Surprise Shopping Spree

Pilots that fly  for FAA Part 135 Air Taxi companies usually have lots of stories to tell. Just like taxi drivers in Hollywood or the Wall Street area, their fares aren't exactly a cross section of middle class America. In the days before airline deregulation, the majority of airline passengers were businessmen, celebrities or upper middle class. Flying was very expensive compared to personal automobiles, buses and trains.

The pilot in this story worked for a FBO (Fixed Base Operator) at a medium sized mid-western airport. An FBO is like an old time service station – before they became food-marts with gasoline pumps out front. Most FBO's had fuel service, mechanics, hanger rental, flying instructions, aircraft rental and many other services. The main function of an FBO was to provide a room for airport bums to gather in and swap lies. The room would always contain some source of incredibly strong, bitter coffee, flying publications that were at least 5 years old and a hodgepodge of well worn furniture.  Some FBO's also provided air taxi service.

New York Skyline before WTC construction.

The majority of air taxi flights took a passenger to another airport, dropped them off and returned to their home airport empty. Most rates were set on this basis. The rate included the cost of flying the airplane back home with no passengers. If a passenger could be found for the return trip, anything you could get them to pay would be icing on the cake. Every now and then someone would want to fly somewhere and stay for just a few hours and there was a special rate for waiting time.

Now that you know all about the air taxi business, I'll get back to the story. The FBO got a call from the travel department of a large hotel corporation with headquarters located in a large city about 300 miles away. The CEO wanted an aircraft sent to pick him up and fly him to the airport where the FBO was located. This was a most unusual request for two reasons. First, there were several air taxi services with comparable rates in the city where he was located. Secondly, his corporation owned several corporate aircraft and CEO's usually had top priority on their use. Money is money and the secretary set it up for the CEO to be picked up at 10 o'clock the next morning. The weather was forecast to be wonderful and only a single pilot would be required.

About 7 o'clock the next morning, the pilot took off for the two hour flight to pick up the CEO. If the CEO was on time, they should be back shortly after noon. Because of this, the secretary at the FBO didn't hesitate to schedule the aircraft for another charter flight at three o'clock in the afternoon. About eleven o'clock a very attractive lady in her mid-forties came into the FBO main office. Her designer clothes and confident attitude marked her as one who was at home in the upper echelons of society. She explained to the secretary that she was the wife of the CEO that was due to arrive shortly. It was his birthday and she had flown in on an airline flight to surprise him. It was a warm, late summer day and she said that she would just sit on one of the benches that were outside the FBO office. From that vantage point she could see the airplane carrying her husband as it taxied in after landing. Of course, if her husband was looking out the window, he could see her also.

About fifteen minutes before noon, the pilot called the secretary on the Unicom and told her they would be landing in about twenty minutes. Unicom is a two-way radio that operates on a frequency that is reserved for aircraft and ground facilities to communicate about just about anything. Pilots often use it to have someone on the ground order a taxi or rental car to meet them or even to order a pizza to be ready when they land. The secretary knew the wife wanted to surprise her husband so she didn't say anything to the pilot about her being there. The pilot might not be using headphones and the CEO could hear the conversation if it was on the aircraft speaker.

The birthday wasn't the real surprise! About five minutes after noon, the airplane landed right on schedule. Soon it was taxiing up towards the FBO unloading ramp and the waiting wife. She was up off the bench and waving in hopes that her husband would recognize her. He did. Instead of the airplane turning towards the FBO ramp, it did a u-turn and started taxiing back towards the runway. A few minutes later, it took off again. The wife came into the office and asked if that was the airplane her husband was in. The secretary knew that something fishy was going on, so she said that she didn't think so. It must have been a transient pilot that taxied to the wrong spot on the airport. That story would explain the u-turn, but not the take-off. At least it would buy her some time to think up a better lie. But the wife didn't question the explanation. She just said she would go back outside and wait for the airplane that her husband was on.

About ten minutes after that the phone rang. The secretary answered it and the caller identified herself as the secretary for an FBO on a nearby airport. She had just received a Unicom call from the pilot and was informed that the CEO had requested to be taken to New York city. The pilot would call with a full explanation when they landed in New York. The secretary thanked her counterpart at the other FBO for the information and went outside to inform the wife that her husband had been called to New York for an emergency business meeting. The wife was nowhere to be found.

About a week later the pilot and airplane returned. The CEO and his wife had treated him to a fantastic week in New York city including dinner at Elaine's, two Broadway plays and lots of sightseeing. The husband and the pilot tagged along while the wife spend a fortune at Tiffany's, Saks, Prada and Bloomingdales. The CEO paid the FBO for the pilots salary and use of the airplane for the whole week.

Whoa! Where did the wife come from? She was in the airplane all along! Her sister lived in the city where this story started. She often visited her sister when her husband came there on a business trip. The corporation was in the middle of an IRS audit and the accounting department recommended not using the corporate aircraft when his wife traveled with him. The wife was sitting on the side of the airplane where she couldn't see the woman waving at them. The u-turn and trip to New York for a shopping spree were passed off as a big surprise her husband had planned.

It was the CEO's birthday. The woman at the FBO did come in on an airline flight to surprise him. The person she called in the corporation travel department forgot to tell her that the CEO's wife was traveling with him. That's a real downer for a mistress!

And that's the truth!

