When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Yogi Berra
The story goes that Yogi was giving directions to his home. The road split left and right at the beginning of a large cul-de-sac-like road, with his house being on the backside of the circle. Either way you turned at the fork, you would end up at his house. His instructions thusly yielding another accidentally humorous yet accurate axiom: a Yogism. My retirement from airline flying due to the Part 121 age 65 rule lasted three months and eighteen days (see “Retire Me Not – Part Deux,” T &T January 2022). The 108 days in retirement was spent doing my second-most favorite thing: hunting in Michigan and, sometimes, very remote areas of New Mexico. At the bifurcation, I resumed my number one favorite thing. No, not driving Round-And-Round (head nod to Ratt, 1984) in a cul-de-sac, but flying airplanes. Specifically, CE-650 Citation III’s under Part 135 and 91 for a local, family-owned outfit and occasionally, contract work in a Citation VII.
The owners of the Part 135 company, plus most of our pilots and other bizjet pilots around the GA system, however, don’t seem to be as nonchalant as me about the “I can’t fly those days” and “let’s play golf” mentality vs. “must fly for food, cancel my (fill in the blank) to cover the trip” mindset. Forty years of flying government jets and working under the umbrella of an airline union contract, and therefore a mostly painless flying career likely precipitated my philosophy. But now, like the tail on a V-35 Bonanza, my new GA flying world is bifurcated – thank you, Ralph Harmon (Beechcraft 1947) and Alan Greenspan (Fed Chairman 2005). That being said about a painless flying career vs. the struggling, hardworking GA pilots, and although paid to fly fighters and airliners since 1984, I did come from the 1970’s GA world: FBOs, pumping 80 octane, flight schools, charters, cutting off shirttails, poker runs, pancake breakfasts, Oshkosh with Bobs Shrike Commander, the smell of Mennen aftershave in aerobatic smoke, landing on grass and owning airplanes. And while I have not flown corporate, on floats or in the bush, I understand many of GA’s pains, pleasures, profit margins and (bifurcated) paths. While I appreciate these factors in the cutthroat business of GA, readapting to inconsistencies is part of my transition from 121 to 135. In the military and at the airline, every airplane and every pilot were cut from exactly the same high chart. This is not the case in GA.
By the time you reach my age, you’ve made plenty of mistakes if you’ve lived your life properly.
Ronald Reagan
The company owners and our pilot cadre are an eclectic mix of ex-airline and military folks, corporate flight department transfers, “on my way to the airlines” hopefuls and even one really great stick that went straight from single-engine GA to jets. Well within the standard for professional pilots, safety requirements and my crew-concept-comfort level, but unlike the military and airlines (in which we are literally clones of each other), the pilots in this Part 135 outfit and the ones I’ve met around the system, are all different – a different background, approach to flying, career expectations and to leisure. The owner/chief pilot was an Army helicopter pilot, but for the most part, the rest of the company is owned and operated by a family that is totally home-grown GA. They, and the line pilots’ bad-weather comfort levels, desire to fly a lot or not a lot, and their long-range goals all vary widely.
Of the group, I’m both the new guy and the old guy – as indicated on the trip sheets that reflect my um, “seniority.” I have to say, it looks and feels weird to see 65 in the age column next to the ones that say 30, 40 or 50 something. Especially since the hangar/office in which I now begin my trips is the exact same one from which a long-haired, bell-bottoms-wearing hippy washed airplanes in 1972 and began his 50-year journey. It’s embarrassing – how did I get to be so damned old? And unlike the airlines, in which each airplane of the same type (i.e., S-80, B-737, etc.) are exactly the same inside and out, the 135 and contract jets are all different: different interiors, avionics, instrumentation, paint schemes, post-flight paperwork, call signs and for those contributing to the inclining line on the anthropomorphism chart – different personalities. Lucky for me, all of the other pilots have much more experience in bizjets and how to make them behave despite their “quirks.” They are also more accustomed to the level of sophistication displayed by our clientele.
Of all classes, the rich are the most noticed and the least studied.
