Why doesn’t the raging plague in Maskachusetts cause doubt among the true believers in Faucism?

by philg

This post generally falls into the category of “Are humans in charge of SARS-CoV-2 infections or is the virus in charge?” One of the principal heresies of this blog, since March 2020, is the assertion that SARS-CoV-2 would be in charge of how many humans it infects. I’m wondering if Maskachusetts, which has proceeded under the assumption that humans are in charge, definitively answers the question.

Massachusetts has everything going for it in terms of COVID-19-protection. The population is untainted by Trump supporters, holds a lot of degrees (highly credentialed if not always educated), and is meekly compliant with whatever #Science tells them to do. 95 percent of the subjects, age 12+, have experienced the sacrament of vaccination. Almost any kind of indoor gathering, including attending what’s left of the public schools, requires that everyone wear a multi-layer mask (some private schools are now requiring N95 masks for all-day wear by those aged 2 and over, contrary to “expert” advice in August: “Kids do not need N95, KN95 masks at school amid COVID-19 surge, experts say” (Good Morning America)). Marijuana, which we are informed cures most diseases and is therefore “essential”, has by governor’s order been available at all times since March 2020. Colleges sent students home weeks ago and aren’t inviting them back until February. Unless Karen decides to go on vacation, therefore, Massachusetts is an island guided by Science (capitalized, like “God”).

What does “the curve” look like among this science-following stoned-as-necessary population? NYT:

An uneducated person who was not familiar with nor following The Science might think that the recent trend in cases actually has a steeper slope than prior to universal vaccination. In other words, vaccinating 95 percent of the eligible population has no effect on infection and transmission and, if anything, to the extent that it is causal, actually accelerates the spread. But the faith in forced vaccination remains as powerful as ever. Question for today: Why? Isn’t the example of Massachusetts sufficient to convince even those who put blind faith in Science that vaccines don’t prevent infection/transmission?

(Maybe we can blame the 5 percent? So far Maskachusetts has nearly 1.2 million “cases”. Those are lab-confirmed, so the total cases is probably closer to 2.5 million. Most of the cases seem to have occurred after the vaccines were authorized for emergency use. 5 percent of the population is 350,000. Unless the unvaccinated are getting COVID-19 over and over and over, there simply aren’t enough of these Yankee Deplorables to generate the case numbers reported in the NYT.)

From a reader comment recently, “Belgian scientific base in Antarctica engulfed by Covid-19 despite strict measures”:

Two-thirds of the staff currently based in the Princess Elisabeth Polar Station in Antarctica have been infected with Covid-19, even though very strict health measures were put in place.

“All those present have received two doses of vaccine, and one person has even received a booster shot,” said Alain Hubert, the station’s executive operator and head of security measures.

All staff members preparing to depart to the station had to undergo a PCR test in Belgium two hours before leaving for South Africa, take a PCR test five days after their arrival in Cape Town, where they also had to quarantine for ten days. Another test was required when leaving Cape Town for Antarctica and another PCR test had to be undergone five days after arrival.

These are folks who follow the Science so closely that they actually have jobs in Science! And yet, despite not letting any Untouchables into their pristine vaccinated and PCR-tested environment, they are all plagued now.

This is not to say that the vaccines aren’t potentially useful for the old/vulnerable in terms of preventing hospitalization and/or death. But given the above examples, shouldn’t a person of ordinary intelligence doubt the idea that forced universal vaccination will reduce infection/transmission and therefore the breeding of mutations? My quick survey of righteous friends says that the answer is “no”. Their faith is stronger than ever. But none has a coherent explanation of the Maskachusetts “curve”.

Related:

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The unvaccinated can upgrade their image by consuming meth and heroin?

by philg

The self-described “progressive” who wrote San Fransicko thinks that one reason homelessness in California is so persistent is that individuals are not held accountable for their choices, e.g., to consume drugs.

