1-4-2012Alleged Drunk Petaluma Pilot Arrested

Re: 1-4-2012 Drunk Petaluma Pilot Arrested

You might want to change your title to " ALLEGEDLY" drunk pilot. That article has a few holes in it.
 
Re: 1-4-2012 Drunk Petaluma Pilot Arrested

I think the best part of the story is that the dude was pulled over by a couple of CHP Officers in another airplane!
 
Re: 1-4-2012 Drunk Petaluma Pilot Arrested

The lesson here, is that if you're going to drink and fly low, buy a crop duster.
 
Re: 1-4-2012 Drunk Petaluma Pilot Arrested

AdamZ said:
You might want to change your title to " ALLEGEDLY" drunk pilot. That article has a few holes in it.
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Sorry, I didn't think I could change a thread title and I need a moderator? If so then yes I approve the change.

Kimberly
 
Re: 1-4-2012 Drunk Petaluma Pilot Arrested

Fearless Tower said:
I think the best part of the story is that the dude was pulled over by a couple of CHP Officers in another airplane!
Click to expand...

I was tired last night but I could have sworn a couple of other stories reported the CHP driving on highway 37 and when those stories said the cops "followed" the airplane back to Petaluma airport I kept thinking "How can a car follow a plane?" Since they are restricted to roads etc and the plane can head straight for the airport (sections of highway 37 have no exits and are over water so the cars would be stuck).
 
Re: 1-4-2012 Drunk Petaluma Pilot Arrested

Fearless Tower said:
I think the best part of the story is that the dude was pulled over by a couple of CHP Officers in another airplane!
Click to expand...

Did they look like this?

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Re: 1-4-2012 Drunk Petaluma Pilot Arrested

No these guys. The report was wrong, they weren't CHP.


StarskyHutchLogo.jpg
 
Back in the mid 90s we went to Lake Lawn Lodge (in S.E. Wisconsin) -- a very popular fly-in destination, back in the day -- for lunch. When we came back to the plane, the sheriff was administering a breath test to an elderly black gentleman who had landed his beautiful Mooney...on the taxiway.

I heard later that he was a former Tuskegee Airman. Dunno whatever happened to him. Since the taxiway had a bit of a dogleg in it, I thought he did a pretty good job. lol
 
Good one Jay!
A colleague of mine once mentioned her folks had a ranch in Texas and used to host a big BBQ for many years where friends would fly in. This included a lot of famous pilots I won't name but included Mustangs, a P-38 and a couple of Corsairs. When I asked if she got rides her answer was " no - they come in and get all drunked up then go flying....."
Not suggesting this is a good idea but sometimes I think those guys could fly in their sleep.
 
Jay Honeck said:
Back in the mid 90s we went to Lake Lawn Lodge (in S.E. Wisconsin) -- a very popular fly-in destination, back in the day -- for lunch. When we came back to the plane, the sheriff was administering a breath test to an elderly black gentleman who had landed his beautiful Mooney...on the taxiway.

I heard later that he was a former Tuskegee Airman. Dunno whatever happened to him. Since the taxiway had a bit of a dogleg in it, I thought he did a pretty good job. lol
Click to expand...

;) I can maybe see how it would happen. The way I remember, the runway is a different color (black asphalt?) and the gray concrete taxiway isn't as obvious from the air as the runway - which looks like another two lane road. More than once I had some trouble spotting the airport because I was looking for the runway with the taxiway as in the airport diagram and you can only see the runway.

Hey! Why would the sheriff have been called if the airman made a safe landing? :confused:
 

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mikea said:
;) Hey! Why would the sheriff have been called if the airman made a safe landing? :confused:
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That's something I have always wondered. Somebody in the FBO (this was back in the days when the FBO at Lake Lawn was actually staffed -- marine radar and all) must've ratted on him.
 
Alcohol, if considered as a drug, is probably one of the most insidious of them all because it is a socially acceptable drug. People take it as a matter of course for even the flimsiest of reasons for celebrating most anything. Major events like the laundry being finished.

I once heard a story about a GI waking up in a hotel room with a woman who was in the three or four hundred pound category. He was not a chubby chaser at all, never had been, and was somewhat horrified to discover she was sound asleep on his arm.

He desperately wanted to make a quiet escape without waking and having to face her, him not being able to recall how he had met her, or what lies he had made to get her in bed in the first place.

He was considering chewing his arm off when she rolled off of it, still, judging from her loud snoring, sound asleep. He rolled out of bed, grabbed his clothes and dressed in the hallway, thanking G-d for his benevolent mercy on him.

That's the trouble with booze, it clouds your normally reasonably good judgment. After indulging, it makes perfect sense to go for a little flight in your airplane.

John
 
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Hey...when this bachelor finally finishes his laundry it certainly IS time for a cocktail...;)
 
Keep your eyes on that deal, he may have to forfeit the plane depending on his history and you may be able to pick it up for a song....
 
Actually, now that I think about it, if you normally had "reasonably good judgment", you probably wouldn't drink in the first place.

John
 
John Baker said:
Actually, now that I think about it, if you normally had "reasonably good judgment", you probably wouldn't drink in the first place.

John
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Them's fighting words, where I'm from.

In the Milwaukee area, where I grew up, beer was just another beverage. It was served at first communions, little league games, and church suppers. There was none of the mystique of drinking that nowadays leads kids to binge drinking -- it was just a traditional German beverage, in a traditional German town.

As it should be -- and as it still is in my family. Beer is part of our heritage, and is (in Ben Franklin's words) proof that God loves us. In fact, I'm enjoying a Shiner Bock as I'm typing this... :D
 
My wife's barbershop quartet sings this one...

