“Is that Legal, Bob”

As I was going through T-38 PIT the second time, Jul – Nov ’82, I had a flight with the squadron commander; our resident “Reg Reader.”  I don’t know if I would rank him up there with the most motivational commanders I had; but he sure knew the regs!  Damn – page and paragraph!  After you heard him quote an insignificant, obscure reg, about something that had relatively no bearing at all on the primary mission, you couldn’t help but feel that you “had been to the mountain!”  You had “received the word!”  I once heard him explain the reg on flight suit name tags.  Hell, I never knew there was one; nor did I care…

Anyway the day I flew with him, I made the full stop landing on 32R at Randolph.  Nice sunny, early afternoon – calm winds.  As the nose lowered to the runway, I reached in the pin box to retrieve the seat and canopy safety pins.  He must have heard the clanking of them as I pulled them out of their little cubbyhole.  

“Is that legal, Bob” he asked.

“No,” I replied, and nothing more was said…

I don’t know why I chose to install the pins at that particular time during the landing roll; I always had.  Just did.  And continued to do it for my remaining career.  Oh well…

Had to laugh the other day as I was returning home.  I was about 100 feet or so from my driveway and I reached down and released the seat belt on my BMW M3.  “Is that legal?” came to mind, and I began chuckling about it.  Right up until I noticed a cop coming my way!  Nuts!  As it turned out he didn’t noticed, and I ducked into my driveway – still chuckling…

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