Ready, Fire, Aim

I debated whether to post this but you wonder if anyone was thinking when they authorized the flyover of New York City without informing the good citizens of New York.

Comments

  1. dnice says:

    That was just stupid. Even if you published in the all the newspapers here there would still be people who wouldnt knew. We have enough to worry about with this swine flu going around, Wall Street struggles, the creeping threat of nationalization of our industries and how the Mets are pitiful right now.

  2. Doug (Old Army Corporal) says:

    I work in Manhattan and for a moment it was a bit frightening. I was there on Sept. 11 and why this was scary was because Air Force One was in basically the same position as the terrorist controlled planes on Sept. 11 before the struck the towers. The trailing fighter did not help matters.

    What made me stop and realize it was not a threat was that the plane was banking away from the city, not toward it.

    Anyone who thinks New Yorkers are over reacting is wrong. The city is still traumatized by the suicide attacks.

    I can’t believe they allow it, but airliners constantly fly over Manhattan. And every time one goes over I look around and you can see half of the people looking up and wondering if it’s another attack.

  3. Lawrence says:

    Maybe they where just hoping nobody would notice…

  4. ben says:

    “That was just stupid. Even if you published in the all the newspapers here there would still be people who wouldnt knew”

    You wouldn’t have had entire buildings evacuated because there’s always going to be people who had read the papers. The panic would have quelled quickly as people would start actively spreading the word.

    “We have enough to worry about with this swine flu going around”

    It’s just a lot of hype about the flu. It’s a real problem in Mexico, but then clean water is a problem in Mexico. Just like with the big SARS scare, we’ll have a small number of people hospitalized, but a handful of actual deaths related to this.

    For some perspective, here’s CDC press release that mentions annual flu deaths. It’s 36,000 per year from complications. Keep that number in mind when someone tells you a hundred people died from swine flu. http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r030107.htm

    Oh, and btw, you can’t get it by eating pork.

  5. ben says:

    Oh, yeah, forgot to mention:

    GOOD ONE AIR FORCE!

  6. Skippy-san says:

    You know, it used to be perfectly acceptable to ask New York center for descent into an altitude block above the Hudson River.

    (Usually at 4500 feet MSL). You could then fly up the river, and on a clear day, it was a great way to get some pictures of New York City. You talked to approach control the whole time. It was no big deal. You would make a turn at the north end of Manhattan come back and then request a climbout over New York harbor. An hour and a half later we would be back in Norfolk.

    So long as they cleared it with the FAA- I guess I’m surprised they are making it such a big deal.