Until the early 1980s, many people described the homeless as “bums,” “hobos,” and “vagrants” who chose their lifestyle and were undeserving of help. “It was advocates who coined the phrase, ‘homeless,’” said the University of Pennsylvania’s Dennis Culhane. “They’re the ones who thought ‘homeless’ would be a soft, fluffy term for the public to be sympathetic to.” The term was used as a way to advocate for public subsidies for housing. “The anti-homelessness movement chose the term ‘homelessness,’” wrote Gowan, “as opposed to ‘transient,’ ‘indigent,’ etc., for its implication that the biggest difference between the homeless and the housed was their lack of shelter.”

Words are powerful. The word “homeless” not only makes us think of housing, it also makes us not think of mental illness, drugs, and disaffiliation. The word directs our attention to things perceived as outside of a person’s control, such as the high cost of housing, and away from things perceived as in their control, such as working, parenting, and staying sober.

The news media have framed homelessness as poverty since the 1980s. “It hasn’t been this bad since the Great Depression,” claimed KQED, San Francisco’s main public broadcaster, in 1983. “Yet the stock market is booming. Venture capitalists are making millions of dollars overnight in Silicon Valley video games. For a few, it’s the best of times. For many more, it’s the worst.”

It was a grossly misleading statement. The poor farming families like the Okies who fled to the Bay Area in 1933 were utterly unlike the crack-, heroin-, and alcohol-abusing single homeless men of San Francisco in 1983. The two groups were homeless for completely different reasons and needed completely different things to improve their lives. As for unemployment, it declined dramatically, from nearly 10 percent in 1982, the year when the national news media started to heavily cover homelessness, to just over 5 percent in 1989.

Arresting and prosecuting the homeless for things like defecating in public, injecting fentanyl publicly, and living on the sidewalk is unethical, say a growing number of progressive political candidates and elected officials, because the people doing those things are victims of racism, poverty, and trauma. When he ran for office in 2018, San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin announced, “We will not prosecute cases involving quality-of-life crimes. Crimes such as public camping, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, blocking a sidewalk, etc., should not and will not be prosecuted.”68 Enforcing the law contributes to further victimization, says Boudin. “Jails do nothing to treat the root cause of crime,” read his campaign platform. In early 2020 Boudin said, “There are people who are harmed by the addiction crisis in this city, by open-air drug use and drug sales.” But, he added, “those are technically victimless crimes.”

(Living and working in Berkeley, the author may be unfamiliar with the fact that the U.S. actually does have a political party out there for people who think as he does, i.e., that people who use a lot of meth and heroin may have made affirmative choices to use a lot of meth and heroin.)

Is there any class of individuals whose behavior is so outside of cultural norms that progressives are willing to blame them? Let’s look at the official newspaper of the progressive faith. “Doctors and Nurses Are ‘Living in a Constant Crisis’ as Covid Fills Hospitals and Omicron Looms” (New York Times, 12/17/2021). The article itself doesn’t contain anything new or interesting. The NYT reports that Covid is raging in the parts of the U.S. that have the highest vaccination rate. And the reader comments are consistent with this:

The urgent care center on my street has a line snaking around the entire block right now. In Manhattan, in a zip code with vaccination rates in the 85-ish percentile.

Summary of the core article: The folks who collect 20 percent of GDP aren’t happy about having to work extra hard for two Covid waves per year in any given state. What is important for today’s topic is the sentiment expressed in numerous comments. Examples:

I know it sounds cruel, but we need to have a discussion about denying the willfully unvaccinated medical care for Covid – they are keeping it around, helping it mutate and taking up valuable resources that can go to those in real need, to say nothing of destroying our medical systems.

Let the unvaccinated die.

If a person has refused vaccination and a booster, they should NOT be allowed to a hospital. Let Fox News set up Covid-19 hospitals to care for those it continues to mislead for its own profit.

The unvaccinated are destroying our health care system. Time for drastic and draconian steps. If you want to be admitted to a hospital, please provide proof of vaccination. Otherwise you can have a bed at a field hospital that has been set up an an old warehouse, where you will have a bed and a bedpan and no guarantee that anyone will be checking on you.

