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a Boeing 757/767 Captain. My wife, Dixie, was on board sitting in first class and got to witness the water cannon salute as we taxied to our gate in St. Louis. I will admit, as I turned the corner and saw the two fire trucks on the ramp, my eyes watered up. Confident that I had made the right decision and with no regrets to this day, it was still emotional.
Airline f lying is an interesting gig. The hours are sometimes long and crazy. Commuting from DCA/IAD to JFK and later STL, which I did my entire time with TWA and AA, can be stressful and exhausting. However, one great part of airline flying is “time off” – a lot of it. Some pilots enjoy leisure activities on their days off, some develop parallel careers. I have f lown alongside doctors, dentists and attorneys, not to mention many others that ran small businesses on the side. My side gig was real estate, primarily residential rental property, with a little commercial real estate as well. I bought my first piece of rental property in 1981 and I was hooked. I also purchased my first home that year for $42,000 with an FHA loan of 17.1 percent interest – ouch! I have spent the last 40 years
buying and fixing up rental property, mostly as long-term, buy and hold investments. When Dixie and I married and blended our families, we decided to grow our business and it became her full-time job. We manage the properties ourselves, with the help of two outstanding maintenance employees and a lot of good subs.
So, when we began looking for a personal/business travel airplane, we naturally gravitated to what was familiar. There was a Piper Aztec for sale from the same person we had purchased a Tri-Pacer from a couple of years earlier. The seller took back the Tri-Pacer in the deal and we became proud owners of our first twin. We loved it and flew the heck out of it. A lot of our trips are to Ocracoke Island, North Carolina for vacation and to work on property we own there. Ocracoke is the southernmost inhabited island of the Outer Banks. It is only accessible by ferry, private boat, or airplane. It is part of a three-airport system operated by the National Park Service. There is First Flight (FFA) in Kitty Hawk (Wright Brothers fame), Billy Mitchell (HSE) on Hatteras and Ocracoke (W95). All three runways
are 3,000 feet, run NE to SW and have no fuel service (plan accordingly!). We also use our plane to visit family in Florida, Louisiana and Texas. We flew to Oshkosh for the 50th anniversary and just did Sun- n-Fun in April.
Our next purchase was a 1977 turbo- charged F-model, which we enjoyed for several years. Unfortunately, the F-model was totaled at 3 a.m. one morning while sitting on the maintenance ramp by a not-so-sober line boy driving a big airport truck. He ran into the right wing, just aft of the engine, then
CIES
September 2021 / TWIN & TURBINE • 27