+ bermuda triangle +
Tale Winds
From our first days of learning to fly we have heard tales of planes lost in the Bermuda Triangle, that strange region where the unusual happens without reasonable explanation. Since no one ever placed specific geographic boundaries on the Triangle (roughly from the southeastem coast of the U.S. out to Bermuda then down to the West Indies and beyond) , I have begun a self serving theory that the Triangle can exist, if only in the mind, any time aviators get careless and/or have aircraft or weather problems.
According to this thesis, the Triangle could be near Bermuda or the South China Sea. And I have reached the age where I begin to sound a bit like Grampaw Pettibone.
About 40 years ago, two very experienced A-1 Skyraider drivers, Zip Rausa and myself, launched from Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico on a simple, 500 mile VFR flight to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The trip should have taken three hours.
Despite having spent the evening before at the club enjoying rum swizzles in the company of gregarious Naval Aviators, this flight posed no challenge. Our takeoff brief consisted of keeping Puerto Rico, then Hispaniola, on our left wing, then cutting through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti. Piece of cake. Besides, we were almost a 1,000 miles below Bermuda. Surely we would be beyond the mystifying reach of the Triangle.
Wrong. Some negatives struck us shortly after we launched, with me on Zip's wing. We soon found ourselves over a low overcast with no land in sight. My navigation instruments had become inconsistent and Zip's radios were inoperative. But we pressed forward, each dwelling on the pleasant thoughts of the previous night's social gathering and other things. At some point not long thereafter, matters turned to worms.
My wingman passed me the lead because of his radio problems and I couldn't tell him my instrument readings were suspect. So there we were, over an overcast, with no idea how to find the Windward Passage, one bird without radios, the other without properly functioning nav gear. Coincidence or the Triangle at work?
We let down to 800 feet below the overcast into a terrible milky haze. I could see an island to the south, but it was impossible to determine if it was Cuba, Haiti, or the Dominican Republic. The thought of coasting in for a geographic fix had its drawbacks. The Cubans would love to bag a Yankee flyer or two, lost or not.
We had left Roosevelt Roads with only five hours of fuel aboard, so range and endurance had become a factor, which didn't happen very often in the A-1.
I was about to "climb, conserve and confess" when a P-2 Neptune flew by above and to our port. We joined on his wing and made contact after some frequency handsignals.
To the Neptune I radioed, "Do you have two Skyraiders on your right wing?"
"Affirmative," replied the pilot.
"What's your position?" I asked, adding, "We'd like a vector to the Windward Passage."
The Neptune gave us the information we needed.
In a description of this incident in his book, "Gold Wings and Blue Sea," Zip wrote that I said we were lost. But I never used the "L" word during this episode.
We arrived in Gitmo with 30 minutes of fuel remaining and the base operations officer about to initiate a SAR for the overdue Skyraiders.
In retrospect, we may have been beyond the so-called Bermuda Triangle, but I sure felt - and so did Zip - that its dark and mysterious ways played with us that day.
AUTHOR :
By CDR Jim Reid, USN (Ret.) Copyright Association of Naval Aviation Fall 2001 Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
Tale Winds
From our first days of learning to fly we have heard tales of planes lost in the Bermuda Triangle, that strange region where the unusual happens without reasonable explanation. Since no one ever placed specific geographic boundaries on the Triangle (roughly from the southeastem coast of the U.S. out to Bermuda then down to the West Indies and beyond) , I have begun a self serving theory that the Triangle can exist, if only in the mind, any time aviators get careless and/or have aircraft or weather problems.
According to this thesis, the Triangle could be near Bermuda or the South China Sea. And I have reached the age where I begin to sound a bit like Grampaw Pettibone.
About 40 years ago, two very experienced A-1 Skyraider drivers, Zip Rausa and myself, launched from Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico on a simple, 500 mile VFR flight to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The trip should have taken three hours.
Despite having spent the evening before at the club enjoying rum swizzles in the company of gregarious Naval Aviators, this flight posed no challenge. Our takeoff brief consisted of keeping Puerto Rico, then Hispaniola, on our left wing, then cutting through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti. Piece of cake. Besides, we were almost a 1,000 miles below Bermuda. Surely we would be beyond the mystifying reach of the Triangle.
Wrong. Some negatives struck us shortly after we launched, with me on Zip's wing. We soon found ourselves over a low overcast with no land in sight. My navigation instruments had become inconsistent and Zip's radios were inoperative. But we pressed forward, each dwelling on the pleasant thoughts of the previous night's social gathering and other things. At some point not long thereafter, matters turned to worms.
My wingman passed me the lead because of his radio problems and I couldn't tell him my instrument readings were suspect. So there we were, over an overcast, with no idea how to find the Windward Passage, one bird without radios, the other without properly functioning nav gear. Coincidence or the Triangle at work?
We let down to 800 feet below the overcast into a terrible milky haze. I could see an island to the south, but it was impossible to determine if it was Cuba, Haiti, or the Dominican Republic. The thought of coasting in for a geographic fix had its drawbacks. The Cubans would love to bag a Yankee flyer or two, lost or not.
We had left Roosevelt Roads with only five hours of fuel aboard, so range and endurance had become a factor, which didn't happen very often in the A-1.
I was about to "climb, conserve and confess" when a P-2 Neptune flew by above and to our port. We joined on his wing and made contact after some frequency handsignals.
To the Neptune I radioed, "Do you have two Skyraiders on your right wing?"
"Affirmative," replied the pilot.
"What's your position?" I asked, adding, "We'd like a vector to the Windward Passage."
The Neptune gave us the information we needed.
In a description of this incident in his book, "Gold Wings and Blue Sea," Zip wrote that I said we were lost. But I never used the "L" word during this episode.
We arrived in Gitmo with 30 minutes of fuel remaining and the base operations officer about to initiate a SAR for the overdue Skyraiders.
In retrospect, we may have been beyond the so-called Bermuda Triangle, but I sure felt - and so did Zip - that its dark and mysterious ways played with us that day.
AUTHOR :
By CDR Jim Reid, USN (Ret.) Copyright Association of Naval Aviation Fall 2001 Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
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