Apocalyptic fantasies of flight...

lionclaw

lionclaw

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So I doubt I'm the only one to watch scenes from apocalypse movies, where the freeways are all backed up with cars trying to flee the danger zone, and imagine laughing at the peasants below as I fly away overhead.

Anyone else?

There are perhaps a few hiccups. How will I get to the plane? I live 11 miles away. When I get there, will someone have broken my hanger door down and stolen my plane? Will someone have drained all my gas to top off their own tanks?

Does anyone have a disaster escape plan? Please share :)
 
lionclaw said:
So I doubt I'm the only one to watch scenes from apocalypse movies, where the freeways are all backed up with cars trying to flee the danger zone, and imagine laughing at the peasants below as I fly away overhead.

Anyone else?

There are perhaps a few hiccups. How will I get to the plane? I live 11 miles away. When I get there, will someone have broken my hanger door down and stolen my plane? Will someone have drained all my gas to top off their own tanks?

Does anyone have a disaster escape plan? Please share :)
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That plan didn't work out so well for Gene Barry's character in the 1953 version of "War of the Worlds". Couldn't find any video cuts of the scene, but they were in a small plane (don't recall make or model):
gene_barry.jpg
when they encountered this:
war_worlds_pal_8_x.jpg


And he managed to crash the plane - though they survived.
 
Disaster escape plan?

If push comes to shove in a very nasty situation and I'm trapped, I might be the one to have taken your plane.

That said, 80% of the time I'd either stay where I'm at or run. I'm quite proficient at avoiding cities and potentially high traffic areas by not being near them to start with. I avoid freeways and interstates like the plague anyway so getting trapped on them is not likely. I'll be the one cruising down the empty back highway or country road through podunk nowhere towns that everyone else ignored or doesn't know about because it's 50+ miles from the packed solid parking lot interstate they think is the escape route.

There are definitely some unique advantages to living on the road year round. You know where the low use back roads are near where you're at because that's how you got there in the first place. You've also been looking at the map very recently and you're already packed. Just for fun, last summer I timed it with a stop watch to see how long it takes to roll. If I'm taking my time with everything unhooked and unloaded, 15 minutes tops. If I decide I have to go NOW and have everything unhooked and scattered about, I'm typically rolling with everything in a little over 4 minutes. Right this instant, I could do it in two minutes. If I'm overnighting somewhere while traveling, it's about 5 seconds from bed to brake release. Range to zero fuel, 500 miles, maybe a bit further.
 
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Just stay away from the "Danger Zone" to begin with...
 
Naaaa, everyone knows you'd just be a soft target for the mutants from outer space and their ray guns. I'm going into the mines with Dr. Strangelove and the 10:1 ratio of attractive females until I can figure out a way to hijack one of their ships and then fly that.
 
Disaster plan? Finish off the liquor cabinet before the zombies get to it.
 
if it's the apocalypse where is there to run to....:confused:
 
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Steve said:
if its the apocalypse where is there to run to....:confused:
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Well at that point the name of the game is to be the last man standing :)

Maybe apocalypse is too strong. I'm thinking of the scenarios from movies like 2012, I am Legend, Independence Day, Deep Impact, etc. You turn on TV and the talking news head tells you "An asteroid is set to obliterate Los Angeles in 14 hours! We broke it here FIRST, LIVE and ACCURATE FAIR and BALANCED etc etc blah blah blah" Then it suddenly occurs to you, "Wait, I live in Los Angeles!"

Your mission is to escape! Ready, set, GO!
 
Back when I was single, I used to have those bug-out ideas. Pack the RV-6 with the dog, all my camping gear, a fishing rod, a shotgun, a rifle and a bunch of dried beans and head west. Jeramiah Johnson, here I come.

Now, with a wife, a kid, two dogs, and an RV-6, I'm in a bunker down mentality. We have a sturdy basement, 20,000 gallons of water in the pool, and neighbors who could probably be picked off one by one if we run low on supplies. ;-)
 
From 1980-1984 The End was always close at hand.

As a SAC-trained Killer I spent days and nights caring for, feeding, and otherwise schlepping the Doomsday devices.

Every so often the Claxon would sound and we would all stand and watch -- if the 4 (later 5) Alert B-52s took off, we had 8 minutes to impact.

If they popped chutes after a short t/o roll, we were fine -- just a drill.

Yeah -- that was a bit too close to Armageddon for me.
 
When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always twenty years behind the times.
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Mark Twain

Not so far from Steinholme.
 
lionclaw said:
You turn on TV and the talking news head tells you
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I've heard so many panic attacks by the yapping heads that I've become extremely jaded. I'd get hit in the head by the rock with my awning out sitting in my camp chair totally relaxed reading a good book. There's a 97% chance that the asteroid is little more than a teeny tiny screw dropped outside the ISS that's going to fall into the LAX region give or take half a hemisphere. (I've driven through several certain death blizzards of the century without even noticing anything other than being in a moderate snowstorm)

That said, if it's really is a big rock falling out of the sky without a week notice, your airplane will certainly get stolen..and up to a point, the faster it is, the more likely it's not going to be there when you get to the airport if it's got fuel in the tanks.

Depending on the threat, time window and people in the region:
1: Long range run on the ground to hidden places.
2: Aircraft escape option eventually to hidden places.
 
I'd rather have a bike and a tent. The bike can get through all kinds of blocked roads, or find a way around. There are far more examples of almost every bike you can imagine, so more parts. Bikes use regular gas, which will still be around in many many filing stations even after everything goes to pot.

That said, if things really did get that bad, I think I'd rather go out in the first wave. Life without civilization would really suck.
 
Can't stuff 4 people, a dog, and three cats into my LSA. (Fish can fend for themselves)

But the big hangar currently has the Yankee Air Force B17, C45 and B25 in it. One of those might work.

But if I were to steal something to esacpe in, it would probably be sailboat - lots of those around. Depends on where I need to go.
 
Since I'm single & value quality of life over quantity I'm not sure I'd want to make it to the post-apocalypse. While I'd enjoy the thinning of the herd, I doubt I'd like my interactions with the survivors.

That plus most places reachable from the LA area on a single tank (i.e. Vegas, random spots in the SW desert, Central CA, Mexico) would suck in the apocalypse.
 
How about the movie 2012? After the runway crumbles beneath them on takeoff, and the mountains rise up to smite them, THEN they realize they don't have enough fuel to get there.
 
Ken Ibold said:
How about the movie 2012? After the runway crumbles beneath them on takeoff, and the mountains rise up to smite them, THEN they realize they don't have enough fuel to get there.
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I don't have good luck. I'd hit a down draft or turbulence that they somehow avoided the entire movie.

You don't displace several thousand cubic miles of air (rising ground) in several minutes without some turbulence or atleast a draft. Let's not even start on weather effects of all of Asia traveling several thousand miles in a few hours.
 
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