(Port) Coquitlam Odysseus

Image of Capt. Bews parachuting down after ejecting via CTV, with a credit to “Kurt’s Kustom Photography.”

I am quite in awe of the ability of the military engineers to design the system that allowed Capt. Brian Bews to pull this off:

While the AP video above is best, the video the BBC has is currently #1 on that site.

I very much dislike it when people with one-track minds read political faults into every news situation, but I can’t help thinking that the Conservative moves to replace our aging CF-18′s are supported by whatever malfunction occurred in this plane. Meanwhile, this kind of plane is what a recent news story reported as keeping us safe in the north after US planes were grounded because of safety concerns. One might well wonder if both countries’ patrol planes are down–and the sentence is one I’d rather not finish. The only proper response to this situation is for our government to move ahead with all possible speed to give us up-to-date military aircraft.