The Beer Song:

Beer, Beer, Beer, Beer...

In Heaven, there is no beer...
That's why we must drink it here... (Drink it here...)...
And when we are gone from here...
Our friends will be drinking all the beer.

All the beer, all the beer...

When we are gone from here,
our friends will be drinking...

.... all the beeeeeer!

We'll be happy to teach it at Oshkosh, including harmony parts. ;)
 
denverpilot said:
My wife's barbershop quartet sings this one...

The Beer Song:

Beer, Beer, Beer, Beer...

In Heaven, there is no beer...
That's why we must drink it here... (Drink it here...)...
And when we are gone from here...
Our friends will be drinking all the beer.

All the beer, all the beer...

When we are gone from here,
our friends will be drinking...

.... all the beeeeeer!

We'll be happy to teach it at Oshkosh, including harmony parts. ;)
Click to expand...

Hmmm... One thing that has been sorely missing from our Wednesday Night North 40 Party has been barbershop quartet music!

I, for one, would pay good money to hear them sing that song...
 
Jay Honeck said:
Them's fighting words, where I'm from.

In the Milwaukee area, where I grew up, beer was just another beverage. It was served at first communions, little league games, and church suppers. There was none of the mystique of drinking that nowadays leads kids to binge drinking -- it was just a traditional German beverage, in a traditional German town.

As it should be -- and as it still is in my family. Beer is part of our heritage, and is (in Ben Franklin's words) proof that God loves us. In fact, I'm enjoying a Shiner Bock as I'm typing this... :D
Click to expand...

denverpilot said:
My wife's barbershop quartet sings this one...

The Beer Song:

Beer, Beer, Beer, Beer...

In Heaven, there is no beer...
That's why we must drink it here... (Drink it here...)...
And when we are gone from here...
Our friends will be drinking all the beer.

All the beer, all the beer...

When we are gone from here,
our friends will be drinking...

.... all the beeeeeer!

We'll be happy to teach it at Oshkosh, including harmony parts. ;)
Click to expand...

Jay Honeck said:
Hmmm... One thing that has been sorely missing from our Wednesday Night North 40 Party has been barbershop quartet music!

I, for one, would pay good money to hear them sing that song...
Click to expand...

Try this one:
 
Need a Cherokee Six to bring the whole quartet. :(

Chordiac Arrest's tongue-in-cheek version of "Darkness on the Delta" will have to tide you over...

<yt>SG5_-8UekZs</yt>
 
Well, I learned that song at college in Michigan, so I'm guessing it isn't a regional thing.

"Glorious, victorious
One keg of beer for the four of us
Singing glory be to God that there are no more of us
For one of us could surely drink it all"
 
ChrisK said:
"Glorious, victorious
One keg of beer for the four of us
Singing glory be to God that there are no more of us
For one of us could surely drink it all"
Click to expand...

That's also part of the Cal Drinking Song
 
Jay Honeck said:
Back in the mid 90s we went to Lake Lawn Lodge (in S.E. Wisconsin) -- a very popular fly-in destination, back in the day -- for lunch. When we came back to the plane, the sheriff was administering a breath test to an elderly black gentleman who had landed his beautiful Mooney...on the taxiway.

I heard later that he was a former Tuskegee Airman. Dunno whatever happened to him. Since the taxiway had a bit of a dogleg in it, I thought he did a pretty good job. lol
Click to expand...
If there is a cop giving someone sobriety tests on a taxiway, undoubtedly someone called it in. Sometimes someone does something that riles up somebody else, and ol' somebody else calls the cops and complains that the other guy is drunk. Like "he cut me off, he's drunk", or "he was all over the road, he's drunk." So regardless, the cop will have the guy walk the line and touch his nose, so that the cop can go back to the complainant and say, "checked him out, made him do sobriety tests, he isn't drunk." If the cop doesn't go thorough the motions, no matter how sober the poor guy is, the person who called it in will call back and complain to the supervisor that the cop just let the drunk go, and didn't do anything about it.
 
Bad news. My new CFI (for checkouts at the new school) was a witness and apparently the CEO there has seen him STILL FLYING DRUNK. Not sure if I should believe the he said / she said stories but the latest is this:

The guy claims he put his plane away and celebrated with a drink. By the time they gave him the breathalyzer they couldn't "disprove" his story. So he could have been drinking AFTER flying. They called the FAA and were given a phone number if he's seen flying again so they CHP can come back and wait for him to land back in Petaluma to do it again so he can't claim it was AFTER flying. Kind of scary he's been seen and is still flying drunk. Apparently the latest is that he almost taxi'd head on into someone, and was weaving.

But again these are tall tales at my home airport so who knows.
 
Times they are a changing. 20 years ago this was still expected and tolerated behavior of the older generations of pilots, often those who had a close relationship with alcohol and combat aircraft. One of the better pilots I knew who was also an AME used to fly in and roll off his wing. I'd go out with the tug and get him. 40 years ago no one would have said squat.
 
Update (again). On my second week (these checkouts take forever) of flying the 150 with a CFI, I finally did "acceptable" full stall gorgeous landings. After several, she notes the guy in the run-up is "the drunk pilot" guy. I ask her can we PLEASE call it a day and she said I was all checked out in the 150 after two weekends of flying. I did NOT want to share the pattern with him and endanger ourselves.

Note the first weekend was btwn 1-2 hours Hobbs and the second was short like 0.8 - 0.9 so not too bad but still.
 
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