Free Republic

The Federal Aviation Administration, under a national outreach program for diversity and inclusion, is pushing to recruit workers with total deafness in both ears, blindness, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism. John Hinderaker wonders, “How crazy are these people?” and as Paul Simon might say, the FAA is still crazy after all these years. Joe Biden’s pick to head the FAA was Phillip Washington, who proclaimed that safety would be his top priority. Washington was unable to answer a series of basic aviation questions including “what causes an aircraft to spin or...

In backrooms and dark corners, airline lobbyists, particularly the Regional Airline Association, are scurrying all over Washington, still trying to undo all the hard work that has been done to make air travel the safest form of transportation in human history. They’re doing this for the usual reasons. They want to try to cheapen pilot training and levels of experience for their own financial gain and expedience. They’re trying to do what is easier and cheaper for them, not what is best for passengers or crews, or for their industry. Once again, it is necessary that those of us who...

Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III, the retired pilot best known for successfully pulling off the “Miracle on the Hudson,” tore into President Trump in a series of Twitter posts Friday. Mr. Sullenberger, who served in the U.S. Air Force before starting his civil aviation career, slammed Mr. Trump over disparaging remarks he reportedly made about service-members. “While I am not surprised, I am disgusted by the current occupant of the Oval Office. He has repeatedly and consistently shown himself to be completely unfit for and to have no respect for the office he holds,” Mr. Sullenberger, 69, said on Twitter.

Retired airline pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger on Friday condemned President Trump’s reported comments on fallen U.S. service members, saying the commander in chief has “completely failed to uphold his oath.” Sullenberger, an Air Force veteran who landed the famous "Miracle on the Hudson," wrote a thread following the bombshell report this week from The Atlantic accusing the president of disparaging dead military veterans as “losers” and “suckers.” “For the first time in American history, a president has repeatedly shown utter and vulgar contempt and disrespect for those who have served and died serving our country,” the former pilot wrote. “While...

Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who performed the “Miracle on the Hudson”, has told Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump to “grow up” and “show some decency”, after she mocked Joe Biden for stuttering. Biden, a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination to face President Trump in November, has spoken openly about his lifelong experiences with a stutter. Lara Trump, who is married to the president’s second son Eric, works for the Trump re-election campaign and spoke in that capacity at an event in Iowa on Friday, the day after the seventh Democratic debate. “I feel kind of sad for Biden,” she said....

Thank You, God for creating Sully, Beau and all tail-wagging mutts in between, and for having seen bestowed upon them Your Name spelled backwards In the end, love—love of dogs in particular—-conquers all. It is the photo of sad-eyed ‘Sully, the yellow Labrador who nobly shepherded former President George H.W. Bush through the last six months of his life, helping him during the misery of his Parkinson Disease symptoms, that people will remember most. The photo of Sully lying by his late owner’s casket not only went viral over the weekend, it went straight to the human heart.

Slate is being torched online for an article telling readers to tone down their excitement about the late George H.W. Bush’s service dog, Sully. An image of Sully, a yellow Labrador, lying in front of the former president's casket has been circulating online for several days, with people on social media fawning over the dog's apparent loyalty to his former owner. Slate on Sunday published an article titled "Don’t Spend Your Emotional Energy on Sully H.W. Bush," which argues that Sully was only Bush's service dog for six months and was "not his lifelong companion," as some have assumed. "Sully...

Retired airline pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, who landed the famous "miracle on the Hudson," said Monday that “this is not the America I know and love” in a message encouraging voter participation ahead of the midterm elections. Sullenberger wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post that he “witnessed the best in people” on Jan. 15, 2009, when he led 154 people to safety by making an emergency landing on the Hudson River after a malfunction. ADVERTISEMENT "To navigate complex challenges, all leaders must take responsibility and have a moral compass grounded in competence, integrity and concern for the greater good,"...

