28 November 2015

I'm Still A "Fly By Night" Kinda Guy!

"How would you like to make $100 for about 15 minutes work?" he asked.
My poor math skills immediately went to work-
Fifteen minutes... a hundred dollars. That's $400 an hour, isn't it!?
"What's the job?"
"Flying an R22 with a night sign. You'll be proposing marriage to a gal on the ground."
"Wonderful! Where do I sign up?"

I had met the owner last year. The pilots who normally do this job were home visiting relatives for Thanksgiving.
"What are the restrictions with this system?"
"If you don't exceed 75 knots, you won't even know it's attached to the helicopter."

I had to get night current, so my total time added up to 45 minutes of night time.
The only tense moment I had was, flying right over the beach, starting a turn toward the Gulf and realizing I wasn't in my own aircraft...
No artificial horizon, it was BLACK out there. I stopped and reversed my turn where there were lights to identify my attitude.

Neat job. New experience.
Great to be back out flying at night.
And, best of all...
She said YES!



3 comments:

Ed Bonderenka said...

Some guys have all the luck.
And I don't mean the groom to be.

Anonymous said...

I had the exact same experience in Miami at their annual boat show about 35 years ago in a 47J model. To add to the excitement, the searchlight operator on the ground thought he would help and illuminate my A/C! the inside of the ship was like sitting on the sun. I broke out to the ocean, and it was darker than 6 feet up the back side of a cow!

Old NFO said...

Woo hoo! :-) Glad it worked out!