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Godd thing Ernie Sebby wasn't there. Rat Fink Do Gooder!
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. - At a quarter past noon on Jan. 21, a U.S. Navy F-18 Super Hornet jet fighter flown by a combat-tested pilot named Richard Webb appeared over the Edna Valley and streaked toward San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport.
On its first pass, the Super Hornet screamed along at more than 650 miles per hour, just 96 feet above the main runway.
Blake Medeiros, a student at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, who fuels planes at the airport ran outside to watch. Such a sight to appear out of nowhere in the middle of his workday was awe-inspiring.
But the Federal Aviation Administration designation for the airspace above the airport is Class D, meaning that it has a speed limit of 230 mph below 2,500 feet. Like the turbulent wake of his jet, the impact of the incident spread outward, with severe consequences for Richard Webb's aviation career.
San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport once had been Webb's second home. In 1992, as a sophomore at Cal Poly, he got a job with an aviation service company at the airport. Every spare dollar he earned went for flight lessons.
"The highlight of my day would be when a military fighter jet seemingly appeared out of nowhere and made a high-speed low pass over the runway," Webb wrote in a widely distributed e-mail months after the incident. "Talk about motivation."
After airport officials got in touch, the Navy convened an evaluation board to consider Webb's conduct. Webb admitted performing the fly-by and knowing that it was against the rules.
Upon learning of the threat to Webb's career, San Luis Obispo airport officials expressed concern about the reaction they had sparked. On Feb. 15, Airport Manager Klaasje Nairne wrote Webb's superiors that "it was never our intent to be a party to the end of this gentleman's naval aviation career."If that were the result, she wrote, "it would be most regrettable."
Although a superior officer acknowledged that Webb was "an energetic junior officer and talented aviator," the commander of the Naval Air Force Atlantic Fleet, Webb's home command, concluded that his fly-by "merits termination of flying status."
Webb's wings were pulled. He was exiled to a desk job in Qatar in the Middle East and left to ponder the four remaining years of his service commitment as a groundling.
On June 3, he sent an e-mail to Ernie Sebby, a former member of the San Luis Obispo County Airport Land Use Commission and an erstwhile recreational pilot, carbon-copying more than 30 friends and others in the aviation community.
In regard to his unauthorized fly-by, Webb wrote, "No respected fighter pilot worth his salt can look me in the eye and tell me they've never done the exact same thing."
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Bad thing is that the Warbird community does not need the bad publicity.