The story of Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger could’ve been fodder for a predictable inspirational film that ends with the main character climatically saving 155 lives (including his own) onboard a disabled plane. But director Clint Eastwood isn’t known for taking that route. As a director, he’s known for asking larger questions and he’s done so in movies likeFlags of our Fathers(2006) and the controversialAmerican Sniper(2014). He’s continued that route withSully, a feature that daringly presents the Captain as an introspective man who faced off againsthis critics after his incredible act of heroism.Tom Hanks stars as the title character, a pilot who faced...

Tom Hanks is perfect in the thrilling ‘Sully’ “Sully” breathtakingly depicts what may be the most remarkable half-hour in NYC history. Six minutes after taking off from LaGuardia Airport on Jan. 15, 2009, Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger (a terrific Tom Hanks) safely glided his disabled passenger jet onto the Hudson River. In 24 minutes, all 155 passengers and crew members were safely evacuated.

Trailer for new film "Sully", in theaters Sept. 9th

When I was a cadet, Neil Armstrong stopped by USAFA and flew a 1-26 in the wave (1970). At the time, the glider program had 2 towplanes (Helio Couriers) and 4 or 5 gliders total, program in infancy. Major McMurtry was the OIC and we called it "McMurtry's Air Force". Sully was in the group. I have a picture of the 1-26 with me and some of the guys (I haven't checked to see if you can see the people's faces (slide is down in ***) -- I was always more interested in the airplanes than the people -- )...

Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger has flown his final flight. [SNIP]

“Fly by Wire” isn’t muckraking, exactly. Mr. Langewiesche doesn’t dispute the events of Jan. 15, 2009, when US Airways Flight 1549 successfully ditched on the Hudson River. Nor does he dispute that the flight’s pilot, Chesley B. Sullenberger III, a k a Sully, is,...a “superb pilot.” But Mr. Langewiesche does bang a few light dents into Sully’s hero aura. What the public doesn’t understand, he writes in “Fly by Wire,” is the extent to which advances in aviation and digital technology have made pilots almost superfluous, perhaps even “the weak link in flight.” Mr. Sullenberger’s airplane, an Airbus A320, was...

Hudson Hero 'Sully' Sullenberger Returns to New York Skies: Watch Live

Capt. Chesley Sully Sullenberger made it his life's mission to protect lives because he couldn't save his father from suicide, according to the hero pilot's blockbuster new book. "One of the reasons I think I've placed such a high value on life is that my father took his," Sullenberger reveals in the memoir, a copy of which the New York Daily News obtained ahead of the tome's October release. Sullenberger reveals that his father, a dentist from Texas, battled depression and shot himself in 1995 at age 78 in the book "Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters." "I'm...

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP) The US Airways pilot who safely landed his plane in New York's Hudson River received an airmanship award Wednesday from the Air Force Academy, where he graduated in 1973. Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III received the Col. James Jabara Award for Airmanship and reviewed a parade of all 4,000 cadets at the elite school.

NEW YORK – William Morrow says it plans to publish the first of two books with hero pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger III late this year. Topics will include his boyhood, his military service and, of course, his "Miracle on the Hudson" experiences. William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, said Friday the subject and timing of the second book is not yet known. Sullenberger safely ditched his US Airways plane in New York's Hudson River on Jan. 15 after its engines were disabled by geese. All 155 people aboard survived.

Yesterday afternoon, Anthony Quintano was alerted by a friend that U.S. Airways Flight 1549 was being towed down New Jersey’s Route 46 towards Teteboro Airport where it will be examined in detail. ... In addition, the co-founder, Dean Thompson, of the 9/11 Flight Crew Memorial passed on eleven great photos of Flight 1549 being towed through narrow city streets in New Jersey as the sun set.

Not only were we served up two of our very favorite cultural icons -- American Hero and Psycho Mother -- but the spate of competing interviews offered a breathtaking look at a generational and zeitgeist gap the likes of which we haven't seen since the Greatest Generation gave birth to the hippies. Ann Curry in full stern-headmistress mode -- I'm thinking they decided at the last moment the wimple really was too much -- acting as surrogate for the millions of Americans who feel outraged by Suleman's decision to have 14 children when she has no job, no husband, no...