Even with a map you have a hard time finding some the communities they live in, but they think some whacko living in a cave a half the world away has targeted them for destruction‽ The mind boggles.

They use Dash-8s around here, and you see a few Otters with floats, but these are private aircraft. We don’t have any mountains, but we do have a lot of minimal air fields in farming areas, so the STOL of DHC types is appreciated.

Yes, JBM is the best commercially available coffee, but I once got what I considered the best from my Colombian connection, until the War on Drugs™ made it impossible to deal with just about anything from Colombia without major harassment. All I ever got for flying was flight pay and I had to wash my own underwear. 😉

From January 12, 2009, citizens from such infamous terrorist hotbeds as New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Western Europe and several other nations around the world ordinarily covered under the Visa Waiver Program will be required to submit an application for authorization via the Internet before they will be allowed to enter the United States.
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Bad enough that even travelers in transit who are not even stopping in the US are treated like potential criminals and terrorists by airport security. Even worse that passenger’s laptops, mobile phones or any other data storage device can be confiscated indefinitely by federal agents without any suspicion of wrongdoing, the information copied and shared with other agencies or even ‘private entities’ for language translation, data decryption or any other reason. Business travelers in particular, rather than dark skinned young men from unfriendly Middle Eastern countries, seem to be the main targets of confiscation.

Those passengers who have to make trips to the States are increasingly turning to blogs advising on how to encrypt their hard drives, and shipping them back and forth via FedEx but not declaring the contents as a hard drive because that ‘may arouse suspicions’. If asked, lie and say it’s some cheap-sounding trinket. Or even, if you must travel with your computer, consider carrying a pink laptop with Hannah Montana stickers on it to make it less interesting to airport officials.

This, then, is what we are reducing ordinary, innocent travellers to – smuggling their personal belongings in and out of the States like forged papers to cross Gestapo guarded borders.

Not unsurprisingly, tourism in America has been on a steep decline, the nation’s international tourism balance of trade dropping more than 70 percent from 1995 to 2005, and showing no sign of recovery; quite the reverse.
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Damn ‘Turrists’ Stay Home!

So… the only industry you have that can stimulate the local economies in the USA, tourism, is being destroyed by the US Government and it’s chickenshit citizens. Way to go! 🙂 Amazing, truly… Lemmings… that’s the word, lemmings! 🙂

IF you want a *real* thrill ride… Go to Papua New Guinea and fly with Air Niugini or one of the other airlines on Dash-7’s, -8’s or Twin Otters! The place is full of mountains and most of what are laughingly called *runways* are unsealed, the pilots almost have to VTOL in aircraft that aren’t designed for it! Though they did buy some Aussie Nomad STOL aircraft, when we used to make them. Another manufacturing base *outsourced* (ie. given away). I think PNG still fly Catalina’s (or at least one anyway). 🙂 I was told by a pilot there that the first Dash-7 was leased from Rocky Mountain Airways! LOL Appropriate. 😉

As a consolation prize for passengers that survive the trip, they give you a vacuum sealed bag of what IMHO is one of the BEST coffee’s evah!! Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. 🙂 So… it’s worth it. LOL

oops! OT! 😉

yep, i figure i won’t have to worry about a lingering painful death from radiation sickness.

i forget who it was we were scared of the last time my work required me to set foot on a military base, iran maybe. _yawn_

It’s amazing what a good aircraft sheet metal guy can do with a hammer, tin snips, and a pop rivet gun, and no one would miss those signs anyway. Leaving a car parked near the flight line was not a good idea. 😉

Most of the populations on both sides knew, but didn’t think about the actual consequences because the politicians and media weren’t constantly beating drums about the danger. People forget that Frankfurt was the reason that the Fulda Gap was watched so closely. There was no way of ignoring that any Soviet attack would feature a mechanized army pushing through the Gap, and Rhein-Main AB would be attacked before that started. Despite that, Frankfurt was considered a “plum posting”.