Big handgun table outside "Dick's" today in Greenville.

[DemoTex]

Big crowd watching a young Paul Newman look-alike lock-and-load this fancy slide-action automatic over and over. He yelled at me like a snake-oil salesman: "Sir! Check out this 47.55 double-gage single-caliper rail-action pistolo with a built-in Watson!"

"No thanks," sez I. "I'm looking for a sleeping cot."

The gun counter was packed, too. What's up?

[MercutioATC]

1. Sounds like he was selling guns...

...nothing's "up", just business.

[DemoTex]

3. I ain't talking about the seller .. I'm talking about the throng of gawker/buyers.

And don't ask me to use my spoilers to expedite my decent. Those are for MY mistakes!

:rofl:

[MercutioATC]

4. You can always make a 360 if you don't want to use them...

:P

As far as the buyers...a couple of things.

1) I take it the table outside Dick's is a new thing...people were looking to see what was going on.

2) More people are interested in owning guns as the economy gets worse and crime rates rise.

3) With Obama stating support of renewing the AWB, people are buying guns now while they have the chance to do so.


...just my take.

[DemoTex]

6. Speaking of the 360 ..

Long ago I was flying a trip (ICT-DCA in a B-737-300 .. his leg) with a real asshole captain. He was about 15 years younger than me. Leaving the gate at ICT he blew over a baggage train. Hurt a ramper, we found out later (strike 1!). Also (embarrassment!), we had a UAL captain in the jump-seat.

Then, it was the Bucko Five STAR .. EXPECT to cross Armel (AML) at 8000'. We had a very strong tailwind, and captain wasn't in any hurry to start down. I prodded him, gently. He said, "Hell! wait till those ATC bastards start us down!" I smiled, sat back, and added 15 minutes to the in-range ACARS message to the company.

ATC: US Air 123 .. you gonna make that restriction at Armel? You look high and fast.

Captain (to me): You tell those assholes they waited too long! WAIVE THE RESTRICTION!"

F/O (me): Er .. can you waive?

ATC: US Air 123 .. slow down and do me a couple of lazy 360s. When we see that you can comply with those simple instructions, we might clear you to resume the Bucko Five.

[Canuckistanian]

10. Pardon me, DemoTex

But after looking at your post for about 15 minutes, I have NO IDEA what a "Bucko Five Star" is or what a "restriction at Armel" means (altitude restriction over Virginia?).

Could you elucidate?

[MercutioATC]

12. DemoTex is a pilot...I'm an air traffic controller...

...I'm sure we both apologize for the lingo.

[DemoTex]

13. 1. I'm a retired airline pilot. 2. MecurioATC is an active controller.

The Bucko gobble-gook refers to a charted arrival into my old home base, Washington National (DCA). The charted arrival specified arrival corridors and specific altitides and speeds at those crossings.

[Canuckistanian]

14. Thanks! I didn't realize that the 'ATC' referred to air traffic controller

So you guys were just swapping jargon.

Cool.

I'm trying to learn aviation terms because I hear the planes on my scanner all the time.

[MercutioATC]

11. We don't get too much of that any more...just rookies who don't listen.

We ran a little unofficial poll and roughly 30% of our clearances now either go unanswered or are read back incorrectly.

There are a lot of good pilots out there...but a lot of them are inexperienced.

[Deja Q]

2. What's up? Nothing the gun seller has stashed in his slacks...

Fear and paranoid delusions would be my guess.

[T Monk]

5. arming their side

[aikoaiko]

8. Arming **our**, side, too.

Fixed it for ya. ;)

[T Monk]

9. thanks go blue!

[Hangingon]

7. No Dick's down this way, but I thought they didn't sell handguns.

I remember all the complaints I heard about this when they took over the Gallion's. I used to go to Gallion's (sp?) in Kansas City when I visited family. It was a nice store and went down hill when Dick's took over. After the take over I never saw handguns there or at the Dick's in Lansing MI. New store policy?