Thread by @JewhadiTM

One of the most ignorant anti-Trump Stories yet americanthinker.com/blog/2018/11/o… via @AmericanThinker

A lot of commentators are slamming President Trump for not attending a commemoration ceremony in France for the end of World War 1 at the American cemetery at Aisne-Marnes. There’s a lot snark, typified by this from @JamesFallows of The Atlantic:

“What I do know is that one hypothesis that has shown up in many stories about his no-show—that Marine One, the presidential helicopter, “can’t fly” in the rain—doesn’t make sense.”

“As you’re looking for explanations, you can dismiss this one. Helicopters can fly just fine in the rain, and in conditions way worse than prevailed in Paris on November 10.”

Author:

Our flight, in unexpected cold rain that November day, was one of the nastiest and most dangerous moments in my military flying career, I have over 3000 hours in Fighters and attack aircraft in addition to my modest 200 hours in the UH-1E.

One "tell" that we would immediately crash was to look at a very thin "guy wire" for ice accumulation. If it had an ice buildup we were going swimming without a survival suit.

Since we were over water other bad weather issue was not of concern since we had taken off with Visual Flight Rules and went unexpectedly IFR, we had a bad weather brief at take off.

But at least we did not have what we called “cumulio-granet” clouds i.e mountains to contend with, just freezing water. I could not agree more with his comment: “We really shouldn’t be here”

So If the Marines in HMX-1 take a weather abort, especially with the safety of the most important person in the world and perhaps his family as precious cargo, believe and trust them.

There is always a very good reason if they chose not to fly and anyone who challenges their integrity judgment is just flat out wrong and insulting.