Bygone commercial gigs

k9medic said:
Lots of smaller cargo airplane companies closed up shop too.

I talked to one of these guys years ago when they were getting ready to depart into a pending tropical storm in Florida. No autopilot and no GPS in the panel. Poor kid had a Garmin 296 sitting on a beanbag. Some beat to hell 210's and Barons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Express,_Inc.
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I used to work line service in FXE, and Flight Express flew a few 210's between there and Tampa every night. It would be solid thunderstorms over the everglades, and these guys would blast off with no weather radar or anything. Balls of steel.
 
Delivering papers did not need a landing.

Guy flew the Washington Post to the coastal towns. He landed at Rehoboth, unloaded the papers for there, then placed the package of papers for Bethany Beach in the door of the Piper, most of the way out. Passing over the lawn of the summer camp, out they went. The store that sold them picked them up before the got too wet if it was raining. The drop was from about 100 to 200 feet. If the ceiling was low enough that flying over land was not safe, the papers went on the beach.

Other small towns had similar service. The bundles were labeled, and could be pushed out the dolor without being in place from the ground, but much harder.

One of the bold airmen who did survive to be old. He gave me some instruction in my plane, and he was sharp, but his personal weather minimums were truly minimum for this revenue flying.
 
Arnold said:
Piper T-1040. Nice ship, don't hear about it too often.
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I flew for a company in Alaska that had 8 Piper T-1040s when I started. When I left a few years later they only had 3. They did not sell any.

It was a slippery plane and looked like a turbine Navajo. Basically it was a unpressurized Cheyenne.

This is what happened to one of the planes.

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/28110

And another one.

https://www.baaa-acro.com/crash/crash-piper-pa-31t3-t1040-cheyenne-wales
 
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I don't know for a fact, but I'd imagine the film industry doesn't use pilots to get all those areal shots for movies much any more, between CGI and drones......

Shepherd said:
Someone is still flying a nightly route.
He/she passes over my house (every?) night at about 2:30 - 3:00 A.M.
Twin engines, slightly out of synch, at about 4,500 if I had to guess, going east.
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maybe it's 3 o'clock charlie....of MASH fame....
 
Brad W said:
I don't know for a fact, but I'd imagine the film industry doesn't use pilots to get all those areal shots for movies much any more, between CGI and drones......
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Unless your Tom Cruise....

 
Brad W said:
I don't know for a fact, but I'd imagine the film industry doesn't use pilots to get all those areal shots for movies much any more, between CGI and drones......



maybe it's 3 o'clock charlie....of MASH fame....
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https://cinejet.com/

Just found out about these guys recently. Was shocked myself to see that it exists in this age.
 
Zeldman said:
I flew for a company in Alaska that had 8 Piper T-1040s when I started. When I left a few years later they only had 3. They did not sell any.

It was a slippery plane and looked like a turbine Navajo. Basically it was a unpressurized Cheyenne.

This is what happened to one of the planes.

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/28110
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I'm trying to think of something appropriate to say about this, but words fail me.
 
My grandfather flew actual gold around Mexico in the late teens/early 1920's for (IIRC) Texaco. It was the payroll delivery for employees at various stations. Family legend has it that he was even held up at gunpoint by Pancho Villa's bandits, once, while stopped somewhere. As a Finnish-American immigrant, he was fluent in various languages, including Spanish, and supposedly sweet talked them into first lowering their guns, and then somehow befriended them. No clue if any of that is true, but I imagine that job is gone :) I also have his commercial certificate in my dresser drawer......it flew with me in my flight suit pocket for my first carrier quals, as well as over Afghanistan and Iraq. Signed by Orville Wright, in blue pen.
 
luvflyin said:
Which one?
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The "Bon Marche." They had 41 stores in the 11 western states. They were ultimately bought out by Macy's. Many have closed.

IT was actually a 135 operation and they guaranteed us 40 hours a month. We had very few other customers........mostly from other 135 operators who were down for maintenance.........and vice versa.
 
3393RP said:
I'm trying to think of something appropriate to say about this, but words fail me.
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The company had a rash of gear up landings so the FAA required 2 pilots on each revenue flight. Even in the 207 for a short time. Later the FAA allowed a gear not down radar altimeter in place of the second pilot. Of course someone learned that pulling the circuit breaker to disable it would stop that annoying noise when lifting the gear after take off, and of course someone landed gear up again...
 
Of course, according to what many of us have likely read, Orville turned down a pilot license from NAA as he didn't think he needed one to prove he could fly. Then he ends up signing a bunch of them.

I wonder what it took back then to get the license. What was the ACS or its equivalent like?
Takeoff. Turn left. Turn right. Land. Didn't die? Pass!
 
SkyDog58 said:
Of course, according to what many of us have likely read, Orville turned down a pilot license from NAA as he didn't think he needed one to prove he could fly. Then he ends up signing a bunch of them.