It may sound cruel, but in all absolute fairness to medical personnel here, people who refuse vaccination and who contract Covid should be treated as attempted suicides. They should be triaged separately and placed in heated tents in available fields or parking lots and treated there by a volunteer or military medical auxiliary, so that hospital personnel can go about their normal duties of handling sane ER cases, strokes, heart surgeries, able to heal those who want and need healing, allowing medical personnel to be preserved themselves from extreme PTSD. If the non-vaxxer patients complain of primitive conditions, they should be reminded of their own primitive behavior in refusing vaccination, when help was available all around them. The medical profession in this country should not be destroyed because of selfish, insane and deliberately suicidal people.

The time to stop accepting people that don’t believe in modern medicine, i.e. vaccines, was 6 months ago.

(from Boston!) Unvaccinated Covid patients can have tent hospitals with their family members taking care of them.

When doing triage, the unvaccinated should go to the bottom of the list! It’s time for insurance companies to refuse to cover treatment for unvaccinated Covid patients, (unless they have a real legitimate reason; not religious, which is almost nobody)

No vaccine should mean no hospital care, no insurance coverage for Covid, and no access to public places.

Stop treating the unvaccinated and send them home. They cannot be allowed to continue on this path of destruction.

Stop admitting the unvaccinated for covid-related care, with an obvious exception for those who couldn’t get the shot for true medical reasons.

(from California) in my world it would look like this: field hospitals in tents with bare bones amenities and treatments for the unvaxxed. Pay the doctors and nurses and facilities staffing these places an inflated rate to compensate for the horrors of it all. Allow hospitals to return to normal, and reserve in-hospital care, vents, etc. for those who are vaccinated.

(response to the above) I’d gladly tell their relatives why: Your husband [dad, son, uncle, brother, or whomever] is in this parking lot Covid facility — probably dying and responsible gif the full cost of treatment — away from responsible patients because he refused to behave like an adult, get vaccinated and wear a mask. This was your husband’s choice.

(Minneapolis) Hospitals need to require people to be vaccinated before entry. No vaccination, no hospital.

(Oregon) Why is it a “ choice “ to remain unvaccinated and be fully responsible the strain and toll on our health care workers , not to mention the financial strain and millions of dollars that have been spent in an effort to keep these people alive . … Why can’t we refuse to treat those who make that choice .

(Separately, some brave commenters pointed out that the hospital staff pictured taking care of COVID patients were not wearing PPE that might be effective against an aerosol virus:

It’s alarming to me that none of the staff pictured are wearing n95’s or eye wear while taking care of these patients.

)

How can the unvaccinated shield themselves from blame by progressives and, if present trends toward increased government power continue, internment in Protection Camps? What could an unvaccinated Deplorable do that would make him/her/zir/them immune to criticism and demands to live somewhere other than where he/she/ze/they has chosen to live? The unvaccinated must start taking meth and heroin!

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Success with Wise money transfer

by philg

In Finally a use case for cryptocurrency? (currency conversion fees), Tim suggested Wise as the, um, wise way to transfer dollars to euro-denominated accounts overseas. I recently used this to pay a roughly $700 bill over in Portugal (where what we would call ACH transfer is apparently the standard way to pay) and it was done within hours for a fee of $44 (Bank of America’s hidden fees would have been closer to $200).

If you want to transfer some money away from the galloping inflation of the U.S. dollar, Wise seems like a reasonable option. The euro per se, however, is probably not the best currency to choose for inflation protection. They have the same fraudulent way of computing inflation, in which the cost of buying a house is excluded (Reuters) and their money printing during coronapanic has generated roughly 5 percent annual inflation. Right now Japan and Switzerland are looking good in a ranking of countries (the U.S. is down with Mexico, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, and Argentina). One thing that I don’t understand is how Germany and France can use the same currency, be right next to each other, and yet have substantially different inflation rates (5.2 percent and 2.8 percent).

Remember, though, that you might have to file some additional IRS forms if you own foreign financial accounts/assets (looks as though real estate is exempt, but not a real estate investment trust, for example).

(A potential inflation hedge in Gruyères, Switzerland. Cheese not included.)

