Goodbye Columbus

My other blog is "General Aviation Informal". Back two years ago I started this blog "Lloyd Lou" because I promised not to tell "airline stories" on my general aviation blog. Two years have gone by and I haven't posted one airline story. On either blog. I don't feel like telling "hero" stories. I don't have any anyway. I probably have quite a few "there I was" stories. And I could make up a lot more. But I'm not going to. When I first fell in love with flying and airplanes, I never had a plan of being a professional pilot. I just liked flying. I knew I would love flying before my first ride. My first ride was in a Piper Cub off Deep Creek Airport on the western shore of the Chesapeake. That airport is long gone now. That ride was everything I expected and more. I wasn't just hooked. I was stung. I was 14 years old or so. From then on I was always figuring out a way to get another ride. Ride followed ride. As a high school senior I applied for a scholarship for a Private License. I had the written test passed. An Airman medical. And a recommendation from a member of the US Congress. In the summer of 66 I got my first airman certificate. Then I started finding ways to rent airplanes. In college I started renting Cubs at the College Park Airport. At some point I had over 200 flight hours. In those days if you had 200 hours you simply went and got your commercial license. It was quite simple compared to today. I had to take some lessons on how to pass the flight test, and that was a struggle to afford and I simply had to save up for each lesson. I got the Commercial. But not to be a professional pilot. Just because it was a cool flying thing to do. Like getting a black belt, or a degree in something. And it was easy, except for the money. I always admired the instructors who taught me. They actually got paid to fly. I wound up giving a lot of rides to folks at the College Park Airport. And I would play instructor by letting them take the controls. I even filled in as an instructor a few times at College Park even though I did not have an Instructors Rating. When I went to the FAA to get an Instructors Rating I found out I did not know as much as I thought I did. Each time I went up to Baltimore to take a check ride for my "CFI" (Certified Flight Instructor) rating I was given an "oral". And I was sent home because I didn't know enough. For months I was "mad" at the FAA guys for being such sticklers! Finally, after talking to my dad, who was a pilot back in the thirties, whom I wasn't getting along with very well; and another mentor from College Park who was an old instructor, it finally dawned on me. The more I was learning, the more there was to learn. I stopped worrying about getting the rating. There was this one textbook that the feds kept referring to. I thought it was a bit mundane. I practically memorized that book word for word. I could literally quote paragraphs from it. And I had become a bit humbled. I had finished my degree at the University of Maryland and was working at College Park Airport as a line boy pumping gas and washing airplanes and mowing grass and degreasing the bellies of airplanes. The old mentor at College Park told me that if I went to Baltimore again I would pass the CFI exam. So I did. And he was right. I passed. So now I could do what I loved and pay my meager bills. I flew and flew and flew. I flew 2000 hours in less than two years. Finally I burned out and ran away from home. I wondered across the country and back. I wound up in Cumberland instructing again. But I was also training in the twin engine airplanes and flying co-pilot on the small town commuter flights into Baltimore. Then came 4 years in General Aviation that I couldn't describe in a hundred blog posts. Thru my twenties. Learning as I went. Single Pilot IFR. Twin Engine. Freight. Air Mail. Bank Work. I still never thought of myself as a professional pilot. I just wanted to fly the planes. By myself mostly. For fun. Then came turbine Beaches with two pilots. Then finally DC-3's also with two pilots. An airplane so large, the pilots could not load their own freight. This was good. We went to eat and drink coffee while the aircraft was loaded. That made me start to think maybe I was a professional pilot. Also on the DC-3 I started to get paid a bit more. $25K per year was a lot for 1977. I wanted to buy a condo, but I didn't live anywhere except a suitcase. All of my contemporaries wanted to get hired by the major airlines. I just never thought about it. It sounded like no fun at all. When my co workers found out I had a college degree, they could not believe I wasn't applying. There were schools and seminars about how to apply for an airline job. I never went to one. But I did fill out a few applications. By hand. Everybody was typing them. My General Aviation Career was coming to an end. My co pilot and I had taken our girlfriends with us on the DC-3 run one night and had quite a party. A few nights later we were on the Port Columbus run and when we woke at the hotel we were told to call the boss. We did and we were both fired. The contractor had insisted that we be fired or the contract would be given to another company. The good news was that the boss was sending his own personal aircraft out to Port Columbus. That plane would bring our replacement crew. Also we would receive our paychecks up to date. And severance pay. And the boss's pilot was told to fly us to any place we wanted in the eastern US. We both chose Philadelphia International where our cars had been sitting for months. I was burned out and so happy to be fired and paid and going home. But where was "home"? At Philly, we got our cars started. Kep headed for New Hampshire and I headed for DC. With no plan I found myself driving to my parents house. The house I grew up in. I wasn't really on good terms there. My mom came to the door and smiled and invited me in. She told me I had some mail and a letter from Delta Airlines. She fixed me some food and I opened the letter from Delta. It had teletype authorizations to pass ride to and from Atlanta and an invitation to a two day interview process for employment at Delta Airlines. I told my mom I would like to stay a few days. I would sleep for a long time. Then work on my car. Then go out and buy a three piece suit. I was tired. I knew I was changing gears. The next time I would see Port Columbus would be two years later. In the right seat of a DC-9. With a layover at the airport Sheraton. Where my General Aviation career had begun to end.