Barry Meek's Letters.

August 2007

Airplanes, Aliens and Global Warming.

There’s not much in this world that isn’t predictable. Not many things happen that someone would never see coming until it was too late. Most of us have been blind-sided once or twice, but who couldn’t foresee the lawsuits in the crash of the Cirrus SR-20 into a New York apartment building October 11 of last year (2006)? It didn’t take more than a month or two before the lawyers were on to that one like flies on fresh cow dung.

The pilot of that plane, baseball pitcher Cory Lidle, could not have picked a better (or worse) place to fly into a building. The New York City Bar Association claims 23,000 members. Need an attorney? He came to the right place. With 23,000 in the neighborhood, there’s no lineups, no waiting. And he couldn’t have chosen a worse (or better) building to fly into. It was an upper East-side apartment building, predictably occupied by upper East-side “do you know who I am” people. Important people with big money.

The NTSB, at this writing, has yet to release it’s “probable cause” report. However, that makes no difference, as the rush of finger pointing gets going before the finger pointers can become confused with the facts. So far, the family of the deceased pilot is suing the companies that built the aircraft, the propeller and the engine.   One resident of the target building, a dentist whose patients include Bruce Springsteen and Donald Trump, has filed a lawsuit against the estate of the unfortunate pilot and his on-board flight instructor for damages to his apartment.

Another issue has to do with the insurance from Major League Baseball. Cory Lidle’s estate stands to collect well over $1million dollars if it’s shown he was not actually flying the airplane. So it gets more and more complicated. This story is certainly not over yet.   That too is predictable. Stand by for more.

IMAGE BY PAULINE & ROBIN DAY        http://sfdaydreams.com

Here’s another item in the news that’s worthy of some thought.   Alien spaceships, which not many of us have actually seen, are apparently for real.   Governments know about them, but it’s all kept hushed up, lest the uneducated masses rise up in panic.   We know this now, since former Canadian defence minister, Paul Hellyer,   told an Ottawa newspaper he wants governments to stop hoarding their secret alien technologies and use them to stem global warming.   He says the advanced propulsion systems from captured UFO’s could be used in our aircraft to eliminate the burning of fossil fuels.   In the past, Mr. Hellyer has announced that aliens are for real and that he has personally seen a UFO.   He also believes that President Bush foresees building a military base on the moon to defend earth from an alien attack.   Mr. Hellyer was a Liberal national defence minister in the mid 1960’s, and is now eighty three.

Advanced propulsion systems.   So that’s what they use.   No one would suspect a half-century old Continental or Lycoming engine would be powering those UFO’s but it makes you wonder what knowledge the little green men possess that we’re still searching for.

No one really has all the answers.   That’s because so many questions keep us thinking, and before we can solve one of the world’s problems, another one pops up.   Can attorneys sort out the Cirrus crash case?   Who should pay for the damages to those peoples apartments?   Can the insurance companies successfully sue the pilot?   Who was the pilot?   Is an aircraft manufacturer actually responsible for the death of two young men?   And what about those little green men and their UFO’s?    It’s all more food for thought at your next coffee break.

Barry Meek at bcflyer@hotmail.com

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As published in the newsletters of the Thompson Valley Sport Flying Club