Page 8 - Dec23T

Banking in an Aerostar by Pete Ruskay
The Aerostar from above in the check-hauling days.
The year was 1993. Seinfeld was the number one TV show, Whitney Houston was at the top of the charts, and a new thing called the internet was beginning to change how we live our lives. Before the days of real-time banking through your mobile phone, an event happened nightly while most normal people slept soundly. In 1993, when you wrote a check, your bank would return your canceled checks to you at the end of the month along with your statement. With this, you would have proof that they cashed your check, and you could then balance your check- book. Wow, I’m dating myself!
Enter a bright-eyed, ambitious 24-year-old aviator (yours truly) and my new ride, the Piper Aerostar 600. Flying out of Danbury, CT (KDXR), the charter company I worked for assigned me to a new contract flying bank checks in this essential part of the finance industry.
Every weekday night, I would start at around 9:00 PM, flying 5 to 7 legs within a 100-mile radius of New York City. Upon landing at each airport, a van would approach ramp- side delivering clear plastic bags full of canceled checks. These bags were about the size of kitchen trash bags, and as the night went on, I would fill the cabin of my Aerostar from floor to ceiling. Well past midnight, with my pickups made, I would head to the canceled check hub of the New York area – Teterboro (KTEB).
6 • TWIN & TURBINE / December 2023
Teterboro is within sight of Manhattan and, by virtue of its proximity to the city, caters to corporate aviation. Saturated with hundreds of corporate jet operations by day, Teterboro would morph into an equally hectic hub for check haulers during the midnight hours. Dozens of us twin-engine piston drivers would converge around the same time with our pre- cious paper cargo. Teterboro would become so busy during these hours that on calm-wind nights, the controllers would use both ends of runway 1/19 for arrivals and departures, staggering the flow to keep things moving along. Waiting on the ramp were MU-2s and Learjets, which would take our checks longer distances so they could eventually wind up back in your mailbox. Those battle-scarred turbine-powered workhorses, crewed by pilots, apex aviators to my young eyes, were the epitome of speed and power. Their pilots quietly stood around, cigarettes and Styrofoam coffee cups in hand, while the bank consolidators would distribute our loads to the appropriate aircraft. The speed demons would then blast off to far-flung destinations like Chicago, Atlanta, Kansas City, Dallas, and Denver. A nocturnal ballet that went on like clockwork, largely unnoticed, every evening.
Having previously flown a gentlemanly and forgiving Piper Navajo, I entered a new world with the Aerostar. She stood tall and lean on her main gear, and looked like she was at Vne while sitting on the ramp. Inside, the cockpit was