Page 50 - Volume 15 Number 10

ON FINAL by David MillerCry BabiesOne of the cool things about owning an airplane is that it can provide almost instant transportation to almost anywhere. One such trip is the “college tour” that many of us have taken with our kids to visit prospective campuses prior to high school graduation. As an aside, I wasn’t as lucky as my first-born. The home for wayward boys did not have a landing strip nearby.We began our odyssey in the summer of 1994 from Dallas with our son Matt. He was fortunate to have received his mother’s “smart genes” and was a candidate for all sorts of high-profile colleges. Most of what he inherited from me could be cured with a regimen of antibiotics. At that time, we were lucky enough to own a quarter share of a Falcon 10 and we packed it just like a family station wagon. We just didn’t have to stop very often for gas.Matt, a native Texan, was interested in faraway schools. Patty and I weren’t exactly sure why he wanted to go to college over 1,000 miles from home but he never admitted that he just couldn’t stand us anymore. Our West Coast trip took us to Stanford, Berkley, UC Davis and USC. The East Coast adventure included Duke, Penn, Davidson, and Cornell. In the end he chose the incredibly beautiful Ivy League campus in Ithaca, N.Y. All we had to do was write a big check and move all his belongings across the country. Just what airplanes are designed to do.The Falcon time-share had a unique feature in that if our particular airplane was not available for a trip, the operator would substitute an equal or better airplane at the same cost. On our departure day, they substituted a Hawker 800. Those of you who are accountants can do the math and see that this was a losing proposition for the operators. And indeed they closed down the operation about a year later with some mention about how they seldom made a profit. But for us on this trip we were delighted to have a big airplane and lots of room to stuff stuff.The flight up was uneventful. The Hawker was impressive indeed cruising at FL390 and almost 430 KTAS. The next morning we set off for the campus in a large rented van full of Matt’s junk. We unloaded it into his first home-away-from-home, a small room directly above a liquor store. Matt appeared extremely pleasedWith 5,000-plus hours in his logbook, David Miller has been flying for business and pleasure for more than 40 years. Having owned and flown a variety aircraft types, from turboprops to midsize jets, Miller, along with his wife Patty, now own and fly a Citation Mustang. You can contact David at davidmiller1@sbcglobal.net.with his new location. His mother however, was beginning to show emotional signs of losing her first and only son. We walked to the cafeteria to eat lunch. Uncomfortable silence filled the air. No one wanted to say good-bye. It is possible, by the way, to eat very quickly if you aren’t saying a word.Then Patty lost it.As we walked to our “parents only” briefing, she burst into tears and said, “You go to the stupid meeting by yourself. I am just going to the van to cry.” Startled, Matt looked at me for reassurance. “Matt, I said, you know how emotional your Mom is,” as I swallowed hard and complained about the excessive pollen causing my eyes to water. So off he wandered to his first class, me to the parent’s meeting, and Patty to the van to cry.An hour-and-a-half later, I returned to the van and saw the sliding door fully open. Inside was Patty still sobbing. “He’s gone forever,” she said.“I know, I know, but he will need money soon, and you can see him then,” I said. We drove to the airport and sat in the back of that huge empty Hawker. Patty cried on the couch all the way to Dallas and for three days afterwards.We’re just lucky he ran out of money. Fly safe.48 • TWIN & TURBINE OCTOBER 2011