An ultra light and Coors Light

  • Published
  • By Col. "Tip" Stinnette
  • 39th Air Base Wing Commander
INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey --  The Lafayette, Ind., pilot was renowned for his fly-by-night escapades where he enjoyed circling an area of town and toasting the people below with Coors beer. On his latest exploit he was flying his Ultra Light aircraft over a small section of homes, saluting the spectators with his Coors, when he smashed into a homeowner's huge TV tower.

It is a mystery how he could fail to notice the 150-foot structure, particularly as it was topped with a gaudy Christmas tree star, but fail to notice it he did. The aircraft knocked a 45-foot section out of the tower, sliced through three steel cables, and dove to within 40 feet of the ground before the embarrassed pilot managed to regain control and fly away.

The Red Baron caused about $4,000 of damage. Although his identity is unknown, several clues were found at the scene: his left shoe, sunglasses, and a can of Coors Light were among the debris left by the plane. A compass and speedometer were also found. So the next time you're in Indiana, look for a guy with only one shoe, holding a beer ... my bet is he'll have a good story to tell.

Now I don't make these stories up ... they are real and chronicled by an organization that tracks the truly stupid inane human tricks that separate the wheat from the chaff, or in the case of Darwin, the strong from the weak.

Now one might have thought that during the ramp up to the three-day Veterans Day weekend the message would have been fairly clear especially since we spent all day Thursday talking about it during Wingman Day ... Be careful in the Alley or you will get arrested and the boss is pretty serious about Alcohol Related Incidents ... they kill.

So let me recount Friday evening for you: two guys "consensually" head butt each other ... one goes to the hospital; five guys attempting to do the Tokyo Slide from the Fast and the Furious down E-Street; four guys yelling out in front of Area 51 (great location right across from the 10th Tanker commander's quarters); and one guy throwing up on himself and breaking his wrist in the club. Throw me a bone people ... this isn't that hard. Twelve people who didn't get the word or chose to ignore the word.

We've been at this for a good period of time and don't mind telling you that. We are running out of ways to save people from themselves ... let's try DIGITCON Bravo for a couple of weeks and see what happens.

Count on some help out at Area 51 and expect our Security Forces to be on the hunt for DUI/DWIs near the Alley gate.

We were lucky this past weekend ... kind of like the Red Baron in his Ultra Light with his Coors Light ... we can't live on luck if we are going to ensure freedom's future.