Classic stupidity

Got to read this:

Cop Tickets Illegally Parked Blackhawk | Flying Magazine

How dumb can someone be?

Art

 

The Flying article mentions that they think it was a joke:

 

Maybe, but it doesn't have a license plate, nor a VIN number, so without knowing what was left off we won't know. Was also owned by the Army also. So who knows, I'm betting it wasn't but maybe.

Art

 

Seriously Art?

 

Yep. Let's take a second here. 1. Those tickets are numbered. 2.the officer has to account for them. 3. If the officer makes a mistake, voids one, etc., they must supply an explanation to the office (done to prevent ticket fixing etc.). 4. We all know that bureaucrats have little or no sense of humor.

Given the above, what do you think the odds are that the office pulled a prank or was dumb? Bets on the latter.

Art

 

Seems like a pretty good joke and I wonder if the Sheriff is some variety of veteran. If I were in the position of that Sheriff and saw the opportunity I sure wouldn't miss it.

Pranks are a long cherished tradition in military aviation and those pilots sure didn't miss the opportunity to take a few pics and send them in to Flying mag.

 

Can't be any dumber than, say, gluing someone's face to a sofa. That would probably be battery or something right?

 

This one is real though, that is me on the left securing the gondola. A friend who fly's balloons was asked to give a very elderly couple an evening flight by a retirement home that does sort of a make a wish program for their residents. After loading them in and launching the balloon we hopped in the chase truck and followed. The wind was only about 5mph so we had time to pull over for a soda, drive ahead and wait, etc. as we were coming around a corner we saw he was descending rapidly into a populated area so we caught up real fast.

What happened was as he came over the road a county sheriff pulled up and started pointing at the ground as if to tell him to land. For those who don't know, this has no real meaning but he thought perhaps the cop had been sent for some reason (chase truck broke down, elderly person forgot critical medicine or something. And most importantly he was operating the balloon totally within FAR regs. So he sets it down in a parking lot. We catch up and one guy goes to line up the truck while the three of us go to move the balloon to the opposite side of the field so it can lay over with the wind and be collapsed. As we start moving it a cop walks up to me with his hand on his gun and asks me if were with him, I said yes and told him what we were doing and he said; "You can move him over there but he can't leave." As I was talking to the pilot he explained the cop gesturing, and I told him what he just said to me. As we were puzzling over just what was going on the random radio chatter ended and some very dejected "heroes" got into their cars and sped away without a word, or apology. The obvious being someone told them flying a balloon was totally legal thus ruining their big bust.
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