Did Kerry make up jet-pilot story? Seasoned flyers doubt yarn about taking controls over Israel

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Wednesday, May 5, 2004

[JohnHuang2]

ELECTION 2004 Did Kerry make up jet-pilot story? Seasoned flyers doubt yarn about taking controls over Israel

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: May 5, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

It's been a tough week for John Kerry's credibility.

He's been called unfit to be commander in chief by many of his Vietnam comrades and commanders.

He's been criticized for accepting a Purple Heart for what amounts to a scratch on his arm treated with a Band-Aid.

Now, seasoned jet pilots are calling into question his latest claim – taking the controls of a fighter and flying it over Israel in 1991.

Kerry told the story Monday in a speech to the Anti-Defamation League. He claimed it gave him a different perspective on Israel. He said probably no one else in the room has seen the country upside down from an Israeli Air Force jet.

He asserted that authorities in Israel kept denying his request to fly one of their planes, but that the colonel who was showing him around Israel during a 1991 visit not only got him into a trainer, but let him take the controls.

"I take it off, we go up into the sky, climb up, head down toward Aqaba," the senator said. "And I wanted to look at Aqaba, so I'm coming down over Aqaba, and I suddenly hear this voice on the intercom, and he says, 'Senator, you'd better turn faster, you're going over Egypt.'"

Kerry said the colonel then gave him permission to do "a little aerobatics" and that he made a loop at about 12,000 feet.

"To be able to come out upside down and look down and catch the horizon in back of me and see all the way down into the Sinai to the old base that had been given up, all the way across into Jordan, all the way out into the Gulf of Aqaba, and to see Israel beneath me, and the lines contained, and to see it all upside down was the perfect way to see the Middle East and Israel," he said.

But Internet boards were abuzz with skeptics – some of them seasoned jet pilots themselves.

"I'm sorry but I don't believe for a second much of what John Kerry says," wrote Ron Pera, himself a veteran Navy combat fighter pilot."

I believe even less that he makes the comment he took off the jet trainer that he reportedly flew over Israel."

FreeRepublic.com and other bulletin board sites were inundated with similar posts.

"First of all jets are more difficult to take off than propeller planes because they accelerate much faster and the speed they need to get airborne is much higher," Pera wrote in an email to WND. "This requires more precise control and you will not have that the first time you are in the plane. It takes practice to get those skills, a lot of it. Second of all no rational military trained pilot would take the chance of hurdling off the runway at 160 mph just to let some bigwig handle the controls. Takeoffs and landing are two of the most dangerous times during an aircraft flight. Once you are tens of thousands of feet in the air then it is much, much safer to let some inexperienced person take the controls since you have time and altitude to regain control. This is not a blessing on the ground."

Pera added that unless Kerry many hours flying military aircraft "it is next to impossible he took the plane off."

"I speak from experience as a former Navy fighter pilot and I have no problems releasing ALL of my records," he wrote. "Will Kerry flip-flop on this statement also or just yell at whoever asks the question?"

[calcowgirl]

I'm hoping for the JF'nK 'Forrest Gump' series.
You know... John Kerry at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, John Kerry on the Potomac with George Washington, John Kerry with Teddy Roosevelt as a RoughRider (falling off his horse, of course), etc.

[Rocky]

What is with the lying Democrats? Does anybody really care about the truth any more? They just make stuff up on the fly and expect no one to check.

Kerry: Took off a jet plane and did aerobatics in it; doesn't own an SUV; owns only American vehicles; saw lots of actrocities (later admitted didn't see them); many flip flops

Gore: Invented the Internet; the movie Love Story was based on his life; he opposed tobacco because his sister died of lung cancer (but continued to vote in favor of tobacco for 14 years afterward)

Hillary: Named after Edmund Hillary, first person to climb Mt Everest (he did it in 1953, she was born in 1947); and then there's this thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1035840/posts

Bill Clinton: Remembers the burning of black churches in Arkansas during his childhood (didn't happen); Did not have sex with that woman; Oh, what's the use, there isn't space for all of Bill's lies

Remember Gary Hart? I don't run around with women. Follow me and see.

[Southack]

c#70 & #120

[Rocky]

"T-34 prop plane trainer"

I couldn't find this in the article. Where did you get this piece of information? If it was a prop plane, not a jet fighter trainer as asserted by the WND article, you are right. This thread should be pulled.

[PhilDragoo]

[calcowgirl]

Re: post #70... I believe I originated that information (his pilot's licenses) two days ago when the Israel story first started. Whoever posted #70 cites no source. I (almost) always check facts before posting. You can verify my post of that information:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1129089/posts

Re: T-34, I also checked before posting. At first, I was thinking of the T-38 which has the jet engines in the rear... so I didn't understand how birds could get sucked in the engine "on the wing" as described in the article I was responding to. When I found the pic of the T-34, a turbo-prop, I was even more confused.

My comments were to ascertain that the article to which I was responding had to be false. Are you trying to say that commenting on stories to determine what the FACTS are is somehow to be silenced? I think your complaints might better be directed at WND if you take offense to the subject matter. Maybe I am not understanding your point.

[potlatch]

LOL, I love it - I saved it!! That is a really cute one and yellow, just like a daisy!!!

[GretchenM]

Reality tweak process invoked.

The pilot is one of those unnamed foreign officials who support kerry's presidential bid.

So if you can believe the latter, you can make yourself believe the above story.

[calcowgirl]

Maybe everyone needs to read the whole thread a little closer. My post #106 was in response to #85, which posted a prior story in the Boston Globe re: a T-34.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1129818/posts?page=85#85

[WaterDragon]

He's probably been telling this story at cocktail parties for so many years that he now believes it's true.

So typical that the Democrats have come up with another compulsive liar as a candidate.

[GretchenM]

I'm thinking this is jean francois kerry's new answer to Bush on the USS Lincoln flight deck.

[ntnychik]

Nice cut and paste.

[Rocky]

There does seem to be some confusion in this thread between a story from 1967 in San Francisco and one from 1991 in Israel. I will withhold further comments and wait for those of you who have more knowledge on this subject to sort out the truth.

[Mo1]

LOL .. I needed that laugh .. Thanks

[Smartass]

GREAT. You keep coming up with good new hits.

[calcowgirl]

I will withhold further comments

I agree... me too. I think maybe someone got confused... there were multiple conversations going on throughout the thread. If read out of context, confusion can prevail. LOL

[Travis McGee]

125: EXCELLENT!

[dighton]

Le whoooooooooosh! Très formidable!

[John Jorsett]

Unless Kerry has experience in jet aircraft, I doubt the part about takeoff (or the 5-foot-altitude control handoff). I've got a pilot's license in small aircraft, and it's all with a wheel-type control yoke. Hand me a stick and I'd crash whatever I was in if it were 5 feet off the ground. Completely different type of controls.

[Grampa Dave]

This is really great.