Lost Baggage Tales

Almost every stand-up comedian has some kind of joke about airline luggage handling. My personal opinion is that the airlines do a remarkable job of getting your luggage to the same place as your body.  With all the non-direct flights, late departures and last minute gate changes, it amazes me that my luggage ever makes it.  It my fifty-seven years of being an airline passenger and belonging to the million miles club on three airlines; I have never lost a bag. I have had them arrive late on four occasions; but they always caught up with me.

However, in my career as an airport bum hanging out where air-taxi operations, low budgets charter outfits, wealthy playboy owned airplanes and corporate aircraft are the normal denizens; I have accumulated a good stock of stories about luggage belonging to the people that are on these types of flights.

One story involves a corporation in the Fortune 100, actually in the top five for as long as I can remember. After World War II, military surplus aircraft were dirt cheap and many large corporations purchased them and converted them into luxurious executive transport machines. This particular corporation had purchased several surplus B-23 bombers and fitted them to carry about eight executives in comfort with plenty of work space, sleeping accommodations and of course a well equipped galley and complete bar. It was rumored that the two flight attendants present on every flight were culled from the ranks of Las Vegas show girls.  The FBO (Fixed Base Operation) where I worked in the fifties was located near to one of the corporation’s large manufacturing facilities. Consequently, the aircraft landed and parked overnight at our facility four or five times a year.  They usually called ahead for a taxi and the VIP’s were swept off to the factory as soon as the aircraft landed. They came back to the airport and departed the same way without any fanfare.

Military version of Douglas B-23

On one occasion we discovered a very expensive attaché case in our main office about two hours after the aircraft had departed.  One of the executives must have come in to use the restrooms and forgot to carry his attaché case back to the aircraft. We locked it up in the boss’ office and assumed we would get a call when the aircraft landed and the owner realized it was missing.  Several weeks passed and no inquiry came. The owner of the FBO decided to be proactive and asked one of the mechanics, who had learned his trade while a guest in the State Penitentiary, to open the locks on the attaché      case. Perhaps there would be some correspondence or documents that would identify the owner.

There was great anticipation in the office as the mechanic carefully picked the locks without damaging them. The corporation did a lot of work for the Department if Defense. Maybe there would be folders stamped “Top Secret” and we would all be interrogated by the CIA. When the cover popped up, we realized that this was not a working briefcase; it was an overnight playboy survival kit! They were silk pajamas, seventy-five year old VSOP Cognac, expensive chocolates, fine Cuban cigars, condoms and mechanical devices with bumps and feathers that we had never seen before.  There was not a single clue as to the owner’s identity. We relocked it and put it in the corners of the boss’ office. When I quit working for that FBO five years later, the case was still gathering dust in that corner.

Another story that sort of involves lost luggage occurred while I was working at that same FBO.  In this case the lost bag was a camera bag. The camera bag showed up on a bench that was outside the door to our office. In nice weather, this bench was a gathering place for airport bums to gather and watch, talk about and tell lies about airplanes. Our secretary opened the bag looking for something that would identify the owner. The bag contained a rather expensive state-of-the-art single lens reflex 35mm camera; but not a clue about the owner’s identity. She brought it into the office and put it on a table in pilot’s lounge that served as a repository for various items that people left lying around the office and hanger. We assumed the owner would claim it soon because it was quite expensive.

Like the attaché case, several weeks passed and no one came for the camera. I am a rather advanced amateur photographer and had a fairly well equipped darkroom. I suggested developing the film and maybe that would help us locate the owner. My boss approved this plan, so I unloaded the film and took it home with me.  The roll was only about half used but the pictures were very revealing – literally. The pictures had been taken inside the Beechcraft D-18 that we used for air-taxi service for larger groups. The interior seating arrangements had a couch on one side of the cabin that was wide enough for three people to sit side-by-side. In these photographs, there was just one person lying down on the couch. She must have been very poor and couldn’t afford to buy clothes because she was naked as a jaybird.

Our secretary had the reputation of knowing everyone that worked at the airport and all about them. She immediately identified the lady in the picture as a ticket counter agent for one of the major airlines. She agreed to ask her discreetly about the photo session and try to return the camera to its rightful owner. After she had this conversation, we heard this interesting explanation.