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How far would you go to get your child into college?

by philg

Now that the Harvard College application deadline is behind us, let’s look at a book by Nobel-winner (like Obama!) Kazuo Ishiguro that turns out to be partly on the topic of what a parent would be willing to do to get a child into college. Klara and the Sun was published in 2021, so I’m not sure if the author gets prescience credit for this:

‘Where were we? Ah yes, so the plan was for Rick to be home-tutored by screen professors like all the other smart children. But of course, you probably know, it all became complicated. And here we are. Darling, would you like to tell the tale from here? No? Well, the long and short of it. Even though Rick was never lifted, there still remains one decent option for him. Atlas Brookings takes a small number of unlifted students. The only proper college that will still do so. They believe in the principle and thank heavens for that. Now there are only a few such places available each year, so naturally the competition is savage. But Rick is clever and if he applied himself, and perhaps received just a little expert guidance, the sort I can’t give him, he has a good chance. Oh yes you do, darling! Don’t shake your head! But the long and short of it is we can’t find screen tutors for him. They’re either members of TWE, which forbids its members to take unlifted students, or else they’re bandits demanding ridiculous fees which we of course are in no position to offer. But then we heard you’d arrived next door, and I had a marvelous idea.’

Ishiguro tries to inhabit the mind of an android (lowercase) that is solar-powered and was designed to be a child’s artificial friend (“AF”). What comes naturally to the artificial intelligence is personification/deification of the Sun. From the AF’s point of view:

The most important thing I observed during my second time was what happened to Beggar Man and his dog. It was on the fourth day – on an afternoon so gray some taxis had on their small lights – that I noticed Beggar Man wasn’t at his usual place greeting passers-by from the blank doorway between the RPO and Fire Escapes buildings. I didn’t think much about it at first because Beggar Man often wandered away, sometimes for long periods. But then once I looked over to the opposite side and realized he was there after all, and so was his dog, and that I hadn’t seen them because they were lying on the ground. They’d pushed themselves right against the blank doorway to keep out of the way of the passers-by, so that from our side you could have mistaken them for the bags the city workers sometimes left behind. But now I kept looking at them through the gaps in the passers-by, and I saw that Beggar Man never moved, and neither did the dog in his arms. Sometimes a passer-by would notice and pause, but then start walking again. Eventually the Sun was almost behind the RPO Building, and Beggar Man and the dog were exactly as they had been all day, and it was obvious they had died, even though the passers-by didn’t know it. I felt sadness then, despite it being a good thing they’d died together, holding each other and trying to help one another. I wished someone would notice, so they could be taken somewhere better, and quieter, and I thought about saying something to Manager. But when it was time for me to step down from the window for the night, she looked so tired and serious I decided to say nothing.

The next morning the grid went up and it was a most splendid day. The Sun was pouring his nourishment onto the street and into the buildings, and when I looked over to the spot where Beggar Man and the dog had died, I saw they weren’t dead at all – that a special kind of nourishment from the Sun had saved them. Beggar Man wasn’t yet on his feet, but he was smiling and sitting up, his back against the blank doorway, one leg stretched out, the other bent so he could rest his arm on its knee. And with his free hand, he was fondling the neck of the dog, who had also come back to life and was looking from side to side at the people going by. They were both hungrily absorbing the Sun’s special nourishment and becoming stronger by the minute, and I saw that before long, perhaps even by that afternoon, Beggar Man would be on his feet again, cheerfully exchanging remarks as always from the blank doorway.

I don’t want to spoil the book, a reasonably quick read, and I do recommend it, so I’ll stop here.

More: Klara and the Sun

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COVID-22 for those renouncing U.S. citizenship

by philg

“Americans seeking to renounce their citizenship are stuck with it for now” (Guardian):

For almost two years, since the pandemic struck in March 2020, most US consular missions around the world have suspended their expatriation services for those wishing to give up US citizenship. The US embassy in London, the largest of its sort in western Europe, announces on its website that it is “currently unable to accept appointments for loss of nationality applications” and is unable to say when services will resume.

My friend who lost his passport circa March 2020 remains stuck in the U.S. His COVID-22 situation is that replacing a passport requires an in-person interview, but no in-person interviews have been available for the past two years.

