GAMA welcomes release of alien training rule (Press release headline.) Scene: flight-training school somewhere in the US midwest. Billy-Bob: "OK...that's good, now hold her straight-n-level...watch that wobble." Galubreth of Zagod Five: "Xxxxyyyyygenngg!" Billy-Bob: "I know it's hard on y'all - what with our gravity an' everythin'...but just keep your eyes on the horizon." Galubreth: "Gryzzzzengebbyyn?" Billy-Bob: "Yep...all six of them. Don't want to see any of that sly map reading stuff with that other set you got neither. It's just not fair on the other students or the instructor, OK?"
Singing hack fest Bruce Strewth is recovering from the rigours of a recent media tour of Sweden which involved a tough boat trip on Stockholm Lake. What was so tough you may ask? The condition of the boat, the rough water? No, says Bruce...turns out it was the insistence of the senior Swedish defence officials on singing several Abba songs to their captive audience. The bemused hacks, not clearly understanding the local lingo, provided their own interpretation: Song 1: "Money, money, money, must be funny, to have a defence budget at all." Song 2: "Gimme, gimme, gimme a defence budget after September 17" [planned tabling of the original Swedish defence review]. Song 3: (From the hacks, to the tune of "Dancing Queen".) "You can drink, you can write, having the time of your life...whoooo dig that briefing, write up that news release, doing the Saab media scene..." Er...thanks Bruce, stick to the day job will you?
Yuckspeak (series of 1,000,000) Effects-based warfare = (er...?) winning.
DIY travel Budgie News man of mystery and water bomber expert Monty Orangeball writes of a recent experience on a budget DIYTravel flight from the UK to Canada: "Customers should note that we will be starting our next feature film in around 15min, after your cabin crew have taken a short break." Yes, says Monty, all of them!
Space on the cheap Civilian astronaut Mike Melvill on the eve of colleague Brian Binney's X-Prize-winning 4 October SpaceShipOne flight, which broke the X-15 rocket aircraft's unofficial world altitude record of 354,200ft: "Burt [Rutan] has convinced us we don't really need pressure suits and that the vehicle itself is our pressure suit - because you don't need a pressure suit unless you're going really high..."
Pioneering words Talking of record breakers, pioneering X-15 test pilot Scott Crossfield, now in his 80s, says: "While I have been around for a long time, I want to suppress the rumour that I flew chase on the Wrights - I actually flew top cover." And to the audience: "It's no good asking questions - I can't even hear you clap."
Source: Flight International
