Great article on Avweb

http://www.avweb.com/news/pilotlounge/P ... 633-1.html

Thanks, can't think of something he wrote I did not like.

That was a good read. Thanks for posting.

When the auto industry is doing well the pressure to move parts is incredible. I recall many nights/weekends from my engineering days where we were in conference calls with freight carriers trying to get parts into a plant.

There were screaming plant managers with 50's buzz haircuts, union leaders screaming about overtime, quality managers, change managers tracking serial numbers of parts on each flight/train/truck etc. The corporate IT staff was on the line as well since all the serial numbers/bar codes had to be sequenced and associated with the vehicle VINs and tracked to satisfy government regs. It was crazy and relentless.

Now I also get to see the pilots' perspectives. They were going as crazy as we were.

Bob Lutz, who is a pilot and a legend in the auto industry, wrote a book titled Guts. In that book he said that making changes in the auto industry is like rewiring a 747 in flight.

Sooo cool! I want a Learjet!

Note that he said they didn't start engine 2 until cleared for takeoff because it used so much fuel on the ground. That was when fuel was CHEAP!

Note that he said they didn't start engine 2 until cleared for takeoff because it used so much fuel on the ground. That was when fuel was CHEAP!

Oh I know, even if I could afford it I can think of other planes I'd buy first in the name of efficiency.

Nonetheless the Lear is an icon of American aviation and I would love to throttle up and feel that thrust one day

Neal,

We weren't allowed to do a single engine taxi... outbound, not smart enough ..... (UAL), but did it inbound.

As for the Lear, a hoot, and it was single eng taxi all the time. I loved my Lear time, and remember my first co pilot check out... it was all on the dead head leg to pick up the pax. After that, I was "qualified". Unfortunately, the cost of gas kinda put the old Lears out of business. I flew the 25, which would easily exceed 5000 fpm light weight, and go right up to 410.

Almost as fast as the Baron.....

My freight dog days began when I answered an add in Trade-A-Plane for a Lear capt. job in Texas.

Though there are still things I would never put down in writing I can share a few. My company billed itself as a "24-hour, All - Weather Operator" - and they were not kidding. I remember listening with disdain as the real pilots used up valuable bandwidth inquiring about the "ride" when we had real weather issues to discuss.

One day I showed up and all the Lears' had a weird low-rider appearance. A gross of Vietnam era F-4 Phantom II nosewheel tires had found their way to our hangar and been installed on the mains of the lear fleet. The tires looked good with deep tread. The long span of time between Vietnam and the mid nineties had dried the tires out a bit. They tended not to wear so much as large pie shaped chunks would disappear. We had a stack of those tires but they were used up in about two months.

Freight pilots tend to live in a world where the pilot was expected to carry the airplane and we lived with the tradition. My personal bottom line was that I had to have plausible deniability. "I don't care that the _______ does not work, just leave it installed as if it is physically missing it would be hard for me to claim it is working." A freight pilot could start an engine, swap igniters to the opposite side and be off the ground quickly. Many skillsets were a part of that job.

The airplane was an impressive performer. We had a semi regular run between Muskeegan Mi and Rochester NY. Because contract fuel was available in Mi we tended to depart with our freight and a load of "Alaska" fuel, allowing us to return on the same tank. One of our planes was a 24 model with the same engines as the 25 fleet. The airplane's BOW was about 8500# the fuel load was about 3300# and the thrust available was 5800#. An 11,000 # airplane with 5800 # of thrust performs very, very well.

Handflying a Lear above FL410 (yaw dampers did not work as often as they were legally required to work) was a skill in itself.

The airline I fly for now routinely taxis in and out on one engine. The lear would climb at about 3000 fpm single engine so it was not really necessary to have both of them running past top of descent. I know of some pilots who took matters further but I never pushed quite that far. There were three things to be concerned about when flying a 20 series; You were fuel critical from the time you pushed up the power on take-off, losing the pressurization and which wing is bolted to this airframe?

Flying the LearJet was best explained to me by a Harrier pilot I flew with in Lears for a while; "Easy to fly - Easy to crash." I would end a Lear trip, go fly our Falcon 20 for a week or two and then fly the Lear again. The first lear take-off was always a little bit slippery. It was not as though I had not been flying but the lear was "different."

The lifestyle sucked but my skills will never again be so finely honed. The FAA inspectors knew that in-airplane jet training was something that only the most proficient should attempt so they always gave new type ratings from the potty seat. Training pilots, doing a couple of type rides a month and flying in all weather 80 hours a month meant that my skills were sharper than they have ever been, before or since. Today when I take a check ride I am aware of it and there is a level of nervousness. I remember one of my last six month checks in the lear. It was the last check-ride of a three day marathon of type rides and SIC rides. This time the examiner volunteered to sit in the right seat and only the two of us went up. We went through all the required maneuvers but it was very second hand to me and we carried on a conversation through most of the flight. I can't fly that way today, but I remember how it felt to have that level of mastery over the machine.

I still see some of them on the ramp, blinded out cargo windows and all. So somewhere, there must be someone with a tap on a fuel-pipeline that allows him to stay in business flying small-bore Lears.

Is there a single-pilot STC or do they still require two pilots ?

This evening, I stopped by at a local strip and saw the Queen-Air that hauls packages for UPS sitting on the ramp. When I looked closer, I noticed that the pilotside roof-hatch was open and the pilot was sleeping on top of the plane I guess some things never change in the freight-dog world.

That was a very interesting article. Durden is a good writer.

Kalitta Air has a base in Morristown, TN, near Knoxville. They still fly some Lears. A friend of mine, only 21 years old, with 3,000+ hours, flies for them. He has some interesting stories of the trips they make in the Lears. Most are about small cargo loads that companies are willing to pay big bucks to move somewhere in a shorter time frame than overnight UPS/FedEx can provide. One trip was a night call out for a deadhead to Houston, pick up two boxes of electronic components and deliver them to a Michigan airport near a car plant. They then came back to TN empty. That was very expensive freight.

Yea, Durden is a good writer, and an overall good guy with lots of experiences. Use to see more of him over on the Avsig forum. Met him at an Avsig lunch in Chicago a while back... flew into Megs and had a great time.

The only time I ever rented a Peugot (which stunk of burned oil when you got near it) while traveling for business and managed to skate through the Budweiser brewery tour for the two free beers at the end while dashing to the airport for a ride home, I was with Rick Durden. Little did I know, later, would he admit to be a recovering freight dog. I have confessions, too, but feel purged by his. Besides mine were as the innocent right seater who wanted a ride to Willow Run.