PBY Catalina Bird Innovator.
Posted on 01/15/2009 4:23:17 PM PST by 444Flyer
JANUARY 15-Meet Chelsey B. "Sully" Sullenberger, III, the US Airways pilot who today amazingly crash-landed a US Airways jet in New York's Hudson River with any apparent fatalities.
(Excerpt) Read more at thesmokinggun.com ...
Your husband’s experience is not too far off from my son’s. He enlisted out of high school. His fourth year, he was accepted to the USAF Academy prep school. The following year he was a cadet. Graduated in 2006. Was at Luke AFB before his pilot slot came open. Graduated from Columbus AFB last August. Hoped for fighters, but is now training to be a B52 pilot—and is now very happy with it. He’ll be 29 next month and will have 11 years in the USAF this August. Academy time doesn’t actually count toward retirement age, but I think it does count in total years of service. His 4 years of enlistment added about $500 to his starting pay as a 2nd Lt. I am so proud of him—so’s my whole family, especially my dad who was an enlisted man after between WWII and Korea. I’m proud of your husband! If you guys have been to Luke, you may have met him and his wife, Anne. They were there from September 2006 to June 2007.
i guess they got divers or somebody to attach the bags. Thanks. Good job by pilot and co-pilot. The Airbus held up well.
USAFA Class of ‘73, 18th Squadron
Training, experience and instinct all came together. I've been hearing over and over that the slightest different angle in bringing that plane down and it would be a completely different story. Thank God for this man.
PBY Catalina Bird Innovator.
Resume sounds just like an officers “firewalled” OPR. Its always fun writing those on someone who truly deserves it.
Purdue University (M.S.)
Go Purdue! Boiler Up!
More Purdue grads have flown as astronauts than any other school.
Looks like we need another category for Purdue heroes!
These planes have a number of compartments (fuel, etc.) that will not fill with water, unless it is pumped in, or valves are opened. Of course, this relies on those compartments not getting broken when the plane lands.
He (the pilot) probably touched down at around 150 mph, and had to do it perfectly, to avoid breaking anything.
He lives in California...maybe he should run for Governor.
Wow! Small world. My son’s newest friend is a ROTC grad from Purdue. He graduated from pilot training with my son this past August. I believe he and his wife are now at Dyess in Abilene. He’ll be flying C130s.
Good landing, sir. Good job. Well done indeed.
I emailed him,,bet his email will go down!!
Related link: http://michellemalkin.com/2009/01/15/flight-1549-pilot-god-bless-chesley-sullenberger/
I've seen videos of other water landing in the past - they disintegrate - that water is NOT soft.
“WELL DONE SIR!!!”
Ummm.... Wait for the NTSB report. We pilots are always heroic right after the accident (when few people know the specifics of the situation). Let’s see what the results of the investigation are.
Having been a professional pilot most of my life, I am also a chronic skeptic. It is a burden that comes with the job.
Oh, only about 99.5% of commercial rated pilots.
The other .5% would have tried to return to LaGuardia and died.
I went through a similar scenario at O'hare in the 70's, a pilot crashed his 747 to miss us in the middle of his landing runway, saving 130+ onboard our 727.
Of course, he would have died in the collision too, so his actions were not altogether altruistic.
My son-in-law is leaving Navy end of month - he flew P-3's, became instructor and on loan to Royal Canadian Air Force for 3 year as instructor pilot/Orions - just finishing up stint in Corpus as instructor pilot on the VT-31.
Just been accepted into the Coast Guard - flying the HC C-130's
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