I was a commercial pilot, (but not on anything super sexy as far as aircraft go) flew piston singles and twins with crew changes and freight hops into remote strips in the oilfield, as well as charter flights for clients needing to fly for meetings and conferences. Owned my own Cessna 172 for 12 years, and did sightseeing flights, aerial photographers and of course my own travel when it was faster and more fun than driving. I flew Cessna 206 single engine and Piper Navajo twins for the local charter company. There were also turbo-prop birds (King Air and Twin Otter) but I never did get to be the driver on either of those. I held a Group 1 IFR/ATPL (multi-engine instrument rated) on the piston powered planes, never did get turbine certified but I did do a few hops in a King Air 100 just for fun with a friend that flew for another charter. I assisted him with his training for a single pilot operations check ride and I got to ride along with him for his flight test. I flew the plane back from Edmonton Intl (CYEG) to City Center (CYXD) which lasted a whole 8 minutes with me at the controls from taxi to touch down. You don't even get the plane leveled out after t/o and you have to start configuring for landing it's such a short hop! But at least I have that to look at in my log book. Flying can be a real blast, but it isn't nearly as romantic as it might appear when it's a job and the weather s**ts on you in the middle of BF nowhere. Wages on small ops are the pits as well, which is why I stopped doing it, would have starved if I had to live on it. But I'm happy to have done it. My plane is still local and I fly occasionally with the gal that bought it. She hosts a fly-in every fall, it was just this past Sunday, good to see some of my old flying buddies and meet some new ones every year.
