Page 20 - July18T

Jet Journal
The Flying Black Cadillac
And other tales from the flight line.
by Kevin Ware
We land, call ground control and then head for the FBO keeping a sharp look out for the “line guy,” who is usually some young fellow wearing a uniform shirt and holding a set of orange wands. With signals practiced at home in front of his
bathroom mirror, he expertly directs us to a tight spot on the crowded ramp, chalks the tires and gives us a fists-together sign that the brakes can now be released.
Next, he places a red carpet by the airplane’s door and while the engines are spooling down, waits patiently for the door to be opened. Later after happily unloading our passenger’s heavy suit- cases, dealing with our fueling needs, and seeing us depart in a rental car, he tugs the aircraft to long-term parking or into a hangar. As we depart through the security gate and our airplane disap- pears from view, we tend to assume it will be returned in the condition we left it. But that does not always happen.
Although most line personnel are excellent, reliable people, experienced pilots have stories about the afterhours adventures and mishaps their airplanes (and other vehicles) have suffered at the hands of the line guys. Here are three of mine, all true.
Flying Adventures of Jim
Jim was a recent high school graduate and a 10-hour, recently soloed student pilot with profes- sional aviation aspirations. At about the same time he was employed, a new maintenance cus- tomer brought in a pristine Cessna 180. He was an older fellow and the airplane was his highly cherished baby.
It was Jim’s job to reposition the various aircraft in the hangar, placing those scheduled for an early flight near the door. Because the owner intended to fly the 180 in the morn- ing, it was the last aircraft to go back into the hangar. So, after all the other aircraft were safe- ly put away, the 180 was still sitting out there on the ramp with the key hanging from the mag- neto switch in an extremely inviting way. With no one else around on this moonless night, and in a moment of youthful insanity, Jim decided that having never flown a tailwheel before,
18 • TWIN & TURBINE
July 2018