Comments on: Full Circle

By: Michael C

Michael C — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 20:10:36 +0000

Nicely written Patrick. Picture this. Me, freshly out of Flight Safety in Vero Beach 1973. Offered a job flying the BE99 out of Monmouth County NJ for Monmouth Airlines. 200 hr co -pilot flying into DCA, JFK or was it Idlewild back then? PIT, ABE, and several other busy airports. We could start one engine and manage to put 17 people back there, oh boy!!! But guess what, the pay was $1.65 a flight hour back then. If you worked the afternoon shift, on the last leg back you left all the seats in AVP and loaded up the mail and the night crew came on and flew the mail all night. Boy, did that job suck. BUT, it led to a king air corporate job which led to a jet job which led to a 26 year career at AA, with only two furlorlughs. What and give up aviation????

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 21:24:19 +0000

On my way from Florida to the Bahamas to cut a record at Compass Point in 1980 I recall the plane was seriously small and I think it was a prop plane…I do remember a priest and some nuns on board, and that he was really nasty to them, like a bad boss. Not being religious, I didn’t attach any feelings one way or another to having the godly on the plane and was happy to get to Nassau.

By: Andy Kopetzky

Andy Kopetzky — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 20:03:31 +0000

Fine article! I’m not a professional pilot; I have a Private Pilot License, SEL; not instrument rated. At one lesson I went with the CFI to HIS favorite FBO (not the one I preferred) and proceeded to pull the door off the Cessna. It was fixed and the flight went off with no problem. At another (far away) FBO I was checking out a 172 with a CFI and during the flight noticed some condensation dripping on my sweater. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this but it’s 100LL, not water’. We returned safely to the field. I can’t tell how many times I experienced 172 nose wheel shimmy. We all have flown rattletraps but fortunately training cuts in and we live to tell about it.

By: Carlos Si

Carlos Si — Fri, 07 Jul 2023 00:45:23 +0000

Many pilots today would kill to fly on anything other than a Cessna 172..

And be paid for it.

By: Johnny Riedel

Johnny Riedel — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 08:44:08 +0000

Thank you for sharing!

By: Kevin

Kevin — Wed, 31 May 2023 15:38:45 +0000

I just flew on a regional service into St. Louis and it was on a Cessna Grand Caravan that sounds almost identical to this. Unpressurized, twin prop with rectangular windows.

The website for the company has a FAQ saying “How do I avoid getting the middle seat?” To which they responded “You’re in luck! We don’t have middle seats!”

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 20 May 2023 01:25:39 +0000

I began my career flying a Be-C99 in the Bahamas in the mid nineties. I think it’s the reason I have measurable hearing loss in one ear. Recently, I got to go aboard one converted into cargo hauler at DEN. The nightmares returned.

Can you believe that thing didn’t have a HUD?

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 04 May 2023 19:28:47 +0000

Jeebus, I think I flew in a plane just like this out of Nassau in 2009! (Heck, could be the same damn plane, for all I know.) It was a flight to Andros Island. I didn’t think to get all of the details, but I know it was a twin-prop Beechcraft, still the only piston-engine airplane in which I have ever traveled. The interior was much as you say as well, and at my size (6’4″, 240 lbs), I was seriously folded up.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 02 May 2023 03:57:45 +0000

This story, along with many of the ensuing comments, made me LOL. I too have what many in the legacy airlines refer to as “regional PTSD”, although mine is more associated with my former training department than with the rattletrap equipment some folks describe here. Excellent writing all around.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sat, 29 Apr 2023 15:33:03 +0000

In reply to Robert.

Well, I hope you didn’t take the fright part too seriously. The story is mostly tongue-in-cheek. My anxiety was more a low background hum than anything acute.

I wasn’t REALLY worried about crashing.

I think.