(Charter flights) A Story Of Unbelievable Persistence
No commentsBy Saleem Rana
Dick and Jay sat on the ground outside the shed. The rain pelted down on them. They stared in disbelief at the lake of mud all around them. The Piper Cub slumped in the mud a few feet in front of them. Neither a wet bird nor muddy squirrel could be seen.
“It’s going to be like this for some time,” said Jay, gloomily, “according to the weather report.”
Dick feebly told the joke about the weatherman who left town because the weather didn’t agree with him–but neither of them laughed. The rain fell without remorse.
“Boy, boys, boys,” said a beautiful woman with auburn hair. She had a fresh complexion. She wore a wet, slightly muddy, mauve dress. She sat down between them, covering them with her pink umbrella.
Dick kissed his wife on the cheek. He reached down into the vanilla box for his sandwich. The box tumbled out of his hands and landed in a puddle. It floated.
“That’s it,” shouted Jay. He grabbed Dick’s elbow. “Don’t you see- that’s it!”
It only took a day to add the inflated pontoon boats to the Piper Cub. Now instead of wheels, it had floats. Now, instead of the muddy runway, they used the river.
But another calamity awaited: a lightning storm. A bolt of lightning struck the hut, shattering it.
Without an office, it was hard to run operations.
Dick, however, found a solution. He bought a chicken coop from the farmer down the road for $25.
“One last yard,” said Dick, talking to the old mare. The mare grunted as it dragged along the chicken coop.
After propping up the chicken coop, Dick began whitewashing it.
“There,” said Dick, slapping on the last coat.
He stepped back to join his wife, Doreen, and his partner, Jay. All of them admired the bright chicken coop. It proudly bore the blue legend “Wolverine Air Service.”
“Soon,” said Dick, “Millions will be flying their own planes. They’ll come to us and we’ll teach them.”
“And it only cost us $200 to get this Piper Cub,” added Jay.
“Airplanes will swarm the air, the way cars do the ground,” predicted Dick.
Just then a freckled-faced young man came up to them.
“Is this your school?” he asked, squinting at Dick.
“Have you come for lessons?” asked Dick.
“Darn right!”
“We’d love to teach you, but we don’t know how to fly!” confessed Dick.
A few days later, however, they found a flight instructor. Dick straightened out the sheaf of papers on his ramshackle desk as the last interviewee walked out of the shack. He looked over at Jay. “Well?” Jay nodded. “I like him.”
“Then we have a new flight instructor,” said Dick, smiling broadly.
The next day, Dick and the new flight instructor stood outside the chicken coop office.
“How are you going to pay me?” asked the flight instructor, a tall man with thick dark hair and brilliant blue eyes.
“Cash,” said Dick, unruffled.
“But you said a moment ago that you don’t have any money?”
“I don’t,” confirmed Dick, “but they do.”
The flight instructor turned around to follow Dick’s finger. He had to chuckle. On the edge of the field was Jay whooping in a group of three eager students, all trussed up in flight gear. They were wet to their thighs from wading across the river.
“They’ll be the first to graduate,” affirmed Bob, the new flight instructor.
This is the story of Richard M. DeVos and his high-school buddy, Jay Van Andel, who came home after the Second World War convinced that the aviation business would be the trend of the future.
The Success Principle
The only limits are those that you set up for yourself. Limited thoughts create limited people.
Saleem Rana got his masters in psychotherapy. His articles on the internet have inspired over ten thousand people from around the world. Discover how to create a remarkable life
Copyright 2005 Saleem Rana. Please feel free to pass this
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SAFETY ADDRESSING WITH NEW AVIONICS
By gennew05
”How safe is it?” Along with “How much does it cost?” this is a question we often hear when someone is considering flight training as an option for depleting his or her discretionary income. Our industry has experienced a marked reduction in overall accidents and statistically, a 27.8% reduction in the most recent 7 years! During this same time period General Aviation fatal accidents dropped 32.6% to just over 1 fatality for every 100,000-flight hours.
Of these accidents, 80% are either partially or completely pilot induced, with weather related accidents and controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accounting for the majority of fatalities.
So what is the industry doing to address the issue of pilot errors?
Bendix/King has taken the bull by the horns and addressed this challenge with several new avionics products, and Cessna has taken the next step by including the Bendix/King advanced avionics package in their aircraft.
Situational Awareness: With its moving map and IFR approach capability, the KLN94 GPS provides added safety through increased situational awareness. This GPS with its full color screen is as easy to operate, as it is to view.
Weather: Bendix/King Data Link Weather features a state-of-the-art data link system to bring textual and graphical weather to your cockpit with a high speed, high bandwidth system. With the KDR 510, weather information (including METARs, TAFs, and PIREPs) is automatically updated and displayed on your KMD 550 (multi-function display) in your cockpit. For a small monthly fee, you can also receive NEXRAD radar and additional weather products that promote additional weather avoidance capability.
Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT): The KMH 880 Multi-Hazard Awareness System combines traffic and terrain avoidance features in one unit. Combined with the KDR 510 and displayed on the KMD 550, you can have all the situational awareness available to ensure an up-to-the-second picture of your flight situation.
Workload Reduction: The KMD 550 Multi-Function Display (MFD) lets you spend less time looking at your instruments and more time flying your aircraft. The system gives you the information you need without added clutter, all while reducing the time required to manage each safety system. Along with its capability to display traffic, weather, terrain and moving map information, the KMD 550 also provides a wealth of reference information to the pilot including airports, NDBs, intersections, VORs, special-use airspace, victor airways, rivers, roads, lakes, cities and towers. When interfaced to the KLN 94, the KMD 550 can also display holding patterns, procedure turns and DME arcs for even greater situational awareness. Most importantly, this MFD is simple to use and sports a bright, razor-sharp display!
So, how much safer can General Aviation become? It seems to me that the sky’s the limit! Who would have guessed that today’s General Aviation aircraft would have these capabilities? And I suppose the question follows . . . What else is possible
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