Hi Captain Jack
When I worked for the City of Cedar Rapids we had a Piper Navajo. We had a significant bequest given to the Parks Department with a strong suggestion that we use the money to build a display at our little zoo featuring North American waterfowl. The pilot and five of us took the plane to Minnesota to review their project and “pick their brains” as they used to say.
Weight distribution was always closely monitored and I ended up in the right front seat, my only time ever. The pilot was a good guy and on the way up he turned to me and asked if I wanted to fly the plane. I no more than took the control when my boss yelled out, “Smith get the Hell away from that wheel.” Everybody laughed and the pilot took over again. On the way back I was in a rear seat. The fellow in the front seat had been the unfortunate “victim” of an accident in his high school science lab. He was blind in both eyes but knew a lot about waterfowl and had many good questions. He had achieved a pilots license before the accident. The pilot turned to him and said “Chris, take the controls, and he did. Everyone was quiet for a minute or two and then I said “what the Hell? I’ve got 20/20 vision and you guys wouldn’t let me fly this thing but a blind guy is o.k.? We laughed for quite a while on that comment. That was 30 years ago.
We are all still good friends but unfortunately the pilot was killed while riding his Harley Davidson when an unsecured mattress flew out of the bed of an oncoming pickup. I talked to him in the morning on the day he was killed.
Iowa Dave
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Ain’t no trouble jacking a double Burma Shave
Dave
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