Con-pilot: Concur!
pakeha-boy: Concur
LAVDUMPER: All fighter pilots fly the same way. They are aggressive, eager to win, and sometimes, down right hostile but they are not malicious. If you have been a fighter pilot, you will know what I mean. Was Wang Wei a reckless pilot? I don’t know. I never saw his flying. Was he flying too close? He probably was. Did he make a mistake by flying too close? Probably. But do we have proof that he made the mistake? No, because it is the other Chinese pilot’s words against the American pilots’ words and that’s exactly my point. In any accident, we rely on proper authority such as NTSB to investigate the accidents and draw the conclusions. It’s been said many times here on pprune, do not speculate.
Now, here is my version of the story. The night before Wang was killed, his superior gave him a copy of the movie “Top Gun”. Wang was told by his superior to review and evaluate the flying techniques of the American. He watched the movie numerous times and learnt the different techniques used by the US Navy in dogfight and communications. Neither Wang nor his superior knew that “Top Gun” was only a movie produced by the Hollywood. The next day, Wang went flying and he intercepted a US spy plane. He remembered the scene where Tom Cruise went inverted and gave his middle finger to the Russian pilot. The Russian pilot broke off the engagement immediately and flew home. Wang thought that was a standard US Navy signal to tell the bandit to go home, so he slowed down his plane and flew within feet (or metres) to the US spy plane cockpit. Before Wang could go inverted and give the finger, his plane was hit by the propellers of the US spy plane. Wang’s plane broke into pieces and Wang was knocked unconscious by the handheld GPS that was velcroed to his control column when he ejected from the plane. His parachute opened and landed safely into the South China Sea. A Chinese fishing boat picked him up and he was taken to the police in China. Wang lost all his memory and could not describe his ordeal to the Chinese police. The Chinese police thought Wang was a spy from Taiwan and was trying to sneak into China. Wang is now imprisoned somewhere near Tibet.
[This message has been edited by smith (edited 19 April 2001).]