Them Sailplane Terrorists

Yikes.   I havn't posted in so long.  I should have a lot to say.  I should be older and wiser.  But it seems the older I get,  and the more I learn,  the less I really want to say.  I'll probably never completely shut up though.   I talk because I want people to pay attention to me.  I desperately want people to like me.  Yet I have been cocooning here at my place with my wife and a few animals.  It's a big social day if I go out to the store.  I'm also not attending to my toys which need to be run and warmed up and charged up and prepared for a long cold winter.  Nor am I winterizing the house.  Or writing a song or a book or a blog post.  Is it alright for me to do nothing?  My wife seems cool with it.  Which makes me very lucky.  Like me,  she never seems to get bored.  I'm not thrilled and extremely happy about doing "nothing".  I just haven't had a yen to go somewhere,  do something, or  be somebody.  As far as my health,  I need to start moving around more.

But for this post I have motivation!  A big dose of the muse!  What is it? It's an aviation article I've read about a sailplane pilot who gets thrown in jail!  I've had about a dozen forwards and links on this article sent to my E-mail.   It's a surrealistic tale.

The guy takes off in a sailplane (glider).  He is towed up and released a few thousand feet above his home base airport in South Carolina.  He's going to fly a 500km triangle and return back.  This is no little feat.  The airplane has no engine.  There are no mountain ridges to give him lift from the prevailing wind.  There are no bigger mountains to form a "wave" to take his glider up ten or fifteen thousand feet.  He's riding on "thermals".  Shafts of rising air.  He uses his vast experience to find these thermals.    His flight on this particular day was almost four hours.  That's a long time in an airplane with no engine.  The lift (thermals) on this day were not as strong as expected.   He had to cut his planned route short and head back home.  He made a try for some lift by a lake in a known area.  He crossed over a power plant he was familiar with.  Then he circled in  small thermals as the wind drifted him back toward home.  He was monitoring the radio frequency of a nearby airport.  He heard chatter on the radio about a glider and a power plant.  So he called in to this nearby airport.  And he was told that the authorities wanted him to land there.  So he did.  That is when he was arrested and handcuffed.  He was put in jail for 24 hrs.  He wasn't allowed to make a phone call for several hours.  Enough time elapsed that his home field knew he was down somewhere,  and possibly needing help.  He was reported overdue.  Finally,  the folks at the home field found out he was okay,  but still in jail.  When he was released after 24 hours in a crowded cell,  he was debriefed by the TSA,  Homeland Security,  and Sheriff.  He was told that they would not let him go unless he agreed not to file suit.

----The solo glider pilot did not do one single thing against regulations on the flight.

----There was no restricted airspace in the area

----in fact he was within 2 miles of an active general aviation airport where airplanes fly every day.

----The 70 year old pilot is an instructor at his home airport,  where among other things,  he teaches

    airspace rules and regulations.

----The FAA stated that this pilot had done nothing wrong.

Well I'm sorry folks.  Maybe I just have an authority complex  But it just chaps my roids to hear a story like this.  So there are a dozen Sheriff's cars waiting for this "terrorist" to land.  They rush him and cuff him.  Okay.  But he's in a little,  light,  glider.  Easy to search the glider.  No bomb or BB gun.  A 70 year old mild mannered man.  You check his credentials. The sailplane's credentials. Maybe see if he is drunk.  Call back to his home base,  he needs to talk to them anyway,  for a ride and to decide what to do with the glider overnight,etc.  Maybe call back to the power plant  (which  is not illegal to overfly)  and check that all is well.  You can do all this in ten minutes max right at the airplane.  It all checks out.  All is well.

So how did we get from meeting the airplane when it landed and challanging the "suspect",  to taking the guy to jail and holding him behind bars for 24 hours?  I must be missing something on this one. 

When the TSA is hassling people,  and it is obvious that the people are not terrorists,  they (the TSA) are doing something they don't need to do.  So how often do they not do things that they do need to do?

This happened last summer.  Why didn't we hear about it sooner?

LLITTY         ::::::+::::::