The Day the Bird Went Silent

            The worst day at work was on January, the sixteenth in the year of our Lord 2008. The day the bird went silent. I was with HM-15, Helicopter Mine Countermeasures 15 the Blackhawks, and we worked on the Sikorsky MH-53E Sea Dragon. These aircraft, called “birds” in the Navy, are enormous and very powerful. To put it simply one of our mottos was, “Piss me off and I’ll lift your house.” Working on these “birds” was a very painful and time consuming evolution. We sometimes worked sixteen to twenty hour days because it takes eighty man hours for just one flight hour, but it is all worth it to see the Sea Dragon take flight. Long hours are hard but nothing compares to a day when your shipmates do not come back.

            Hurricane 01 was having RADALT issues just minutes before it left. This is not problem to a highly skilled and experienced Aviation Electronics Technician such as my self. I can remember the problem to this day; the Radar Altimeter was low approximately fifty feet. With just a quick tweak and test I told the crew, “Everything is 4.0 and Chubs I’ll see you later for a drink when you get back.” I watched as the “bird” took my shipmates away, never to return again.

            I went home that day with a sense of accomplishment, as I had just fixed the last issue with the aircraft and was getting ready to go out. I got dressed and ready early and then started to play videogames, quietly, in the dark and lonely barracks room. The telephone rang breaking the silence of my room at 8:20 PM, or 2000 for us military folk, and I heard words that shook me to the core, “Get in here now!” I asked my night check counter parts,”What’s going on, tools were good when I left and I took out the trash?” I said these words with the thought that we were just being recalled for someone not doing their job. The other side of the phone replied, “Forget about stuff like that get in here now!” “OK give me a minute to get in uniform” I replied but before I could say anything more the sound of slamming doors came from next door. “Just hurry in and bring in your uniform, you will change here. Bye” the phone yelled at me and went quite, just before my door was pounded on by my best friend, Dan, from next door.  Boom, boom, boom, went my door as Dan struck my door with a thunderous and rage filled fist.

            I grabbed my coveralls, boots and keys from the couch and ran to the door. “Let’s go John, we have to run” Dan said as I opened the door. He had a weird look on his face. I could tell something went terribly wrong. We jumped into his white Isuzu truck and peeled out of the parking lot. “Wow I didn’t know this little thing could do that” I thought as he shifted in high revs jolting us forward and back with each shift. “What’s wrong?” I asked as we rocketed towards the hanger. “Don’t you watch the news?” he said already knowing the answer. “No I haven’t seen the news just tell me.” I begged as no one would say a thing to me. “A bird went down…” he started to say before I interrupted him, “No, it didn’t quit playing with me.” “I saw the fireball on TV.” Dan said as we entered the parking lot.

            I have worked twenty hours a day seven days a week for a month in the heat of the desert but nothing is hard about that in comparison to losing your shipmates, shipmates are family. The worst part of it all was, besides the loss of comrades, how the crash happened. The aircraft hit a television tower in the thick fog at about 950 feet of its 1000 foot stance. When I heard this, I fell down and cried assuming that I killed them. I fixed the altimeter. I said it was good. I killed them if it was not. I felt guilty for everything. The incident report stated, “Due to the extreme weather conditions visibility was less then 100 feet. With low visibility and being slightly off course the aircraft crashed due to pilot error.” We lost three great men that day. Everyday I remember the day that the “bird” went silent and all of the Blackhawks cried.

Racing is Good

                Racing is my favorite thing to do because it mixes skill and a sense of freedom. There is no feeling like the one you get from driving a car at high speed into a tight corner. The thought of being in a race excites and thrills me. 

                First, the style of someone’s driving is derived from their skill and can be put into two major categories, drift and grip. A person’s skill comes from their individual techniques they use, such as heel-to-toe downshifting. Racers are always trying to become faster by increasing the number of skills and techniques they learn and applying them into their style.  Drifting is a style of racing in which the car loses traction and slides around sideways into a corner. Drifting is a highly advanced style that requires control thru chaos. Drifting looks and feels amazing as the car is subjected to forces that should not be able to handle.  On the other hand, grip racing is far less chaotic as the car is more under control. However, just because it is easier does not take away from the extreme amount of challenge that comes with auto racing.

                Next, the shear number of cars available to drive is unbelievable. Any car, and sometimes trucks, on the road is subjective to being able to race.  There are five engine setups currently available to the public. Front mounted engine rear wheel drive, FR, is the most commonly used for drifting due to its ability to get sideways and stability. This provides a unique feeling as most cars today have a front mounted engine with front wheel drive, FF. The other displacements are four wheel or all wheel drive, 4WD and AWD respectively, mid engine rear wheel drive, MR, and lastly rear engine rear wheel drive, RR.  4WD, AWD, MR and RR all have the ability to drift, if setup correctly, but carry their own challenges and unique feel.

                Finally, racing does not just happen on official tracks and road courses; in fact there are many types of venues in which racers display their skills and abilities. The most common places auto racing occurs are sanctioned tracks and road courses, touges, and every day streets inside and outside of cities. Official tracks and road courses are the safest place to push your limits and are the only legal means of doing so.  While it should be understood that there is no such thing as a safe race with no danger, official tracks and road courses are closed off to other traffic.  Touge is the Japanese name for mountain passes and is the birthplace of the auto sport of drifting. Racing on the touges is high illegal and very deadly. The main reason for this is they are small steep windy roads, usually driven at night due to the less potential of slow moving traffic. The mix of speed and sharp corners with cliffs at night create a very real and dangerous environment. Touges are deadly but not the most common place for street racing. City and rural roads are the most common. If something goes wrong on these roads more people are at risk of death and injury then just the drivers. Other cars and even pedestrians are at risk because these are usually normal roads, like highways and main streets.

                In conclusion, auto racing gives you a feeling unlike anything in the world. If it is done some where safe it can be enjoyed by all people but streets while others are around is definitely not the time nor place to display recklessness. Racing can be the most exhilarating thing in the world. If you constantly improve your skill safely you may find a euphoric feeling of absolute freedom, even when you restrict yourself to legal means of racing.