Virginia man opens fires on helicopter, thinking occupants are terrorists, police say

Associated Press / SFGate

[mamelukesabre]

You know what? He looks like your typical democrat in Washington. If you change the background so it looks like he's standing on a yacht, he could pass as a kennedy.

[Bobby777]

hehe ...

[Don Joe]

"But I don't see where you come up with the double 'ff'."

I'm getting it from other names I've heard with similar spelling. Pretty much none of the letters have any phonetic cues (with respect to western phonetics). Having "zews" sound like "efs" isn't really that unusual IMO. Certainly no more than "b" sounding like "v" in Russian, or any number of other phonemes that make a bit of a jump from one language to another.

Try pronouncing "zews" fast, and I think you'll hear an "f" trying to push its way to the fore.

[Cloud William]

I think you can still get moisin-nagants for around 50 bucks....that are almost like the old british 303 rounds except a tad longer and maybe a tad wider. It is way more powerful than that old AK-47 round.

You bet, those are seriously powerful rifles at fantastic prices. The 7.62x54R is *not* a pleasant caliber to shoot in the later carbine versions of the Mosin-Nagant, though. Muzzle flash verges on thermonuclear and recoil is more than substantial (not unlike the .303 Enfield "Jungle Carbine" of the same period). Lighter carry weight comes at a price, unfortunately.

[Severa]

Whereabouts are you? I'm in NAS Oceana base housing. My hubby is stationed at NAS Norfolk. We only see the F14 and F18s over our house, but Norfolk has all the other fun stuff (you try standing on the Norfolk sub pier and have a C5 fly over on final approach. Happened to me once. Hurt like hell. Scared the hell out of my sons.)

[inquest]

It's pronounced "Chewbacca".

Seriously, I have no way of knowing how he actually pronounces it, since Polish names get mangled so much in America, but the actual Slavic pronunciation is Khwashchevsky (like the "shch" Krushchev).

[Twodees]

...come to find out, I have a low altitude military flight path that goes right over my rural house. It had been pretty much unused but when 9/11 occured it was reactivated.

Yep, I'm about 22 miles ENE of Ft. Pickett. Their flight paths for helos pass very close to my property lines on two sides. The pilots are good about climbing somewhat before passing over the ridge I live on, though, so we seldom get the window rattling effect that the larger birds can produce.

I can sort of feel for the ol' boy too but he still behaved pretty badly. Glad he didn't hit anyone with the rounds he fired. Glad he wasn't usng a Garand or M1A too.

[Twodees]

they think that Freepers and the "black helicopter crowd" are all the same.

Some clearly are the same.

Some FReepers are the same as the liberals who think such crap as well. They call themselves "the mainstream". Sound familiar, Dave?

[Twodees]

Yeah, I remember the days of SKS rifles for $75.00 plus tax.

I remember the days of the A&N stores having racks of rifles with the foreign stuff like German Mausers going for $12 to $20. Them was the good old days, pre '68 GCA.