aviation hardships

[152hvy]

My first corporate gig was a dream. Hired to fly a baron before the ink was dry on my commercial ticket. I showed up - they hadn't bought the airplane yet. No worries, just make him a Lear 25 FO. The next 6 weeks were a whirlwind, especially the trips to the Caymans.

Ahhh, but it turns out two of the minority partners were running a $300 million Ponzi scheme. My CP was on a trip with one of the bad guys at his palatial beachfront home in Ft. Lauderdale. He answered the door when the FBI raided the place. I'll never forget the approach brief on my last flight - "We'll fly the ILS to ..., left turnoff into the ramp. Now, if armed federal agents meet the airplane, here's what we're going to do..."

oh well, at least i hadn't given them my life's savings to invest, as most of the other pilots had. But seriously, wouldn't you ask a few questions if someone guaranteed you a 36% annual return?

the SEC seized everything and the jets sat for almost a year before getting sold cheap at auction.

I do remember a Westwind coming into our maintenance hangar for paint/interior/avionics upgrades worth about $500,000. The crew got paged, was told the owner had replaced them with a crew that would fly for $10,000/year less. But he paid the captain a few hundred $$ a week to supervise the work on the airplane. Our DM padded the bill a bit to give him a decent severence...

You're lucky, that would have made a good documentary for the History channel. Several months back, a DC-9 from Venezuela landed in Mexico and was intercepted by the Mexican soldier, onboard was 5.5 tons of cocaine, the capt bailed out but the fo was not lucky enough and was arrested......I guess he didn't get his approach brief.

 

[FN FAL]

Several months back, a DC-9 from Venezuela landed in Mexico and was intercepted by the Mexican soldier.

An army of ONE? First our jobs, then our women, now our army recruiting slogan. Will it ever end?

 

[SpiderMan]

Hang in there this is still a great career, I am still living my dreams 55 years later.

Yeah well you get to fly old warbirds. I'm sorry but not many get to do that.