Did Kerry make up jet-pilot story? Seasoned flyers doubt yarn about taking controls over Israel

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Wednesday, May 5, 2004

[JohnHuang2]

ELECTION 2004 Did Kerry make up jet-pilot story? Seasoned flyers doubt yarn about taking controls over Israel

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: May 5, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

It's been a tough week for John Kerry's credibility.

He's been called unfit to be commander in chief by many of his Vietnam comrades and commanders.

He's been criticized for accepting a Purple Heart for what amounts to a scratch on his arm treated with a Band-Aid.

Now, seasoned jet pilots are calling into question his latest claim – taking the controls of a fighter and flying it over Israel in 1991.

Kerry told the story Monday in a speech to the Anti-Defamation League. He claimed it gave him a different perspective on Israel. He said probably no one else in the room has seen the country upside down from an Israeli Air Force jet.

He asserted that authorities in Israel kept denying his request to fly one of their planes, but that the colonel who was showing him around Israel during a 1991 visit not only got him into a trainer, but let him take the controls.

"I take it off, we go up into the sky, climb up, head down toward Aqaba," the senator said. "And I wanted to look at Aqaba, so I'm coming down over Aqaba, and I suddenly hear this voice on the intercom, and he says, 'Senator, you'd better turn faster, you're going over Egypt.'"

Kerry said the colonel then gave him permission to do "a little aerobatics" and that he made a loop at about 12,000 feet.

"To be able to come out upside down and look down and catch the horizon in back of me and see all the way down into the Sinai to the old base that had been given up, all the way across into Jordan, all the way out into the Gulf of Aqaba, and to see Israel beneath me, and the lines contained, and to see it all upside down was the perfect way to see the Middle East and Israel," he said.

But Internet boards were abuzz with skeptics – some of them seasoned jet pilots themselves.

"I'm sorry but I don't believe for a second much of what John Kerry says," wrote Ron Pera, himself a veteran Navy combat fighter pilot."

I believe even less that he makes the comment he took off the jet trainer that he reportedly flew over Israel."

FreeRepublic.com and other bulletin board sites were inundated with similar posts.

"First of all jets are more difficult to take off than propeller planes because they accelerate much faster and the speed they need to get airborne is much higher," Pera wrote in an email to WND. "This requires more precise control and you will not have that the first time you are in the plane. It takes practice to get those skills, a lot of it. Second of all no rational military trained pilot would take the chance of hurdling off the runway at 160 mph just to let some bigwig handle the controls. Takeoffs and landing are two of the most dangerous times during an aircraft flight. Once you are tens of thousands of feet in the air then it is much, much safer to let some inexperienced person take the controls since you have time and altitude to regain control. This is not a blessing on the ground."

Pera added that unless Kerry many hours flying military aircraft "it is next to impossible he took the plane off."

"I speak from experience as a former Navy fighter pilot and I have no problems releasing ALL of my records," he wrote. "Will Kerry flip-flop on this statement also or just yell at whoever asks the question?"

[Fresh Wind]

Kerry said the Israel "ACE" took the plane off and offered Kerry the controls when it was about five feet off the ground.

I'm not a pilot, but this doesn't make any sense at all. Five feet off the ground is hardly a safe altitude to change pilots. Kerry is lying, for sure.

[Toddsterpatriot]

What's next?

It wasn't Al Gore, but I, John Kerry, who invented the internet.

[Shery]

"This is so completely bogus you have to wonder if Kerry has completely lost it."

No wondering about it! He sounds like algore more and more every day. Suppose they were accidentally cut out of the same "cloth"?

[Steely Tom]

I'm not a pilot, but this doesn't make any sense at all. Five feet off the ground is hardly a safe altitude to change pilots. Kerry is lying, for sure.

Look, Senator, I'm not comfortable letting you pilot the whole take-off... I'll tell you what. Let me get her up to 160 knots, and once we're off the ground five feet or so, I'll hand the controls over to you, how's that?

(steely)

[Bronzewound]

"…and after I did a few loops, I invented my famous flip-flop maneuver. So, I was able to see everything from two different perspectives, and they all looked alike. Now, it was right at that very moment that I thought, 'This flip-flop thing could come in real handy for my political career.'…"

"…and my girlfriend, uhh, Morgan Fairchild was right there with me, yeah, that's it, Morgan Fairchild…"

[OXENinFLA]

OMG KERRY IS TALKING ABOUT FLYING A JET!!!!!!!!!(OVER IN ISERAL)

DONING A FLIGHTSUIT!!!

