Page 24 - TNTApril2018

Jet Journal
Higher Minimums
by Kevin Ware
Professional flying is nearly always an extremely relaxed, highly controlled and almost boring affair. When you depart, under what conditions, where you are going, and by what routing is often entirely under the control of a complex set of rules and a team of experts, of which you are only one. You certainly feel professionally responsible for the outcome, but that responsibility is shared by the group, and you rarely have someone who is personally dear to you (other than yourself), who is at risk.
Does ying your family onboard in uence the level of conservatism you employ?
Personal flying, particularly with family members on board, is an entirely different ballgame, and unless you have done both, it is maybe difficult to appreciate that difference. A flight I was on last year, and the circumstances that followed, again reminded me of this.
Lori, our pilot-scheduling manager answered a call from Mike, an ex-airline pilot she used to fly with in her cabin attendant days. He told her that he has just bought a Cessna 414 in Califor- nia and his insurance was requiring a pilot they could approve to help him fly it back to Washington. After some nosing around among the company’s pilots she finds I am the only one readily available to do the trip. And so, after making some arrangements with the insurance company, I fly airlines down to Oakland, then take Uber to Concord where I meet up with both Mike and Dave, an airline pilot friend of his, neither of whom have done much personal flying in a long time.
The three of us carefully go over the fairly clean 414, and an hour or so later, we are northbound to our first stop in Medford, Oregon. On the way I determine that both Mike and his friend
Dave are exceedingly competent pilots, who have absolutely no problem flying the 414. And as often happens, we become what my wife likes to call “pilot-type” friends.
It turns out Mike started flying back when he was 18 just like I did, flew floats, then Navajos in the bush of Alaska to build time, and then got hired by the airlines to fly 737s.
Following some airline industry failures and mergers, he wound up at one of the three big U.S. car- riers, where he flew DC-10s internationally. After several years however, the routine of airline flying combined with the long absences from home made him decide to quit flying for a living and start his own business. At this he was quite successful, hence the 414, which he planned to use mostly for personal and family trips.
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PAUL BOWEN PHOTOGRAPHY