wHAT A WAY TO GO!

[dedstikyfingerz]

My local airfield offers a service for the berieved relatives and friends of a person who loved aviation and/or has spent all thier life in aviation. They take an old bi plane, two spiffingly dresses pilots and the ashes of the person who has passed on, and spreads them over the air field in a rather spendid way! (not on the dead side). Any Comments! :cool: :confused:

[28thJuly2001]

How much does this 'service' cost?
Not being critical just interested.
Sounds like a good idea but I would imagine the clients are few and far between.
Walt,,

[EI_Sparks]

Hang on a minute - they spread your ashes over the side while in the circuit???
So in other words, you don't want to be walking around on the apron when this is going on or you'd need a shower to "wash that man right out of your hair"???

http://irishprintdesign.tripod.com/pgalleries/lakes/lakes7.jpg
Erp! No thanks! After I die, take my organs and donate the useful ones (hopefully leaving my liver out of the equation :) ) then cremate what's left. Take a small amount of that and there's this neat little corrie lake in Conor Pass (that's it in the photo) where you can spread those ashes about and put my tombstone, but the rest is to be put in a large waterballoon and dropped on the next NIMBY to protest against an airfield :D

[Keef]

Eh?

Are you sure this is legal?

I'm restricted by Church rules (I only "do" Churchyards and Crematoria), but I thought there were some other pretty strict laws about where ashes can be spread.

Also, doesn't the ANO prohibit the dropping of anything other than ballast (fine sand or water) from a civil aircraft - unless with permission from the CAA?

[long final]

Think this may be one big wind up ????

[Chilli Monster]

No - it's not a wind up.

I know of two occasions when it's been done. One is the flying organisation of which dsf speaks (You're obviously not Will or his old man, so who are you dsf ;))

The other was the C172 pilot who was killed at EGHA when the seat back collapsed. It was requested that his ashes were spread in the same way which they managed by using a tube positioned outside the aircraft and a drawstring to open the bottom at the required moment.

Keef - don't know what the rules are but in addition to the above we also had an ATCO's ashes spread on a military airfield I once worked at (he'd had the coronary in work). Judging by that I guess they may not be as strict as you suspect.

CM

[djk]

I've no idea how I'd like to have my ashes scattered,
but I'm also confused as to what "fower bombing" is
can someone explain, please?

[undertheweather]

Yes our questioner managed to mis-spell at least one word in each of his poll questions. I hate to say it, but wot is the wurld cuming too?

[BRL]

Jet Blast has been desperate for something like this..... :rolleyes:

[Keef]

CM

I'm sure it's happened, but I'm not sure the "letter of the law" was necessarily being complied with.

I was given very strict instructions as to what I could and could not do, and where, and when, before I was "permitted" to do funerals/burials/cremations. That may not be Guvmint law, that may just be the way the Bishop says it's gonna be (and his word is law in these parts...).

But I'm intrigued as to how they got round ANO Article 56 (unless the CAA authorised it). Never mind, eh?

[Stan Evil]

The RAF has done this on a number of occasions but there have been a few horror stories. Someone's ashes were popped down the flare chute in a Nimrod over the sea but ended up blowing back and covering the unfortunate siggy who had sent them on their way.

[Chimbu chuckles]

On a similar vein I remember a 'burial at sea' where someone's ashes were spread upon the water in Middle Harbour (a northern arm off Sydney Harbour) back in the 70s.

Unfortunately it was a Sunday and very busy with racing skiffs of various types:(:D

None being aware of the goings on in time we all raced past the boat being used for the somber occassion and picked up a coating of the said individual on the hulls of our boats.::eek:

After the race we all hosed and scrubbed him/her off down the storm water drain next to the club house..which fortunately ended up back in the harbour again:)

Chuck.

[dedstikyfingerz]

Chilli monster, mmm so you want to know who i am? at a geuss are your initials DW? keep guessing!!

The spreading had been ok'd by the caa.

Flour bombing is droping flour on a target from the airplane (make sure dv window on Tb10's etc) Need permision tho!

Spelling is crap u r correct. But need to bluff other colleges so jist bare with mi.

some of u have heard horror stories of blowing bak ashes, me too, spose it has a potential for going wrong but these guys r good!:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Who has control?]

Keef,
I have read of a pilot at EGMC whose ashes were sprinkled into the Thames from a aircraft.

e-mail me if you want to know more.

P.S. can I book you now for my cremation - I have all the details except the date

[Keef]

Who has control?

Nah - 'tis done, so nowt to do wi' me.