One thing that coronapanic has demonstrated is that government is the least adaptable of enterprises. Friends’ kids who were in private school back in Maskachusetts left their in-person school on a Thursday afternoon in March 2020 and on Monday morning they started back up in Zoom-based school, with teachers working their regular 6 hours per day and delivering the planned curriculum to the planned standards. Maskachusetts public school children, on the other hand, did not begin to receive any education until September 2020, unless you count teachers hosting one or two hours per week of Zoom chat with no required assignments or grades. Similarly, the government hasn’t been able to develop any alternative processes for passport replacement or citizenship renunciation. Yet half of Americans vote enthusiastically for a bigger government that will be responsible for more aspects of American life.

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Protected by masks on a 100-percent full flight

by philg

Readers may recall that I’ve been an advocate for preventing airlines from selling middle seats during coronapanic, rather than relying on masks to block the spread of germs (see Coronavirus will breathe life into my two-thirds-full airline idea? (3/23/2020) and Science proves that I’m right: airlines should leave the middle seat empty (4/16/2021)).

As I type this, a friend is on a 100-percent packed flight back to Boston from a ski vacation. He’s never been especially concerned about COVID-19, so his voluntary leisure travel does not make him a hypocrite (see If at least 50 percent of us are Covid-righteous, how did hotels and flights fill up with leisure travelers?).

Here are his instant messages, enabled by Delta’s WiFi ($5 fee):

  • A woman next to me on the plane has been sneezing into her mask for 4 hours now. She takes it off, blows her nose profusely and puts it back on.
  • The man across from me is coughing all the time.
  • You can hear people sniffling.
  • I can identify at least four different people sniffling one after the other.
  • It is a COVID symphony
  • String quartet maybe
  • The cello just took off his mask and blew his nose
  • Somebody just sounded like he snorted a quart of snot and then coughed five times loudly
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Breaking bad habits for the New Year

by philg

Happy New Year to everyone!

What bad habits are you going to try to swear off for the New Year?

A recent conversation in the middle seat of the minivan:

  • 6-year-old: Dad, if you crack your knuckles you can’t have any ice cream for a month. I’m trying to stop your habitat [habit].
  • Me: Are you going to follow any rules, like brushing your teeth every night, or are you just going to make rules for adults?
  • 6-year-old: I’m just going to make rules for adults. I’m Joe Biden.
  • 8-year-old: If you’re Joe Biden, then give me money. I’m not working, so give me money. If you don’t give me money then you’re a fake Joe Biden.

Another fun conversation was in Naples, Florida, where we saw multiple Rolls-Royces and Ferraris every hour that we were downtown. This sparked a conversation regarding what were the world’s most expensive cars. The 8-year-old settled on a $28 million Rolls-Royce for himself. A short time later, we happened to see a Bentley and I pointed it out. The 8-year-old scoffed, “Those are common. A Bentley is for un-rich people.” (His first language is Russian (via mom and grandparents) so he didn’t have ready access to the English word “poor”.)

[Note that we haven’t attempted to persuade our kids of the merits of any particular politician, just answered their questions regarding why people might want to vote for Biden (“he promised to give people who don’t work extra money”) or Trump (“he promised to keep taxes and regulation low, which would be good for people who are trying to run small businesses”).]

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Safe way to celebrate New Year’s Eve: watch Contagion

by philg

Contagion, by the brilliant director Steven Soderbergh, leaves HBO Max tonight. Most of the friends who scolded me for lack of coronapanic orthodoxy and weak adherence to Faucism are still in their crowded vacation destinations, often in foreign countries where they can harvest exotic variant SARS-CoV-2. I know that, by contrast, readers of this blog follow the science and therefore will be home, and certainly wouldn’t wish to participate in a New Year’s Eve superspreader event such as a party without adequate vaccine papers checks, let me suggest watching the movie!

(And, remember, that “Fauci says to cancel New Year’s Eve parties, as millions struggle for normalcy nearly two years into pandemic” (Fox, 12/27): “But when you’re talking about a New Year’s Eve party, we have 30, 40, 50 people celebrating. You do not know the status of their vaccination, I would recommend strongly stay away from that this year.”)

