Flying and making the transition...
The largest plane that I flew was DC4's, a four-engine airplane, as a co-pilot.
Aero Union was the name of the company. The planes were based out of Chico. The Aero Union folks knew that some of the Sky Sailing pilots had some viable, reliable flying skills.
The salmon haul tool place in Kenai, Alaska when the sun was up nearly 24 hours per day. The sun just dipped below the horizon and came right back up. We flew the planes, based on the low-tides, onto the hard-packed sand beaches, then took off to wherever they wanted to have the fish be delivered.
Sunset in Alameda, this week
Each tote required a forklift to get the goods out of the plane. And yes, we sometimes pried off the top off one of the totes (which were huge) so we could have fresh salmon for a meal or three. I don't remember cooking....and I think we took the salmon to a restaurant and had the cook whip up a meal for us.
One of the ways I (we) built up my (our) resumes was to deliver new Piper (single-engine land) planes to the FBO's (Fixed Based Operators), not FSBO (For Sale By Owner), who worked at/owned the airport, from which these planes were to operate from. That was in the good ol' days.
When the economy went backward in the early 1980's, we were called by the same Piper manufacturer, to get to the airport that bought those planes and who had defaulted on their loans, to repossess those airplanes. Sometimes we were greeted, most times not.
We had a licensed A&P (not the grocery store chain), Aircraft & Powerplant mechanic accompanying us, who would go through the plane and he'd signed off in the logbook that they were safe to fly.
And that's the way I/we built up my/our hours and eventually flew DC4's.
The next summer I was asked to fly for Aero Union, again, for the fish haul. However, I was pregnant with our second child. I let Aero Union know of my situation, and I turned the company down.
After the fish haul started, I got a call one day from one of my fellow pilots, saying one of those planes had crashed and the crew was killed. They called me one more time, and asked me to fly the DC4's as a fire-bomber co-pilot. I turned them down.
I immediately got another license: my Real Estate License, following my Dad's lead. Then I got my Real Estate Broker's License.
Live richly, marilyn
Aerial firefighting is the use of aircraft and other aerial resources to combat wildfires. The types ... The idea of fighting forest fires from the air dates back at least as far as Friedrich Karl von Koenig-Warthausen's ... while the Douglas DC-4
Love it! I'm glad you did all of that and that we get to live vicariously through you!
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