I don't take booking for funerals. ;)

On the basis only the good die young, I might not be around to do the honours...

[poetpilot]

Certainly it's been done from Barton back in the past (70s & 80s) - just as with the foregoing horror stories, on one occasion they tried to do it from a C172 and the ashen remains spread over the entire interior of the aircraft.

Suffice it to say that the deceased was probably 90% committed to the maintenance dept's hoover bag and 10 destined to spend his afterlife coating the inaccesible areas of the cockpit of said 172. No, it wasn't the beloved GumBOIL you'll be relieved to know...

Quite a few others have had their ashes spread on the threshold/holding point (usually 27), thus contributing to the well-being of Barton's hardy grass and arguably strengthening up its boggy surface.

Me, I'd like a nice hillside somewhere, looking out over an area where the military do low level runs over some NIMBY farmers house...

[Windy Militant]

Have heard a number of tales of people getting it wrong and ending up with the recently departed traveling with them longer than was intended.
As far as I know there's no problem with scattering ashes as long as you have permission from the Land owner. My Fathers ashes were scattered on his favourite fishing spot.
Also burials can be done almost any where on private land with certain restrictions regarding to public health and water courses. A farmer not far from where I grew up was buried in one of his fields. He wanted to be buried wrapped up in fertilizer sacks with no ceremony in an upright position overlooking his farm. Apart from the fertilizer bags, they had to use a cardboard coffin, they dug the hole with a Hymac dropped him in and went off to the pub. His sons who were never very fond of him took great pleasure in holding a motorcycle grass track meeting over his head the following year. He hated motor bikes, said they were a waste of money!

[Circuit Basher]

Mrs CB already has a plan for my mortal remains - they're going to be put in an egg timer so I can carry on working after my demise!!!

Suits me - I'm not really going to be bothered by anything at that stage!!

Whilst on morbid thoughts, I once got sent the attached, which sums up a lot of my feelings about life and aviation:

If I ever kill myself flying, I would ask but one thing from you all.

Learn as much as you can from whatever I did wrong, but don't waste your sympathy. It will have happened in the context of a pastime I love with an enduring passion, in full knowledge of the inherent risks, and in attempting to minimise them through knowledge, practice, and care.

But I'm fallible, like all of us, so nothing is guaranteed.

If I have destroyed a beautiful aeroplane by my carelessness, I'm sorry. All aeroplanes are, of course, beautiful.

If I have hurt anyone else in the accident, again, I apologise, unless they were of like mind, aware of the risks, and making a free and informed choice to fly with me.

The way the human spirit is lifted in flight is more important than the life of any one individual pilot. There will be pilots, but there may not always be the historic and rare aircraft to be flown by them. Such aircraft are pointers to the heritage in whose shadow we all stand and enjoy our privileges, but when another one dies, so too does another small fragment of our connection to that heritage.

This is the real tragedy of Biggin and Rouen, and why it is important to remain connected to the history of man's adventures in the air, not just in books and museums. It is also the real tragedy of the loss of airfields, and the growing band of noise complainers. This lifting of the human spirit is increasingly denied to more and more, and replaced by a smallmindedness that impoverishes the soul.

And if any cynic out there denies that aeroplanes have their own life that encapsulates and reflects much of ours, go into a hangar full of them one evening, and in the quiet broken only by the wind rattling the hangar doors, listen very carefully.

If you hear nothing, maybe your soul needs a 50 hour check.

I can't offer credit to the author, as he / she is unknown to me.

[poetpilot]

I like that last post (!!!), very good. May I offer this as an alternative to the oft-used "High Flight"........ I wrote this some time back, originally in honour of a Barton pilot , Dave "Rooftop" Riley. With acknowledgement & thanks to Shaggy Sheep Driver who rescued it from a noticeboard (I'd lost the original).

You Flew
------------
You flew - you were one in many thousands, yet so few
to know the sunkissed splendour of a towering cloud
to climb unhindered to the glory of the sun
whilst others slept in drab grey brown worlds far below.

You lived - you took the chances, made the breaks for self
to try and taste for real the game of living life
and learned new ways, new skills that generations just
gone by had never known, and always you were you.

You laughed - a wholesome laugh, a sincere laugh with those
who after having flown the day, returned to home
to talk with like-mind others on the hours aloft
and recall shared adventures, known to those select.

You died - too young, too soon, but die we all one day
and yours was such a day, so full of hope and joy
to glory in the very thing which took your life
and we will always know you're there because - you flew.