Though both are zoonotic, there are some differences in the movie disease compared to COVID-19. The movie disease doesn’t seem to spread as well as a pure aerosol, but rather is best transmitted via surface contact. The movie disease has a death rate of about 30% for previously healthy children and young adults, i.e., lining up pretty well with what my friends who read the New York Times and listen to NPR believe.

The movie should have been required viewing for all Americans in March 2020. People would have learned what #Science believed at the time about COVID-19, i.e., that it was spread by fomites and that it was critical to understand R0. The movie depicts shortages, mostly peaceful activities by citizens (i.e., looting) and, contrary to what happened with COVID-19, health care workers abandoning their jobs.

The movie also shows citizens resigning themselves to a yearlong lockdown in order to avoid the 30% chance of death.

The movie shows an alternative medicine fad, roughly analogous to what we saw with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. It misses the “often in error, never in doubt” phenomenon that we’ve seen from regular medicine with COVID-19. Doctors, especially CDC doctors, are essentially infallible and advice informed by #Science never has to be revised.

*** SPOILER ALERT *** There are some anachronisms from our point of view. The film was made in 2011, when identifying as Black or as a “woman” (as the term was understood then) was sufficient for being a brilliant scientist. There was no need to also be part of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community. Despite not being 2SLGBTQQIA+ (and, in fact, although there are sexual relationships referred to, I don’t think that there are any 2SLGBTQQIA+ characters), the brilliant female scientist is sufficiently brilliant to develop a one-and-done vaccine. *** END OF SPOILER ***

To everyone who will be safely at home watching TV: Happy New Year!

To everyone who will be attending parties: We’ll see you in Hell!

Related…

“Delta and Omicron are coming to your party”: Authorities ask Illinois citizens to vaccinate and mask up” (Illinois News Live):

As New Year’s Eve approached, Ejike told everyone to expect uninvited guests from their gathering: Delta and Omicron, a variant of the virus that is currently prevalent in the state. The word Omicron seems less deadly, especially given that Delta is still a prevalent strain in Illinois, isn’t a reason for people to relax, Ezike said. ..

“Omicron and Delta are coming to your party, so you need to think twice,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “People obviously should pay special attention.

What does the expert on a disease that attacks the obese look like? Here’s Governor Pritzker:

A view from the front:

Let’s check “the curve” for Illinois:

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Farewell to Christmas lights

by philg

I hope now that everyone has been inspired by the example of Kamala Harris’s family in quickly breaking down the Christmas decorations (illustrated in a photo from her childhood) to make room for Kwanzaa (no photos available). Tonight is New Year’s Eve, so it is time to say goodbye to the winter-themed Christmas decorations of which our Florida neighbors are so fond.

The twin pillars of religious faith for roughly half of Floridians (Disney and Jesus):

Only loosely related, the twin pillars of political faith for roughly half of Floridians, photographed 12/26 (air temp: 82; water temp: 75):

(Note the apparent gerrymandering in the above districts; they are neither rectangular nor contiguous.)

Speaking of politics, front yard political expression in our part of Florida is rare (1 in 500 houses?), so the few examples stand out (“Lets go Brandon, I agree,” says Santa?):

When you are having a tough time choosing among Mickey, Baby Jesus, penguins, snowmen, nutcrackers, reindeer, angels, Santa, etc.:

a few details from the above house:

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Royal Air Force versus U.S. Air Force

by philg

This book will appeal primarily to pilots: An Officer, Not a Gentleman (Mandy Hickson). It’s by a pilot who spends 24 years in the Royal Air Force flying what the Brits call “fast jets,” ultimately ending up in a ground attack version of the Panavia Tornado. She’s 6′ tall and 190 lbs. and one of the few women in the RAF, so naturally she ends up with a call sign of Big Bird (pre-vaccination edition). Compared to the USAF, it seems that the RAF has more relaxed rules, more esprit de corps, more drinking, and a lot more time off if there isn’t a war to fight (the author is constantly going on beach vacations). Hickson is eloquent regarding why she loves the job:

I love the three-dimensional aspect of flying. I love the freedom of being up there in that vast, limitless sky. I love breaking through thick cloud into a world of deep blue, far from the humdrum of everyday life. I love that every flight is different, every aircraft is different. I love the risk involved. I love that it challenges me. And I love the fact it makes anything seem possible.

