The Saturday Morning Post: Adventures in Flying

I grew up spending Saturday or Sunday mornings hanging around the local airport, with pilots and little airplanes. Two of my four earliest memories are tied to the plane above that my father owned when I was 4-5 years old.  I love flying, and airplanes.   There are a few great stories. 

A few years ago I flew from Washington DC, into some hellhole in West Virginia, (then rented a car and drove 100 miles into the mountains to facilitate a dysfunctional meeting.) The "airline" flight was on a tiny twin turbo prop, there were maybe two dozen seats, about half of them were filled.  Flights like this exist, because congress forces the department of transportation to subsidise the airlines to provide service to places that would never otherwise have air service.  From DC that means the congressperson can fly home for the quickie with a lover or spouse and be back in the morning to vote for more tax cuts.  The airlines make money on these flights without selling a single seat. They are usually flown in the smallest of planes. Often they are the training ground for commercial pilots trying to build enough hours to make the big time. 

That afternoon the "Captain" was a long haired hippy dude, who was flying out the last years before mandatory retirement in a job that meant he was home every night, and got to fly by the seat of his pants.  He had a scruffy beard and shoulder length hair.  The "First Officer" looked like he had finished high school the year before, and his mother had given him permission to go fly with crazy uncle Jeff.  Obviously this was the much older pilot who most likely learned how to really fly avoiding anti-aircraft fire in southeast Asia, and the youngun hoping to build enough hours to move into the big leagues.  

The approach into hell hole international airport, was exciting. There were no mile long flat spots on top of the mountains, and money being tight the airport was in the valley, along the river. To get there we flew in between the mountains, with about a 20 mile per hour cross wind. It was an "exciting" approach and landing. I could hear the Captain coaching the youngun through the approach.  When the plane greased onto the runway, the Captain shouted "YeHaw, that is how it is done." He was so right, that is exactly how it is done.  An old school pilot with decades of experience showing the next generation how to fly.