Alumni Sandstorm ~ 11/23/19 YIPPIE! SKIPPIE!! It's College Football Saturday!!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 2 Bombers sent stuff: Pete BEAULIEU ('62) Bill SCOTT ('64) ************************************************************* ************************************************************* BOMBER BIRTHDAY Today: Roberta KIRKWOOD ('58) BOMBER BIRTHDAY Today: Terry JONES ('64) BOMBER BIRTHDAY Today: Gayle DAWSON ('65) BOMBER BIRTHDAY Today: Chuck JERMAN ('66) BOMBER BIRTHDAY Today: John KENITZER ('71) BOMBER BIRTHDAY Today: Karen Elaine MARSHALL ('82) BOMBER ANNIVERSARY: Jim MEFFORD and Jeanette DUNCAN ('54) COLLEGE FOOTBALL TODAY (check local listings) 2OSU(10-0) v 8Penn St(9-1) 11(CST) FOX Ohio Sta 16ND(8-2) v BostColl(5-5) 1:30(CST) NBC ND Sta CSM*(6-0) v FresnoCity(4-1) 2(CST)- Playoffs 1LSU(10-0) v ARK(2-9) 6(CST) ESPN Death Valley WSU(5-5) v OR St(5-5) 8(CST) PACN Martin Sta UW(9-1) @ CO(4-6) 9(CST) ESPN Folsom Field 20Boise St(9-1) @ UT St(6-4) 9:30(CST) CBSS Maverik Sta *CSM = College of San Mateo CA junior college where the editor's nephew is head football coach BOMBER CALENDAR: Richland Bombers Calendar Click the event you want to know more about. ************************************************************* ************************************************************* >>From: Pete BEAULIEU ('62) Re: belated Veterans' Day What's this, two days in a row with nothing on this page but Maren's sled-dog report? The great risk hovers over Sandstorm-land that somebody will fill the vacuum with military nostalgia. This time, less than two weeks after the Veteran's Day release of the new "Midway," here it is, one of those drawn out Navy sea stories... Two details in the movie especially caught my eye... First, the fine casting and scripting of Admiral Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific fleet. Very capable in real life and a true gentleman (not indicated is the fact that throughout the entire war Nimitz wrote to his wife--every single day.) Now, second, and without giving anything away, there's a technical error in at least one scene. Two planes take off from a carrier while the headwind for airlift was actually too little to support the take-offs. The first plane dips down to the waves but does manage to get airborne. But not the second which drops off the port (left) bow. The pilot of the first plane radios back, "turn to starboard!" Wrong command! -by turning to starboard [right] the ship's hull would slide forward and swing over the ditched plane and the downed pilot-just as it then did in the movie. Also, a second danger of then being sucked into the ships propellers. I mention this split-second detail because of how this exact situation played out on the aircraft carrier USS Hornet in 1969... Yours truly (with one and a half stripes) was the Officer of the Deck when we also lost a plane over the port [left] bow. The four-stripe commanding officer was on the bridge. On the right-side catapult the plane was not hooked up correctly. Instead of breaking free for launch at maximum tension, the connecting device pulled loose early and at an angle and the plane was sent diagonally to the left before dropping mediately out of sight off the port [left] bow. And just as the plane dropped overboard the pilot instinctively ejected, up at a weird angle and out of view, from deck level only 60 feet over the water. As in the movie, we went right full rudder (!), but in this case the error was actually a good thing. The pilot came down post haste in his half-opened chute. Hit the water hard enough to sustain a compressed disk, but was fished out by the helo plane-guard and later checked out for a full recovery. As in the movie the plane was gone under the hull of a fast-moving 40,000 ton ship, and went down in probably 10,000 feet of water. Later, from the launch films it was confirmed that had we slammed the rudder the correct direction (left instead of right) the ship's superstructure would have pivoted directly underneath the descending pilot. Would have gotten impaled some 200 feet above the water and fried to a crisp in the antennae and radar electronics. The maneuver in the book for this one-in-a-million situation would have been correct, but this time wrong. All this in a few seconds. Said the seasoned captain to me about our incorrect rudder command: "sometimes you just go with your gut." -Pete BEAULIEU ('62) ~ Shoreline, WA ************************************************************* ************************************************************* >>From: Bill SCOTT ('64) Re: Novel in progress Gosh, it's been sparse in the Alumni Sandstorm the last few days. I'll attempt to liven things up with my patented Fearless Forecast for Feverish Fans! For my loyal fans among you (and for those of you who aren't yet): here's an update on my novel in progress. I'm currently at 108,000 words and 414 typed pages. When the draft is done, which I see at this point as by the end of February, it should be well over 500 typed pages and a minimum of 130,000 words. My old photography teacher used to say, "If you can't make it better, make it bigger." I hope to do both. I'm up to the point in the story of WWII, the part I've looked forward to the most since I began. My heroines are doing great things, and it's getting exciting. I'll check in later when there's more news. -Bill SCOTT ('64) ************************************************************* ************************************************************* That's it for today. Please send more. *************************************************************