Page 26 - April22T

When you come to a fork in the road, take it. – Yogi Berra
verb /'bıf r'kat/
1. divideˈinto two branches or forks.
Bifurcations
From the Flight Deck
A retired airline pilot navigates a divergence.
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 com- pany, 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, can- cel my (fill in the blank) to cover the trip” mindset. Forty years of f lying government jets and working under the umbrella of an airline union con- tract, and therefore a mostly painless f lying career likely precipitated my philosophy. But now, like the tail on a V-35 Bonanza, my new GA fly- ing world is bifurcated – thank you, Ralph Harmon (Beechcraft 1947) and Alan Greenspan (Fed Chairman 2005). That being said about a pain- less f lying career vs. the strug- gling, hardworking GA pilots, and
although paid to fly fighters and air- liners since 1984, I did come from the 1970’s GA world: FBOs, pumping 80 octane, f light 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 (bifur- cated) 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.
24 • TWIN & TURBINE / April 2022
by Kevin R. Dingman
Use over time for “anthropomorphism.” This may be partially my fault.
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