The book is packed with choice Britishisms. Example:

We were getting into this life, and began to think we were the dog’s nuts, strutting around the base in our baggy green flying suits. The RAF regulars must have been laughing their heads off.

The training progression in the UK seems to have been the following:

  1. Slingsby T67 Firefly
  2. Embraer Tucano
  3. BAE Systems Hawk
  4. the operational aircraft (Tornado in the author’s case)

It takes just over four years of training to get into an operational role, which the author achieves in 1999 with 80 hours in the Tornado.

Considering how small the UK is, they do a remarkable amount of low-level flying during training.

My previous low-level flying on the Firefly had been restricted to 500 feet because it is a civilian aircraft whereas the Tucano is military and is allowed to drop to 250 feet at nearly 300 knots.

So initially you had to do it with a visual picture. The rule of thumb was pretty simple. At 500ft you could see the legs of cows but you couldn’t see the legs of sheep. When you got down to 250ft you could see the legs of sheep. It was very technical.

Maybe the smartest young officer:

One trainee on the course in front didn’t like flying at night. The story goes he taxied off and hid his aircraft behind a hangar and made all the radio calls he would use during the circuit from there. You can imagine the air traffic controller, slightly puzzled going, erm, I can’t quite see him but he’s requesting clearance to land. Apparently, he taxied back forty minutes later, still keeping up the deception. He was only rumbled when the engineers realised no fuel had been used.

Hickson doesn’t like the technical material:

I had six weeks of ground school to look forward to. Six weeks of theory and tights, back in my beloved blue No.2 uniform. The first few weeks in the drab lecture hall were spent purely learning about engines, electrics, hydraulics and how does a Hawk even fly anyway? I was never that technically minded. Nothing to do with being a woman, just not very interested. Has it got an engine? Great. Does it work? Fingers crossed. As far as the theory goes, I’m not that far beyond your basic suck, squeeze, bang, blow. I was surrounded by guys who were positively frothing at the inner workings of a Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour engine. It didn’t really float my boat.

Training to ditch is tough and scary:

For this we boarded a boat and took to the cold, grey waters off Holyhead. Dressed in a full immersion suit with flying kit over the top, plus boots and helmet, we each had to jump in and be pulled along in the wake to simulate being dragged by your parachute after ejecting and landing in the drink. ‘OK Mandy, whenever you’re ready…’ Already shivering in the autumn morning, I took a deep breath, inflated my lifejacket, folded my arms across my chest and took a big step into the Irish Sea. The cold shock hit me like I’d been punched in the stomach and I surfaced spluttering and sucking at the air. I felt the yank on the harness as the slack was taken up and I was pulled face first through the water by the boat, like a giant fishing lure. Knowing I had to act quickly, I heaved myself over, so I was lying on my back and spread my legs like a starfish to make a more stable platform. I scrabbled to find my harness clasp and swallowed mouthfuls of spray as I fiddled with the release mechanism. Come on, you little blighter. Yes, done it. The harness flew off with the boat and I came to a stop. I grasped the line attached to my waist that was trailing my personal survival pack and started hauling it in. This was the base of the ejection seat, which you released to dangle below you when you were parachuting down. I grabbed the box and pulled the black and yellow handle on top. Nothing happened so I did it again, while kicking my legs furiously to stay afloat. Suddenly it burst open to reveal the single-seat orange life raft that would be my lifeline. When it was semi-inflated, I flung my arms over the side and tried to pull myself in but my saturated flying kit weighed me down. I half squashed the side and kicked like Michael Phelps to get over the edge. I flopped into the bottom like the world’s most ungraceful seal. Done it. Blimey. If I had any kind of injuries from ejecting, likely to be some sort of arm issues from flailing on exiting the cockpit, I would have serious problems getting in. Especially if the sea was rough. It goes to show why you’ve got to be in good physical condition in the first place.

