It seems that there were some comments about Kevin Frost's nice article on the King Mt. meet last July, and how he should write a book. Then the discussion veered over to the "Sky Riders" movie when a newbie wanted to know if there had been any movies about hang gliders. In commenting on that, Kevin remarked:

I just hate it when the writer uses a hangglider, mountain climbing, airplanes, scuba, nitro glycerine, without having any idea at all how it really works. They just create a bunch of totally unfounded assumptions and then the people who watch it think the world actually works that way.

Remember the climbing harness buckle in the first scene of Cliffhanger? As if climbing harnesses are actually made with buckles that will just bend and break under the hanging weight if a 90lb starlet. I knew that from then on the whole rest of that movie was gonna be nothing but BS and I was right.

These movies don't need to be documentaries, but how bout a little realism, truth is stranger and more interesting than fiction. What's up with the HG circus? Wouldn't it be cooler if Coburn showed up at El Snore and interacted with a bunch of early E-team types.

Here is my movie idea:

Opening scene. A some buddies are flying the King range and one of them gets sucked into a cloud, as the other ones are talking him through it on the radio and at the same time running from the gust front himself. The guy in the cloud emerges at about 27,000' with his glider caked with inches of ice, and goes on for big miles as ice breaks off his wings and harness in huge chunks. The retrieval truck with Angelina Jolie(the blonde version) drives up and they all act like it was just another normal day of flying.

Next scene these guys get a much needed offer to give flying lessons to some wealthy guys in a far off land. They get there and it soon becomes obvious that they are training terrorists and will be disposed of when they are no longer useful. But they give lessons to the guys and the movie shows enough that the audience really knows how it all works, and the student terrorists get good.

The heros make a get away plan. Steal a ton of money, sabotage all the airplanes in the terrorist camp, and fly away in a very spectacular launch scene. But their former students are in hot pursuit in their hanggliders, and it's thermals, guns and glides until someone dies bravely and the last terrorist dies in a spectacular way and the remaining hero's fly off into the sunset with millions stuffed down their D-tubes.

KF

Of course this takes the discussion in a whole new direction. Scot (Hang4av8r) chimes in:

Subject: Re: Sky Riders

Excellent plot there Kevin! Sounds much better than a lot of the movies I've seen lately. We would have to include a couple of scenes of the hereo & villain duking it out on top of the JH Tram (made to look like its in Kazakstan of course) as it's running full speed past its highest point. They would be fighting over the millions in cash stuffed in the d-tubes, and of course Angelina Jolie watching helplessly from inside the tram. The tram operator would of course be absent or dead....

Scot

And then went even deeper into it...

Subject: Kevin's movie

I really believe that good casting will be crucial to the success of Kevin's movie, therefore I have most graciously donated my valuable time to this cause and come up with the cast for his movie "King High".

Kevin - Kurt Russell
Dean - Brian Dennehey
Cory Rose- Ray Liotta
Frank Gillette- Tommy Lee Jones
Clair Packer- Robert Duvall
Dr. John Woiwode- Tom Selleck
Kurt Wimberg- Nicolas Cage
Eiji Yokota- Jackie Chan
Rocketman- Al Pacino
Mark Mason- Kelsey Grammer
Al Whitesell as himself
Scot Trueblood- Bruce Willis
Lisa Tate- Sandra Bullock
GW Meadows- Mickey Rourke

Whattya think? Did I leave anybody out? I really think this thing is gonna go big, looks like Oscars & Golden Globes all over the place. Should be quite dramatic with such an all-star cast. Funny thing is, these Hollywood stars can only pretend that they are cool dudes & dude-ettes like us....

Scot

Kevin rises to the bait and responds with...

I gotta amend some of these and add a few.

>Kevin - Kurt Russell - BillyJoeBob Thorton in his U-turn role
>Dean - Brian Dennehey - MachoMan Randy Savage
>Cory Rose- Ray Liotta - Woody Harrison
>Frank Gillette- Tommy Lee Jones - yup
>Clair Packer- Robert Duvall - yup
>Dr. John Woiwode- Tom Selleck - Jack Nickelson
>Kurt Wimberg- Nicolas Cage - that gyrocopter guy in MadMax
>Eiji Yokota- Jackie Chan - I thought Eiji was Jackie Chan
>Rocketman- Al Pacino - Nicolas Cage
>Mark Mason- Kelsey Grammer - ok
>Al Whitesell as himself - Gotta be Brian Dennehey minus 150 lbs
>Scot Trueblood- Bruce Willis - ok
>Lisa Tate- Sandra Bullock - Kennedy
>GW Meadows- Mickey Rourke - I better keep quiet on this one until I
>find out of the Stalker is any good.

You left out:

The Kalbisaur - Arnold
Terri - sorry I'm not that stupid
Lori Allen - Sally Field
Kurt Ziggler - a young Dustin Hoffman
Alan Paylor - Ed Harris
Lisa Vercelli - the alien clone kick-ass version of Sogurney Weaver
DJ - Tenacious D
The Sonoma Wings guys - the Backstreet Boys
SkyMonkey - Brad Pitt
Heiner - Anthony Hopkins
Hawkeye - Sean Penn

The panty chicks who come over from Jackson - the cast of Coyote Ugly

KF

Backstreet Boys? Ha! Your kindly narrator just can't let that image lay, our honor is at stake. So...

Subj: RE: Kevin's movie

In trying to cast the perfect move, Kevin submits:

I gotta amend some of these and add a few.
..
The Sonoma Wings guys - the Backstreet Boys
..

And I've just got to respond:

Good try, Kevin, and I appreciate your trying to draw in the younger crowd, but you know we Sonoma Wing's guys just can't dance. To be more realistic, I was thinking along the lines of the "Dirty Dozen". You know, a rag-tag bunch of criminals and misfits with nothing to lose, who can be counted on to get the job, dangerous and suicidal as it may be, done. If you can picture guys like Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Ernest Borgnine, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Clint Walker, Robert Ryan, and Alec Guiness (we 'gotta have a Brit), you'll see what I mean.

--ernie--

Kevin accepts the corrected image of our vaunted flyers:

Works for me. But I think there were not quite a dozen of you so it'll have to be the filthy five or the unhygienic half dozen.

So you have heard about the team thing happening this year at the meet.....Can I assume you guys are calling yourselves the Dirty Dozen?

Subj: RE: dirty dozen

Kevin, you're a bit ahead of me. I was just thinking along the same lines, but I don't think all of us will want to be on the same team. For sure Scot would want to have a team of one, if he could, so he'll be looking for another gonzo go-for-it SW'er to join him on his quest for Canada.

I do like the Dirty Dozen theme and your take off on it. How about: Putrid Pair (Dirty Duo); Tainted Triplets; Foul Four (Fowl Four); Filthy Five; Soiled Six?

A question for Lisa: can I be on two teams? That way we could indeed have a Dirty Dozen...

--ernie--

So there you have it, gentle readers. The gauntlett has been thrown down. What should we call ourselves when we compete for the honor and glory of Sonoma Wings?

You know, if these "dirty" names don't work for you, how about "bullshit bombers", in memory of those psyh-ops leaflet drop planes during Vietnam? No? Then how about...