John Kenneth Galbraith
This is the first time in my flying career that I’ve been exposed to real wealth – not airline, first-class wealth – use your G550 to transport just the family’s cats to Hawaii wealth. My kit bag may be Tumi and wallet Coach, but their luggage and two or three pet carriers are often matching Louis Vuitton, Gucci or Prada. I have yet to see a set of HONMA Beres or Majesty Sublime golf clubs, but so far, I routinely see this year’s Titleist, Ping or Callaway’s with monogrammed bags (gotta trade in my Epic for a Rogue ST Max LS if I’m going to hang with these folks). Luggage is transported in an Escalade, and the chauffeur transports the clients in a Rolls Royce SUV. I didn’t even know there was such a thing – not the chauffeur, the Rolls SUV.
And I love hearing the tales of their self-made success – it’s inspiring. This wealth bifurcation has made me curious about what the private owners of GV’s, 737, 757, 777 BBJ’s and similar jets must be like as compared to those riding in our (tiny?) Citation III’s and X. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that the charter clients are much more pleasant, humble, well behaved and generally easy-going, as compared to the folks that were flying first-class at my airline (I had nine arrested my last five months as an airline captain). In addition to my first exposure to these fine charter folks, it’s also my first exposure to bizjets. I’m flying about eight days each month, with a few of those spent playing golf and luxuriating. Sometimes with the clients or my flying partner, some by myself, all while waiting for the return trip home. Despite an unanticipated discomfort level with initial training, my chief and assistant chief pilots were right: I do love the Citation despite having to climb back on the recurrent training merry-go-round.
If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.
Albert Einstein (and Tony Robbins)
One thing that I’m trying to change is my aversion to above said training. As described in “Retire Me Not – Part Deux,” I thought training for fun vs. “you-bet-your-ticket” Part 121 training would be painless…it was not. So, here I sit, 0300 in the morning reviewing the memory items and limitations for the CE-650. Why 3 a.m.? Because I’ve been getting up early my entire life: hunting, backside of the clock flying and shoveling or playing in snow. Why study eight months ahead of time for recurrent training? Because I always told myself when at the airline that if I’d only study a little bit all the time, then I wouldn’t feel so apprehensive when training was upon me as I tried to cram all the information back into my brain that had fallen out.
Well, this time I mean it. I’ve already diverted in bizjets because a generator ate itself, sat three hours due to a rudder bias heater failure and missed out on Punta Cana over a stabilizer-heat controller. Good systems knowledge seems like a prudent plan. I’m trying very hard to review something Part 135 or CE-650 related every day. It’s distressing to see how quickly the stuff has fallen out of my head. I’m hoping that it’s simply because it’s a new jet and I don’t fly much vs. me being an 8-iron away from age 70.
Modesty is a vastly verrated virtue.
John Kenneth Galbraith
For those who have never piloted a bizjet, and it may seem obvious, they are just what you would expect in a small(er), light(er) weight machine: taxiing can be squirrely, they’re quick to accelerate to V1, roll rate is crisp, turbulence feels like rumble strips and less soft or “mushy” than a 150,000-pound airliner, and the climb rate drops off up high. Fuel use is low, weight and balance can be tight, cockpit layout is inconsistent from plane to plane, and there are a ton of these smallish jets out there. All of the Florida GA airports have been packed this winter. The night of the NBA All-Star game, we were in CLE with a Citation VII and parking was tighter than Oshkosh. While I don’t miss TSA, airline terminal food and the “ill-mannered” passengers, I do miss flying an airliner: auto-throttles, auto-brakes, auto-spoilers, VNAV, and HUD or auto-land. But I’m grateful to have the Duke, and I’m happy that I took the fork leading to Part 135. It’s fun – even if, andromorphically speaking, they can be moody. And I’m glad that Yogi didn’t say “when you come to a bifurcation” because it doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as nicely as does “when you come to a fork.”
Author Correction: Thank you to the thousands (okay, dozens) that caught my math error in February’s story, “Ancestor Worship”: “Then, the next descent from 19k to 10k would be: (19-10) x 3 = 18. Start the descent at 18 miles from the fix.” We should have started down at 27 miles from the fix, not 18. If we had followed the captain’s math, we would have missed the assigned altitude and been violated! Actually, and typically, when ATC noticed we were late starting the descent, they would have (hopefully) said, “Are you starting down?” Or “you gonna make that crossing restriction?” Neither one is the preferred scenario.
