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The joy of chartered flight
Let me just say that I am not going (to be able) to get used to this, but yesterday I returned from a whirlwind flight down to Florida to look at some property. What made this trip a little different is that I was riding on a businessman’s Beechcraft King Air 90 instead of standing in line at the the United desk at FWA.
Some things I learned flying out of Fort Wayne’s executive terminal:
- You don’t have to pay for leaving your vehicle in the parking lot
- There are no lines for check-in
- The TVs in waiting area are huge plasmas and the chairs are large and comfortable — did I mention the bathroom was done in granite?
- A non-pilot can actually see what’s going on in the cockpit and listen in to the radio chatter and not be considered a potential threat to the flight
- Noise canceling headphones are great!
- What seems too close for comfort to me is actually thousands of feet of separation
- Military aircraft can’t “lock on” to small planes anymore without tons of proximity alerts going off (but they used to do this a lot) — Now they lock on to combines
- The GPS system on our plane was tied into a Navigation system getting info over XM’s satellite
And much more. For a few more days I think our flight information will be on FlightAware’s website (N427RB), but you can also track the flights of more interesting planes like Phil Knight’s Gulfstream V, John Travolta’s Boeing 707-100, the Colts’ chartered Boeing 757-200, the Detroit Piston’s McDonnell Douglas DC-9-10, and a huge list of NASCAR planes. Many others can be found here.
Interesting times, flying the friendly skies.
Update: Some more interesting ones include Tony Stewart, Jim Irsay, and the Indiana Hoosiers’ entourage N184K and N284K.
written by Kevin in it's all around us