A lot of official events involve a lot of alcohol. Example following first solo in the Hawk:

All of us who had gone solo up to that point chipped in for a barrel of beer, hence the name. But this wasn’t a pleasant summer evening spent sipping ale politely on the lawn. In our flying suits, we were lined up and handed a succession of shots. Downing them in one was the only option. Crème de menthe made for a cheeky opener, followed by a smooth hit of Baileys and then in a convenient nod to the squadron colours, Blue Curacao and banana schnapps. We washed these down by necking a pint of beer and then a glass of milk. Strangely, this was what caused all the problems for those with less than cast-iron stomachs. I was given absolutely no quarter for being a woman. I suppose I had been yearning to be one of the boys, so I couldn’t really complain. Suitably sozzled, we shook hands with the boss and were awarded the squadron’s diamond-shaped embroidered cloth badge to wear on our left arm.

The author has some rough spots in training, but her fellow trainees (all guys) band together to help her out, e.g., spending an entire evening on bicycles practicing formation flying. There is more drinking when she is assigned to her first operational aircraft:

In true RAF tradition, instead of just sticking these up on a notice board, the news was dished out during a drink-up. We were told to report to the bar in flying suits and I met some of the others milling about outside the locked door. We could hear voices and laughter coming from inside, however a few polite knocks didn’t seem to register. We shrugged and carried on chatting but I could sense a few nerves in the air. Then the door eased open and the eight of us we were ushered in. We were greeted with a big Wheel of Fortune-style spinning wheel in the middle of the room. All our instructors were gathered around and we were handed pint glasses, which were quickly filled up from a jug. On the wheel were photos of different fast jets, plus a picture of a jug of cream. This, we were told, indicated you would become a ‘creamy’ and stay at Valley as an instructor with the chance to go through selection again for single seat. Each pilot in turn took to the floor to spin the wheel. If it landed on your designated aircraft first time, all well and good. If it didn’t, you had to neck a pint.

A lot of the challenges will be familiar to civilian pilots:

Taxiing a Tornado in the sim for the first few times was quite funny. It was like getting into a new hire car and taking a while to tune into its whims. I kept meandering left and right over the centre line on the tarmac while trying to keep it straight. Or I’d power up the throttles too much and shoot forwards and then tap the brakes too hard and lurch to a stop. ‘Oh no, a bit more, oops, bugger,’ as I careered down the runway looking like a youngster on roller skates for the first time.

It was really easy to fall into the trap of saying what you thought you should, rather than what was actually happening. For instance, when you put down your landing gear and say automatically, ‘Three greens’ to signal three wheels down because that is what you always say but actually it’s two greens and one red. One of the real dangers of flying is it’s all about motor programmes – you are wanting people to operate an automatic process, with drills and checks, but at the same time they have to be vigilant and spot if something is not where it should be. Plenty of times I’ve looked at a switch and thought, ‘Hang on a minute, I’m about to skirt over the fact the batteries are off.’ You become so used to the routine of saying it. That’s why a lot of aircraft crash – people saying what’s not there.

The Tornado rotates at 150 knots. Hickson gets there after about 600 hours of total flight experience. She almost wrecks one during training in Goose Bay, hydroplaning sideways down the runway at 150 knots. Even back in the 1990s, the aircraft had a terrain-following radar that would keep the plane at precisely 250′ above the ground. The backseat navigator has the job of monitoring whether the thing is actually working or is going to fly the plane into a hill. When a crew dies in bad weather, the mates gather in the officer’s club bar:

That evening we all filed into the bar in a sombre and reflective mood. Their bar books were opened up and all drinks put on their accounts, which would obviously get chalked off at the end of the month.

As the alcohol kicked in so did the tears and raw emotions. The other guys on their course were all big characters and experienced second or third tourists in the Gulf, but they were in pieces. 

The booze flowed and we toasted Dickie and Sean long into the night.

At some stage, as tradition dictates, the mess piano was wheeled outside and set on fire while someone was playing it.

The author and her RAF comrades meet the USAF at Nellis (Vegas) for the Red Flag war games.

The place was packed with buzz-cutted aircrew. A square-jawed American stood up at the front and a hush went around. ‘Hi, my name’s Ninja and I’m the commanding officer…’ Once he’d done his bit another identikit American took to the lectern. ‘I’m Tomcat, and I’m the best goddamn navigator in town.’ It

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