Comments on: Gravity Will be Turned Off

By: mike greczyn

mike greczyn — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:52:50 +0000

I was an air weapons officer on e3b/c awacs aircraft from 2001-2006. There were a few legendary pranks in our corner of the AF. One good one was convincing ground-pounders that joined us on flights that we could “launch” the 6-ton disk radome on top of the aircraft and fly it around like some kind of drone. This elaborate ruse required enlisting the entire crew and having a pilot willing to nudge the yoke at just the right moment. Of course there were the classics like directing the new LT to go down to maintenance and get 100 feet of flight line or to call up the weather shop and ask for Major Storm. God I miss it sometimes… and then I don’t. Fun while it lasted, though!

By: mike greczyn

mike greczyn — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:38:28 +0000

Hmmm. It seems you missed the part where he explained the source of inspiration for this brilliant piece of psyops. You’re disappointed that a group of Airmen is (at worst) exactly as gullible as a bunch of caltech geniuses?

By: Hans

Hans — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 01:38:10 +0000

Excellent. Your intellect must have stuck out like a sore thumb at the army.

By: gutzofter

gutzofter — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 03:35:11 +0000

Thanks,

Brings back memories of being in the navy during the 80s and 90s

By: Ashleighs Dump » Blog Archive » Turning off gravity

Ashleighs Dump » Blog Archive » Turning off gravity — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 06:19:39 +0000

[...] http://steveblank.com/2009/05/13/gravity-will-be-turned-off/ Trackback Permalink 2 Comments » Filed under: Uncategorized 2 Comments [...]

By: Agile Opportunism – Entrepreneurial DNA « Steve Blank

Agile Opportunism – Entrepreneurial DNA « Steve Blank — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:02:21 +0000

[...] head of training and his boss, I pointed out that the clock was ticking down for them, I knew the type of training military maintenance people need, and I had done some informal teaching in the Air Force. I made them a pretty good offer – [...]

By: Gravity Will Be Turned Off « Avid Editor’s Insights

Gravity Will Be Turned Off « Avid Editor’s Insights — Sun, 17 May 2009 08:31:29 +0000

[...] entire story can be found at Steve Blank. It’s worth a few minutes time off from reaming [...]

By: Gravity Will Be Turned Off « Schmoozing with Elya & Ellie Katz

Gravity Will Be Turned Off « Schmoozing with Elya & Ellie Katz — Sun, 17 May 2009 08:22:45 +0000

[...] entire story can be found at Steve Blank. It’s worth a few minutes time off from reaming jihadis… — page 1 — – page 2 [...]

By: subbu arumugam

subbu arumugam — Sat, 16 May 2009 14:26:42 +0000

my dad did something like this when he was a med student in india – 1960s – not at the scale that mr blanks played his joke, however.

my dad placed a box in the middle of his dorm lobby, then proceeded to place a small plastic bag in everyone’s mail box. the plastic box was accompanied with a note:

“Stool sample required. Please collect your own sample, label it and place it in the box located in the lobby”

The box was full by the weekend.

By: links for 2009-05-15 « My Weblog

links for 2009-05-15 « My Weblog — Sat, 16 May 2009 04:03:42 +0000

[...] Gravity Will be Turned Off « Steve Blank (tags: humor) Comments (0) [...]

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 14 May 2009 23:20:07 +0000

Like it. Great post, and a nice follow up comment by jillnerkowski. The idea of a bike with suction cups on the tires is pretty neat – brings back memories of my childhood and the sort of things we used to try and ‘invent’!

By: J Cheng

J Cheng — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:18:40 +0000

Great story. You should share this in class!

By: littlelayhe

littlelayhe — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:14:50 +0000

Hilarious!!

By: Lou Paglia

Lou Paglia — Thu, 14 May 2009 02:40:19 +0000

Is this post too a marketing test? One has to wonder.

By: Top Posts « WordPress.com

Top Posts « WordPress.com — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:47:31 +0000

[...] Gravity Will be Turned Off Part of marketing is the ability to communicate a message to thousands of people and convince them to believe your [...] [...]

By: Michael Alan Miller » The off switch

Michael Alan Miller » The off switch — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:40:23 +0000

[...] | Posted by Chill on 13 May 2009 at 04:40 pm | When gravity is dead. [...]

By: Jason Darrow

Jason Darrow — Wed, 13 May 2009 19:38:04 +0000

Steve,

I served in the Air Force from 88′ to 92′. I was stationed at Keesler AFB to learn electronics and satellite communcations specifically and was 18 at the time.

Anyway, never heard about this but don’t deny it ever happened. It was what 20 years before my time.

Being that young and seeing so many crazy things in the military in general… it was just a wierd time in my life. It would have been pretty freaky to see an order like that one.

I did experience some pretty good practical joke during that time of service. You had to have pretty thick skin. This would have been the best though. Thanks for sharing.

Jason

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:46:29 +0000

awesome.

By: Michael F. Martin

Michael F. Martin — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:23:34 +0000

The sobering thought for me is how often we may be working in a group with “anti-gravity” assumptions without knowing it. Imagine if that first guy hadn’t asked a question!

For a similar theme in recent fim, check out *Lars and The Real Girl*, which deals with the mirror image of this situation.

By: rick

rick — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:16:19 +0000

That was really good. Thanks for typing the story up.