Houston, You Have a Problem

On Jul 22, 11:47 am, Danny Deger wrote:
On Jul 22, 11:10 am, wrote:
snip

I won't say that it was wrong of your flight lead to fly an aggressive
final turn. Good pilots can get away with that. I won't say that it
was wrong of you to follow your lead through that turn. A good
wingman can get away with that too. My suggestion to you was to
rethink your view that your flight lead was wrong. That your flight
lead tried to kill you.

Where in the heck did I say he wanted to kill me? Please don't put
words in my mouth. I only said he wanted to embarrass me by flying a
turn tighter than I could. He did not know, and I did not know the
consequences of flying into his jet wash. If I had known, I certainly
would not have. If he had known, he certainly would not have flown
such a tight turn that I had to follow.

Here is the section of my book in question. I clearly say I think
lead may have been trying to embarass me. There is no mention of him
attempting to kill me.

The normal way to land is what is called the overhead break. The
number 2 plane is put on the side opposite of the break and the
formation flies down the runway at about 1,500 feet altitude. As the
formation passes over the runway lead breaks and number 2 stays level
for a few seconds. After the delay, number 2 breaks.
One of the rules was number 2 can not fly a pattern further from the
runway than lead. One day this almost killed me. Lead did a very
aggressive break. By this I mean he makes a small/tight turn. I
followed. If you are too close to the runway, you can't make the
turn and you overshoot. I knew I was closer than I ever had been in
my life, and I was going to have to make a maximum performance turn to
final. At the proper time, I started a turn at the optimum Angle Of
Attack, AOA. The F-4 had an audio feed back on AOA and had a nice
solid tone in the head set when on the optimum AOA. I was inside
lead's turn to start off with, so I am out of his wake turbulence.
But, I must go right into the center of his wake turbulence to line up
on the runway. Wake turbulence is like small horizontal tornadoes
that can cause huge roll rates if you get into one. Normally, a
fighter can fly into another fighter's wake turbulence without any big
problems. But lead was doing a more aggressive turn than usual which
made his wake stronger. Then I was at a higher than normal angle of
attack with decreased my aileron effectiveness. The end result was
when I hit his wake turbulence, I rolled instantly about 120 degrees
to the left. I knew I was in big trouble. Fortunately my training
and instincts kicked in. At a high angle of attack, the F-4 does not
roll well. I needed to get the AOA down. To do this I pushed the
stick full forward until it hit its stop. At the same time I gave the
plane full right rudder. About the time my controls become effective,
I left my lead's wake turbulence and rolled quickly back to the
right. I overshot the roll a lot and ended up in about 90 degrees of
roll to the right. The AOA was down by now, so the ailerons start to
work. With left aileron and left rudder I brought the plane back to
level flight and actually made a good landing without having to go
around. The roll excursions lasted a second or two at the most and I
was still on glide slope and on the centerline of the runway. My WSO
told me after landing he was reaching for the ejection handle as I was
fighting for control. Before he could pull the handle, I had the
plane back under control. I am glad he didn't have time. At our
altitude and roll angles, we probably would not have had time for the
chutes could open before we hit the ground.
What was strange for me at the time was the lack of interest in what
happened. We were well trained to avoid the wake of heavy airplanes,
but the general thought was the wake turbulence of another F-4 was not
dangerous. I asked that the Tactical Air Command safety organization
be brought in to get the word out that if the pattern is flown too
aggressively, lead's wake turbulence could be deadly. My request was
denied. I requested the topic be brought up at the next wing safety
briefing. Again my request was denied. I didn't at the time
understand why loosing control in the traffic pattern would not be of
interest to the F-4 safety community. Now I think I know why. Leads
are not supposed to fly such a tight pattern. He was very likely
attempting to embarrass me by flying a pattern tighter than he thought
I could. Even if his overly aggressive pattern was not meant to
embarrass me, he was at fault for the near miss. It wasn't my
favorite lead, John "Lips" Fraley, but it was a respected flight lead
of the squadron. If you are part of the in crowd, you can screw up
and not be called on the mistake. If you are not in the in crowd,
every tiny issue is blown out of proportion and used to further damage
your reputation. Being in a fighter squadron was just like being back
in junior high.

