Hi Ken,
It was an unusual morning. One C337 was lifting off as I got out of the
car at the airport, and the second one arrived before I left. This may
have been one of the Mackinaw crowd. He appeared to be returning from a
short Florida vacation, and his ultimate destination, when he left here,
was a small town in Michigan.
No, I never saw one of those bumper stickers. :-)
Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA
On 4/9/2015 3:19 PM, Ken Norton wrote:
I recall many vacation flights with our dog as co-pilot, while my wife kept
the boys secure in the rear seat. I couldn't help but think of that when I
watched this vacationing family disembark during a fuel stop this morning.
Did you have a bumper sticker that said, "DOG is my Co-Pilot"?
I've seen one Skymaster in use in the last 10 years. Used to see a
bunch of them, but not anymore. Performance/cost of operation just
isn't working out. But they did have decent payload numbers. Up in
Michigan, they were really popular and any trip to the airport on
Mackinaw Island would be a gathering of a large percentage of them to
be seen. Probably half of them were the pressurized models. Mackinaw
Island is a popular resort/tourist spot in the Great Lakes region, and
everybody who is anybody has a place there. The airport was pretty
tight and if you needed twin-engine transport (for insurance/corporate
reasons), the Skymaster was a great way to get from Detroit,
Cleveland, Lansing, Indianapolis or Chicago to Mackinaw Island. The
bigger Cessna 400-series twins were very popular too, but only because
you didn't need much fuel load to get back to wherever you were coming
from. I think most of the corporations downstate kept a 421 or 337
around just to fly people to the island. The 421s would land with
minimum fuel, drop off the passengers, pop over to St. Igneous to get
enough fuel to fly back south and for the pilot to stay in a hotel
there. Then they would fly the four miles back over to the island,
pick up thier passengers and head back home.
Nowadays, you see mostly King Air 200s doing that job. They have the
performance to get in and out and don't need to stay up there. The
crews drop the people off and the pilots head back home. Once in a
while you'll see a small jet, but it has to be a VLJ with impressive
short-field numbers.
I would love to see a modern version of the Skymaster that is truly
practical, fast and economical. Add reliable to that list and it would
be a slam dunk for success.
AG
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