@MikeD can you share the story of the video your professor showed last day at Riddle?
Professor Craig Funk, LtCol, USAF (ret). Col Funk was an ex-USAF RF-4C Phantom pilot that was a professor of Air Science at Riddle when Doug and I were there. Knowlegable and professional guy. Used to have two daughters. Both were killed in a Cessna 172 crash at Lake Amistad, near Del Rio, TX in 1986. The Cessna was doing all sorts of stupid aerobatic maneuvers over the lake and near the surrounding terrain, in addition to being over 300 pounds overweight and out of the aft CG envelope. The pilots were an AF IP and an AF student from the nearby Laughlin AFB, and the flying happened to be getting filmed by some people on a boat who happened to have a video camera. During a hammerhead maneuver, the plane stalled and hit the water, killing all four aboard. Funk was the Chief of Flight Safety at the time at Laughlin AFB.
Funk taught Aviation Safety classes at Riddle-PRC. The last day of class, he comes in says "good morning" and says that he'd like us to watch a video. He puts in the amateur video of the crash that killed his daughters (no one is aware of his past as he hadn't talked about it). Everyone mocks the video as the Cessna is doing it's flying...all the way up to it impacting the water. At the end of the 3 minute video, Funk asked "what did you think?" Several people made jabs about the stupid people in the plane, etc. Funk responds "if you took nothing else out of this class this summer, take this thought with you: Your job in the safety field, even that of a pilot, is to help ensure that accidents like this never happen. I've harped upon many things in this class over and over, sometimes ad naseum. In this accident (pointing to the TV), I lost my only daughters.
THIS is why I do what I do. Please remember that in your future careers, so you never have to go down this road. Ever."
With that, he ejected the tape, turned off the TV, gathered his folder, and walked out of the room; the last day of class being over a little over 5 minutes after it started.
You could hear a pin drop from the stunned silence.
In a tragic twist of fate, LtCol Funk's son, Major Brad Funk, was tragically killed in May 2008 (along with a student pilot) in a T-38 landing accident at Sheppard AFB, TX, following recovery from a simulated-single engine touch & go that resulted in a touchdown short of the runway. Debris from the touchdown entered the right intake and FOD'ded the right engine, seizing it. Funk took control of the aircraft and got it back airborne, executing a single-engine go-around with full afterburner on the left engine, and retracted the gear on climbout, but retracted the flaps too early with regards to the thrust deficient situation now encountered. The T-38 stalled approximately 30 AGL, and both crew initiated ejection. During the ejection sequence, both ejection seats collided with one another, causing a malfunction of the parachute sequencing, and both seats impacted the ground with no seat-man separation. Both crewmembers suffered fatal injuries.
The 1986 accident here:
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20001213X33055&key=1