Bowinkle T. Propwash

  

The Careless Contractor

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, commonly referred to as Wright-Pat, is located north east of the city of Dayton, Ohio. This story begins at the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport which is located in Boone County, Kentucky about 60 miles south west of Wright-Pat. At this time of this incident, Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport was officially just Greater Cincinnati Airport (CVG) and most locals called it Boone County Airport. It had eleven airline gate positions and was served by six airlines.



Wright Patterson Air Force Base - Circa 1990



The time of this story is 1960 and the space race and the cold war are very much in the news. A major US Air Force engineering organization was headquartered at Wright-Pat. It was common for representatives of corporations involved in research and development activities for the Air Force to take a scheduled airline flight into Greater Cincinnati and then air taxi up to the smaller airport in Dayton, Ohio. They could rent a car there and drive a few miles over to Wright-Pat to conduct their business.

I worked for the air taxi company and was not surprised one sunny afternoon when I received a call from the TWA agent in the main terminal. A passenger had just arrived on their flight from New York and wanted air taxi-service to Wright-Pat. I alerted a pilot that I had booked a trip to Dayton and hopped in our trusty VW minibus to pick up the passenger at the main terminal. The gentleman I met was probably in his early-to-mid fifties. He was dressed nicely in a stylish, but conservative, business suit and had two large Pullman cases and a leather satchel type briefcase.

As I was loading his luggage into the minibus, he told me that he needed to call ahead to Wright-Pat to make arrangements for us to land at the air base. This was a new wrinkle to me but should be no problem to our pilot who was an ex-military pilot anyway. As we rode back to the air taxi hanger, I inquired if he had a preference about the type of aircraft he flew in. He told me that he wanted to fly in the largest multi-engine aircraft we had available. That would be our Twin Beech that was a converted Air Force C-45G transport. I decide to take the rest of the day off and ride along. When we arrived at the hanger, I asked a line boy to load the luggage into the Twin Beech. I was a little surprised when the passenger handed his briefcase to the line boy and asked him to put it on one of the seats. Businessmen usually didn't let their briefcases get very far out of their sight. The passenger and our pilot went to phone and made all the arrangements for us to land at Wright-Pat. I asked the passenger if he wanted to sit in the copilot's seat on the flight. He declined and insisted that he would be much more comfortable in the passenger cabin.

Soon we were airborne and headed north-east. We only climbed to 5500 feet for the short flight over flat terrain. From twenty-five miles away, the sprawling air base was clearly visible. We made radio contact with the base control tower and were immediately cleared to land on one of the 12000 foot runways. About two miles from touching down on the runway, the pilot motioned for me to look out my side window. Just a few feet away from our wing tip, there was an F-104 jet fighter. I looked over to the pilot's side window and saw that another one was on his wing tip. They followed us until our wheels touched down and then they climbed away and were out of sight in seconds. As we slowed to stop on the runway, a jeep with a big "FOLLOW ME" sign pulled in front of us. We followed the jeep to a ramp area near the runway where a 1950's vintage sedan, painted Air Force blue, was parked.

F-104's

An airman signaled us to cut our engines and another airman was already opening the passenger door and helping our passenger into the sedan. A third airman put the Pullman cases in the trunk of the sedan. In less than a minute, the first airman was signaling us to start our engines. It was obvious that they didn't want us to stay on the base very long. Soon we were following the "FOLLOW ME" jeep back to the runway. The tower cleared us for immediate take off and thirty minutes later we were calling Cincinnati control tower for landing instructions. It had been a routine air taxi trip. Then the odoriferous bodily excretions came in contact with the rotary ventilating mechanism.

The tower told us to return to Wright-Pat at once. About the same time we heard that in our headsets, we saw our F-104 friends again. This time there were four of them. They could not fly slow enough, long enough to escort us all the way back, so they took turns. We would have two for a few miles and they would zoom off and the other two would take their place. I have often wondered what the Rules of Engagement were. Were they ordered to shoot us down if we made any abrupt movement or were they there to protect us if we had to make a forced landing before we got to the base? The arrival was déjà-vu except two airmen came on board and retrieved the briefcase that our passenger had left on the seat behind him.

It was not over. Two more airmen with arm bands and very obvious weapons asked us to please leave the aircraft and come with them. We were driven across the base to a large ominous looking building and taken to the basement through a small doorway. In the basement, we were separated and I was taken into a small 6 X 8 foot room with no windows and a steel door. It looked like a set straight out of a Hollywood movie studio. I sat down at a small wooden table across from a man that looked more like a college professor than an inquisitor. He gave me a long lecture on the importance of keeping secrets to maintain peace and public safety. Then he quizzed me about the briefcase. I had nothing to hide and told him over and over that I didn't even know that it wasn't removed with the other luggage. They knew we never left the cockpit. Finally he seemed satisfied that I was telling the truth and produced a long form for me to fill-out and sign. The form was similar to the one that recruiting offices used. It listed dozens of organizations deemed to be subversive and I had to swear that I was not a member of any of them. I hadn't heard of most of them. Finally, he said we were finished and got up to escort me to the door. I noticed a large reel-to-reel recorder operating on a small table in the corner so I assume everything I said was recorded.

The pilot had a similar experience as mine. We were escorted out of the basement and through the building to a car that took us back to the airplane. On the way through the building we walked through a large conference type room and saw our passenger sitting at a long table with several others. His briefcase was laying on its side and several file folders were spread across the table. I assume that they were taking an inventory of the contents to make sure nothing was missing. I wondered how much trouble he was in for being so careless with the contents. As we passed by, I noticed most of the folders had a large red ink stamp on them that read TOP SECRET EYES ONLY.

And that's the truth!

Bowinkle T. Propwash