 Let’s just call the naked girl Suzy. Suzy had a face and figure that would qualify her to be a centerfold in a men’s magazine. A customer had convinced her that he was a photographer for such a magazine and offered her one hundred dollars to pose for some test shots. She should have known he was a phony when he didn’t ask her to sign a model’s release form. He wanted the pictures to be taken inside an airplane and no empty airliners happened to be available. It was late at night so she suggest going down to the FBO to see if an empty corporate aircraft was overnighting. Our aircraft was unlocked and empty and they began the photo shoot. After several photos, the fake photographer tried to convince Suzy that he should get more for his investment. That was a big mistake because Suzy happen happened to have a hobby that she practiced to help keep her in such fine physical shape. She had earned a black belt for her achievements in this hobby. Evidently the guy dropped his camera and bag on his hasty retreat from the airplane and Suzy’s lethal feet and hands. One of security people must have picked it up and put it on the bench while making his regular rounds. All Suzy wanted was the negatives and prints. She suggested I keep the camera for recovering the photographs for her. I still use it to this day.

And that’s the truth!

Bowinkle T. Propwash

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    

Sex and the Single Engine Aircraft

During any hanger flying session, after all the lies about daring piloting exploits have been recounted; the conversation invariably turns to lies about great feats of romance. Some of these tales of sex and aircraft have been repeated so many times that they have escaped the boundaries of the airport and entered the outside culture as bona-fide urban legends.

I have heard this particular story told at airports from Bar Harbor, Maine to San Diego, California and several other gatherings of liars located far from any airport. Of course, the story is always told by a person who knew personally or was related to the people in the story. Many of the details, like the type of the aircraft and purpose of the flight, vary but it is the same basic story.

The crux of the story is that a pilot fell to his death from a single engine aircraft because the aircraft inadvertently rolled upside down while he was engaged in an amorous exercise with a female passenger. For the story to have any credibility at all, the aircraft must be of a type that you could fall out of when it was flying upside down. The most prevalent version of the story is about the Globe Swift. This was a two-seat (side-by-side) single-engine aircraft introduced shortly after the end of World War II. Some called it a mini-fighter because it was a higher performance aircraft than the common two-seaters of that era and the canopy slid back just like some fighter planes. The picture shows a Swift with the canopy open. Other variations of the story use the Navion as the aircraft. The Navion was a four-seat aircraft that also had a sliding canopy. I heard at least one version where the airplane was an open cockpit biplane and the Don Juan pilot actually crawled (while in flight) out of his cockpit into the fair damsel's cockpit to assuage his libidinous cravings. By far the most creative variation involved a air show wing walking act. The husband pilot and his wing walking wife were deadheading between air shows. The wife climbed up on the wing and strapped herself to the special pylon so they could practice their act. The husband decided to surprise her with some high altitude romance and climbed up on the wing with her.

Besides the type of aircraft and the geographical location, there are three distinct versions of exactly what happened in the air and how it came about. The most common version that I have encountered is that a male pilot and a female passenger were just out for a pleasure flight and decided it would be nice to become better acquainted physically. Of course the pilot had to unfasten his seat belt and move over to the passenger's seat to do this. He opened the canopy for more maneuvering room. It was a warm sunny day and soon they were involved in getting to know one another better. A few unintentional nudges to the control yoke by the posterior portion of his anatomy caused the plane to roll upside down and gravity caused him to fall to his untimely death.

The second version is very similar, except the man was a flight instructor and the woman was taking a flying lesson. The instructor probably mentioned that he accepted payment for his services in other forms than checks or money orders. The student always sits in the left side (pilot) seat when taking a flying lesson. In this version, the instructor crawled from the passenger seat over to the pilot's seat. For some reason, flight instructors seem to tell this version of the story most often.

The third and least common version I've heard was that the woman was really an expert pilot herself and lured the man into the situation so she could murder him and make it look like a tragic accident.

Some versions have the aircraft crashing and the woman getting killed also. Others have the woman regaining control of the aircraft and making a safe landing. One thing all the variations have in common is the means by which it was determined that an act of physical intimacy was in progress. The stories originated long before DNA typing was discovered or CSI was heard of. But every one ends the story by stating the fact that when the unfortunate man's remains were recovered; he was found to be wearing a device that would only be worn if one had an amorous liaison on his mind.

In spite of all the variations of this story, there was probably some incident or close call that spawned this wonderful urban legend. From this every pilot can learn an important lesson. In a single-engine airplane with an open top canopy, safe sex means wearing a parachute.

And that's the truth!

Bowinkle T. Propwash

Airline Food Alternative

Hey before you all start telling me about your horror stories with the food the airlines give you. let me tell you about a better way. Just taxi on over to Cuzin Charlies blog and get a flight plan for some good grub you can fix at home and sneak on the airplane in you carryon luguage. Make an extra heaping in case you have to bribe one of those TSA folks.