Danny Deger

On Jul 22, 1:27 pm, wrote:
From Danny Dot:
On Jul 22, 11:10 am, wrote:
snip

Here's a direct quote from your text: "I made it a point to insult
management at every opportunity I could. I knew this put me at risk."

You declared war against the enemy you perceived, and now you are
crying because they crushed you.

You understand the situation exactly. They did crush me but violated
many laws to do it. Lying to local officials and being part of
denying due process is not something a government agency should do. I
am now in the process of fighting back by exposing their gross
misconduct.

snip

You chose to fight the storm, and appear surprised to find that NASA
is stronger than you.

Surprise is not one of my emotions. Anger yes, surprise no. When I
was locked up in 1999, I knew I had declared open warfare with the
Johnson Space Center Director, George Abbey. Part of me was quite
impressed that he could silence me by having me locked up. I knew my
lockup was illegal, and I knew the local authorities would tend to
support Abbey over me. I was afraid I could not even trust the local
judges. I was right. Documentation now proves a local judge was
behaving improperly. No, I am not surprised NASA is stronger than
me. BUT I AM MAD AS HELL AND I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE :-)

I am not addressing the right or wrong of your
situation. Justice is a human concept. It relies on humans to uphold
it. If those in authority and power do not share your perspective on
justice, then there can be no expectation for it to be upheld. Your
efforts toward justice will be wasted.

You may be right. In fact you are probably right. My only hope for
justice is to get my story, complete with documentation, exposed in
the press. I have found that the people in power support the other
people in power.

I won't say that it was wrong of your flight lead to fly an aggressive
final turn. Good pilots can get away with that. I won't say that it
was wrong of you to follow your lead through that turn. A good
wingman can get away with that too. My suggestion to you was to
rethink your view that your flight lead was wrong. That your flight
lead tried to kill you.

Where in the heck did I say he wanted to kill me? Please don't put
words in my mouth. I only said he wanted to embarrass me by flying a
turn tighter than I could. He did not know, and I did not know the
consequences of flying into his jet wash. If I had known, I certainly
would not have. If he had known, he certainly would not have flown
such a tight turn that I had to follow.

But I thank you for not throwing random insults at me in your posts.
I enjoyed reading actually. You have good insight on the situation,

My bad about that part of your final turn story. I remember reading
somewhere in your story about someone trying to kill you and I must
have gotten that crossed.


No one has ever tried to kill me. I never thought that and I never
said it in my book. Maybe you thought based on what has happened to
me my life is at risk :-) I don't think so. I think NASA draws the
line at lying to local officials and working with a judge to stop due
process under the law. I really would be surprise if NASA has a hit
squad :-)

I jumped in on this thread in hopes that I could add something that
helps. I'm sure that there are lots of people who are faced with
problems of this type. Not much fun.

Thanks -- it is not much fun. And being bullied at work is very
common. It happens all the time. Europe is much further along than
the US in stopping it. Maybe if my story get out, something will
happen in this country.

~ CT

"B A R R Y" wrote in message
...

I don't know why some feel the need to pick on spelling and grammar.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the
olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a
porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by
istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought
slpeling was ipmorantt!

"Maxwell" wrote:
"B A R R Y" wrote in message
...

I don't know why some feel the need to pick on spelling and grammar.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the
olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a
porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by
istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought
slpeling was ipmorantt!

And yet spelling errors are often (it seems) immediately recognizd when
they are read, so there appears to be something more involved.

(So _was_ my spelling error immediately obvious?)

"Jim Logajan" wrote:.
"Maxwell" wrote:
"B A R R Y" wrote in message
...

I don't know why some feel the need to pick on spelling and grammar.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the
olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a
porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by
istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought
slpeling was ipmorantt!

And yet spelling errors are often (it seems) immediately recognizd when
they are read, so there appears to be something more involved.

(So _was_ my spelling error immediately obvious?)

Would all you posters taking Deger on please remove alt.fiction.original
from the header. We are being swamped by the feeding frenzy.

Thank you.

Anopheles

"Jim Logajan" wrote in message
.. .


(So _was_ my spelling error immediately obvious?)

