and go towards China. This particular typhoon tracked right over the top of the whole Japanese archipelago, I think that is why I got emails wondering how we are doing. I spent the day working on guitars and looking out at the river which is the puce green yellow color of baby vomit. Once it clears for a day or two after the typhoon passes I'll have to go fishing and see if I can still catch a Kochi before they breed a move back out to deep water. A Kochi is a powerful fish like a cross between a halibut and a grouper. It has a flat head and a low slung bottom hugging body like a halibut, but it is a kind of grouper. I catch them on a bait fish called Kibinago similar to an anchovy. The Kochi is a wonderful fish for sashimi and grilled. It's quite valuable too, the 2 kilo Kochi I have been catching I am told fetch $80.00 plus when sold retail in Tokyo. I have not considered becoming a fisherman, but I have to go catch them if I want to eat the best fish I can't afford to buy.
Typhoon bothers me more for messing up the Kochi fishing.
yeah...and zonked I'm not, I just have what's called an Imagination.
This photo does not do justice to the Kochi, it's powerful fish for it's size. Everytime I've caught one it seems like I'm brining up a big leopard shark off the bottom and then the Kochi's brown colors show. I think these are called Flatheads in English, but I've never caught one before anywhere else. I understand they are also common in Australia. It's delicious fish and I know why, every time I get one I clean it and there's a crab or lobster in it's gullet.
The Kochi is a gourmet predator.
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
 Attachment (2)
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jul. 8 2014 8:19:30
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts
|
|
|
Forum Software powered by ASP Playground Advanced Edition 2.0.5
Copyright © 2000 - 2003 ASPPlayground.NET |
0.0625 secs.
|
Printable Version
