Warbird Information Exchange

Actually it's a pretty hard place to live. You assume I have not been through this, but I can assure you I have. As I said, it's not the photo that shows the most gore that is important, but the photo that tells the biggest, or most important story. At times that photo can be painful for those closest to the deceased. As painful as it is, and as bad as I would feel, I would publish. Every time. Some things are just that important. It's not the gore, or the excitement. It's the necessity of the thing. As I said, the problem is that there are those who don't see the difference between important, and lucrative.

hink of Kennedy and the Zapruda film. I am sure Jackie O wept inside every time they showed her grabbing that piece of her husband's skull. But it's overal import cannot be understated. Publish. Should the photo of the pilot hurtling out of his aircraft be published? Not unless it actually serves the greater good. Otherwise it's just money grubbing or voyerism. Neither of which is what journalism is about.

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

Like a few other WIXers, I'm with Randy on this one. I had a news camera shoved in my face two times after my wife's father went down in a mid-air back in 1996. I had mixed emotions about seeing images and eye witness interviews on the TV but I never took it out on the messengers. The press is really not as bad or evil as some think, they are just reporting the news. Sometimes accuracy takes a back seat but there is nothing pleasant or respectful about a bad aircraft crash.

When you strap on a high performance vehicle and push it to the limit in front of thousands of people, many with high quality still image and video cameras, you should know that in the event of a serious accident, your last moments are probably going to be captured on film. If you are on this forum, you should expect that from time to time, people are going to posts images of bad crashes. I tend to skip most of these posts by choice. I don't take my wife and kids to airshows anymore because I think some acts are pushing the limit beyond what is reasonalbe (IMHO) but I don't think airshows should be canceled.

2007 has been a bad year for vintage aircraft crashes but it's not the first bad year, it's probably not even the worst , and it's certainly not the last. It sucks, I hate it but let's not blame the folks posting the news or photos of the events. Say a prayer, observe a moment of silence, post your condolences, or whatever you feel is appropriate (which may be nothing), and let's move on.

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Albert Stix Jr.
"Work is the curse of the drinking class"