I missed it, until I read again while looking for it.

I think we all just read and proof read too fast. Seems petty to me to bitch
about it. But we do have some world class nit pickers when it suits their
needs and adds their desired flavor of confusion to the thread.

On Jul 22, 5:49 pm, "Maxwell" wrote:
"Jim Logajan" wrote in message

.. .



(So _was_ my spelling error immediately obvious?)

I missed it, until I read again while looking for it.

I think we all just read and proof read too fast. Seems petty to me to bitch
about it. But we do have some world class nit pickers when it suits their
needs and adds their desired flavor of confusion to the thread.

Well said. If you can't disagree with the facts -- attack a typing
error instead :-)

I really to like the feature at nasaspaceflight.com that lets me edit
my own posts.

Danny Deger

On Jul 22, 5:32 pm, "Anopheles" wrote:
"Jim Logajan" wrote:.
"Maxwell" wrote:
"B A R R Y" wrote in message
. ..

I don't know why some feel the need to pick on spelling and grammar.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the
olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a
porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by
istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought
slpeling was ipmorantt!

And yet spelling errors are often (it seems) immediately recognizd when
they are read, so there appears to be something more involved.

(So _was_ my spelling error immediately obvious?)

Would all you posters taking Deger on please remove alt.fiction.original
from the header. We are being swamped by the feeding frenzy.

Thank you.

Anopheles

My apologies for dragging alt.fiction.original into this flaming war.
I thought I was posting a simple announcement the draft of my book is
available for download. Do you know how to remove a group in Google
Groups? I hope at least one person in the group likes the book.

Danny Deger

On Jul 22, 6:11 pm, Danny Deger wrote:
On Jul 22, 5:32 pm, "Anopheles" wrote:



"Jim Logajan" wrote:.
"Maxwell" wrote:
"B A R R Y" wrote in message
. ..

I don't know why some feel the need to pick on spelling and grammar.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the
olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a
porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by
istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought
slpeling was ipmorantt!

And yet spelling errors are often (it seems) immediately recognizd when
they are read, so there appears to be something more involved.

(So _was_ my spelling error immediately obvious?)

Would all you posters taking Deger on please remove alt.fiction.original
from the header. We are being swamped by the feeding frenzy.

Thank you.

Anopheles

My apologies for dragging alt.fiction.original into this flaming war.
I thought I was posting a simple announcement the draft of my book is
available for download. Do you know how to remove a group in Google
Groups? I hope at least one person in the group likes the book.

Danny Deger

From Danny Dot:
My suggestion to you was to
rethink your view that your flight lead was wrong. That your flight
lead tried to kill you.

Where in the heck did I say he wanted to kill me? Please don't put
words in my mouth. I only said he wanted to embarrass me by flying a
turn tighter than I could. He did not know, and I did not know the
consequences of flying into his jet wash. If I had known, I certainly
would not have. If he had known, he certainly would not have flown
such a tight turn that I had to follow.

But I thank you for not throwing random insults at me in your posts.
I enjoyed reading actually. You have good insight on the situation,

My bad about that part of your final turn story. I remember reading
somewhere in your story about someone trying to kill you and I must
have gotten that crossed.

No one has ever tried to kill me. I never thought that and I never
said it in my book. Maybe you thought based on what has happened to
me my life is at risk :-) I don't think so. I think NASA draws the
line at lying to local officials and working with a judge to stop due
process under the law. I really would be surprise if NASA has a hit
squad :-)

"One day this almost killed me."
It must have been this statement that I mistook as your perception of
a willful act.

Once again, my mistake for taking the out-to-get-me message too far
here.

I jumped in on this thread in hopes that I could add something that
helps. I'm sure that there are lots of people who are faced with
problems of this type. Not much fun.

Thanks -- it is not much fun. And being bullied at work is very
common. It happens all the time. Europe is much further along than
the US in stopping it. Maybe if my story get out, something will
happen in this country.

It would certainly be great if people treat each other with respect in
the workplace. If you could write a book toward that end that didn't
express hostility, vindictiveness or pity then I would support that.

As it is, one possible effect of your book is that no one will want to
take a management position in fear of having to deal with situations
of this type.


~ CT