NOW HE SAID HE DID A LOOP!!!

I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW HE COULD FLY!!!

---

These were my comments as I watched Kerry say this.

[OXENinFLA]

JOHN KERRY: Open mouth, insert foot.

---

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

[shezza]

Well, really, when you think about it, letting Kerry take the controls was a very safe thing for this "ACE" pilot to do. After all, according to the junior Senator, "I don't fall down." I would presume that to mean planes, as well as skis.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Ha! The King of Denial!

[dennisw]

Tawana Brawley sprouts wings and takes to the air. A flight of fantasy. Designed to scam money out of Jewish mega donors to the 'crats.

[dennisw]

Effin' Kerry is one of the last guys to give a flying ef about Israel. This yarn is custom made to gull Jewish voters and blood donors to the 'crat party.

[The Mayor]

kerrys a dimwitted liar

[N. Theknow]

I think Kerry is lying about this. An easy way to prove one way or the other is for Kerry to name the ACE PILOT. There are very few Israel aces from 1967. For this amazing once in a life experience, how could Kerry forget his name? Then the first thing to do would be to check if the guy was still alive in 1991. It's a bit unusual for a fighter pilot still flying military jets 24-25 years later.

Chaim Lindbergh?

[TankerKC]

I taped Kerry's speech and went back and checked. Kerry said the Israel "ACE" took the plane off and offered Kerry the controls when it was about five feet off the ground.

I specifically recall him saying just that. He mentioned taking the controls at 5 feet. But, I think he also said "I took off" at some point. Either way, no pilot is going to let him do this. I took a ride in a T-38 once. The instructor pilot was seated in the back and he did not let me take the controls until we were at altitude and in an approved training area. Even then, he had the throttles and I'm sure his hand was lightly on the stick.

On a side note, several folks have said that flying a "military jet" is much harder that flying a small prop. That's isn't my opinion. I first soloed in a T-46 (Cessna 172). It was so light and has so little power that I found it quite a challenge (on take off, in flight, and landing). After that I flew and soloed in the T-37 (jet trainer). I thought take off and in-flight (including aerobatics) was much easier. Landing at a higher speed and gross weight had different challenges than the 172, but It was no more difficult.

Of course, I washed out of pilot training, so what does my opinion mean? ;)

[ought-six]

"Five feet off the ground is hardly a safe altitude to change pilots. Kerry is lying, for sure."

Five feet off the ground on take-off is still in the rotation phase, and there is NO WAY a pilot is going to turn over the controls to an amateur, of whom the pilot has no conception of that amateur's flying skills, at such a critical moment. This story is pure bull$hit, but typical Kerry. Oops, but I am being redundant.

[sergeantdave]

While doing guard duty at the brig on the USS Oriskany, I got bored and asked the admiral if I could take the carrier for a spin.

"Well, sarge, I don't know. What's your experience?"

I told the admiral that I did extensive fishing for muskie at Buffalo Lake while at the helm of a 15 ft. boat sporting a 20 hp Evinrude.

That's all he needed to know, and he gave me the wheel, warning me not to get to close to Haiphong Harbor 'cause the waters were mined and oysters were busy making pearls.

So I gave the carrier a little spin, doing a figure eight and cruising south and then up the Mekong River, doubling back under evasive maneuvers I learned while tracking walleyes, to Osaka to confuse any enemy frogmen shadowing us and then I parked the ship in a small Vietnamese fishing boat berth while the crew bobbed for sea bass.

"Good job, sarge," said the admiral. "One day you'll win an award at the Liar's Club convention, or enter life as a fiction writer or politician."

[Alouette]

This whopper beats Bill Clinton's pledge to "take a rifle, get in the trenches and fight and die" hands down.

[Pukin Dog]

When you first asked me about this, I was not aware that Kerry claims to have 'taken off'. If that is the case, than he is clearly lying. If he was handed the controls after the pilot reached a safe altitude, then he could be telling the truth. Combat aircraft are just not very difficult to fly.

[Mo1]

When you first asked me about this, I was not aware that Kerry claims to have 'taken off'

I think what I asked you about was the loop he claimed to do at the Golden Gate Bridge in the 60's

This is a different story