I wonder what it took back then to get the license. What was the ACS or its equivalent like?
Takeoff. Turn left. Turn right. Land. Didn't die? Pass!
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When the Wrights trained pilots, they had the students doing things like standing on a chair while balancing the chair on one leg.

Great weeding out technique. There were probably many broken necks without the risk of damaging a plane.
 
In 9 years and 11 months, the beginning of the end for first officers on domestic flights
 
NoHeat said:
Iowa State Patrol is a holdout that still does it. One of their planes is hangared near mine, and it’s just about the most active piston-engine plane on the field.

I knew an old-timer state patrolman pilot who started out in a Super Cub, maybe in the 60s. He used a mechanical stopwatch to time cars as they drove over highway markings. The State Patrol planes gradually got bigger and nicer over the years. The one hangared near me is a nice glass-panel 182 with FLIR. I’m guessing this trend of bigger nicer planes can’t continue much longer, though, before drones and such take over.
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The Washington State Patrol still uses aircraft, as well. Just listen for a call sign starting with "Smokey" :)



kgruber said:
The "Bon Marche." They had 41 stores in the 11 western states. They were ultimately bought out by Macy's. Many have closed.
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I remember the Bon.

Zeldman said:
The company had a rash of gear up landings so the FAA required 2 pilots on each revenue flight. Even in the 207 for a short time. Later the FAA allowed a gear not down radar altimeter in place of the second pilot. Of course someone learned that pulling the circuit breaker to disable it would stop that annoying noise when lifting the gear after take off, and of course someone landed gear up again...
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Sounds like an airline that used to operate in the state of Washington. "Crashcade" is what they were known as. One time one of their pilots got tired of the noise the gear up warning would make and turned it off. On his next landing he landed with the gear up.
 
NoHeat said:
Iowa State Patrol is a holdout that still does it. One of their planes is hangared near mine, and it’s just about the most active piston-engine plane on the field.

I knew an old-timer state patrolman pilot who started out in a Super Cub, maybe in the 60s. He used a mechanical stopwatch to time cars as they drove over highway markings. The State Patrol planes gradually got bigger and nicer over the years. The one hangared near me is a nice glass-panel 182 with FLIR. I’m guessing this trend of bigger nicer planes can’t continue much longer, though, before drones and such take over.
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IA State Patrol has downsized though. They are struggling to keep enough officers on the highway, and their aviation program has kind of gone by the wayside compared to the way it used to be. As pilot-trained officers have either been promoted out or retired from the aviation program, they haven't been replacing them. They have even sold off several of their aircraft from around the state.
 
Jim Carpenter said:
Years ago, at Salt Lake airport, SLC, when conditions got below ILS minimums (usually winter with ice-fog), they had Aztecs set up for cloud seeding. The pilot would fly the ILS through missed approach, the dry ice would cause enough precipitation to open up the approach for 2 or 3 airliners to land, then repeat the process. They used to issue a NOTAM, something like "ILS 35R cloud seeding ops in progress." As far as I know, they don't do that anymore, there may have been other airports that used that system, too, but I don't know.
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I have seen probably the Same Aztecs setup for this at Boise. But has been a few years since I have seen one, wonder if they are using a different process now (ground based?)?

Brian
 
Jim Carpenter said:
Years ago, at Salt Lake airport, SLC, when conditions got below ILS minimums (usually winter with ice-fog), they had Aztecs set up for cloud seeding. The pilot would fly the ILS through missed approach, the dry ice would cause enough precipitation to open up the approach for 2 or 3 airliners to land, then repeat the process. They used to issue a NOTAM, something like "ILS 35R cloud seeding ops in progress." As far as I know, they don't do that anymore, there may have been other airports that used that system, too, but I don't know.
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There was a DC-3 that did that at KBFI (Boeing Field), except they dropped their load RIGHT on the RVR machine.
 
Ghery said:
The Washington State Patrol still uses aircraft, as well. Just listen for a call sign starting with "Smokey" :)

I remember the Bon.
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Haha that callsign is awesome. And yeah, my mom loved the Bon, I remember it too.
 
Groundpounder said:
I used to work line service in FXE, and Flight Express flew a few 210's between there and Tampa every night. It would be solid thunderstorms over the everglades, and these guys would blast off with no weather radar or anything. Balls of steel.
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My first big break in 1986 was flying for Tampa Airways. They later sold out to Flight Express. My first run was CRG-ORL-TPA-CRG. I flew a 210 with blood and body parts to a lab in TPA then checks back to CRG. Some of the 210s were pretty rough but we also had some brand new 210Rs. To this day I still love the 210. When I left for Eastern Express I had gained a lot of interesting stories and experiences! My last run before I left was CRG-PNS-DTS-PFN-TLH-ORL-SGJ-CRG-GNV-CRG. All with no radar and occasionally an auto pilot. We carried checks, lab tests, and intra Florida same day freight. I was young and I actually had a blast! I just retired as a 767 Captain and I believe I learned more about pure flying from the bank check job than all my subsequent positions.
 
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