The Iraq the
you
know there I was doing airplane the of my wife Jane said I had an obsession.
But then she bit magazine articles on psychology
and she was always saying things like the brother in law said I was
but the thing he says sports car fan and he talks like that.
It all started a few weeks before when we had the Abbotts over to dinner.
Wonderful dinner Jane Horrocks we'd better be getting home have to get up early
morning.
We're flying up so you want your kids come along plenty of room in the plane plane
what plane. We have an airplane out of you know.
Yikes to my every one of my flight.
Well it makes more sense than a speed boat rig you've got Come on now.
Sure it's a used plane
and it cost me just about the same to operate as my car does.
And you want to fly up to the mountains in a fall no doors your husband man.
Surely you don't mean you'd be afraid to fly the darn right I would
and a little pleasure with you was a pilot say when did you become a pilot.
That's not a little flipper
and I've had my private pilot's license for over a month now
and I thought the C.A.A. Had regulations about things like that. It's the F.A.A.
and They do have regulations they license the plane just like a new one.
So it's quite safe. Well I love flying it's a lot of fun. If you fly too high.
Actually drive the fully you'll fly.
Well I'm just learning that in about two more hours.
I'm going to sell no believe in planning for Steve to learn on a summer vacation
they get to tourist even Doris do all my navigation navigation. Yeah you know maps.
They're good at it for a couple of doors tend to go up in the right way on your
belly. But
that didn't take the frosting right off of the cake commandos say I'm flying an
airplane and I know he's not as good a driver than Doris right.
To make it to learn next summer. Well that was what started it.
I'd never known anyone who owned the plane before
but suddenly it seemed as if planes were everywhere
everywhere I went something about planes.
Going to fly a whole paragraph
or so here is one of them will be there
pretty soon same popped up again too in spite of my dire predictions he indoors
made it back safely from the mountains. I apologized.
Jane made me for casting aspersions on his plane and his ability to pilot.
Sam is a good friend of mine but he's just a natural born salesman.
But he believes in something he sets out to convince the world
but he was going to sell me on that madness.
It's logic man said Sam Now look he said you're a man of logic and intelligence
and I complimented him on his astute judgment.
So then he started quoting some figures so dividing thirty thousand by fifteen
again by a hundred twenty The result is six hundred which you subtract two hundred
fifty zero zero M.
Can really work with those figures
but what it boils down to as he put the need three hundred fifty hours off is
travel time now three hundred fifty hours is Metsi divided by eight hours.
That's forty four divided by over eight weeks of working time. Not bad.
Then.
I looked on thirty thousand miles of highway driving that I replaced with my plane.
That's two hundred fifty hours of relaxed flying instead of six hundred hours of
hard driving. The next day we went golfing the same ran up
that old refrain again this time in between car and plane with gas
or oil depreciation passenger miles and so on and so on the net of.
Activists figure wizardry was a little startling it only cost him five hundred
seventy bucks
and he gained eight weeks in which he increased his sales Several thousand
and had time to spare.
Just between you and me that seems pretty sharp for those figures.
Sometimes I wish he weren't quite so sharp. The next time.
Sam started running
that same record again I put a stop to it after all there's more of this
and just economics.
I get to see myself flying into the side of a mountain to save an hour
or two Suppose the engine just up and quit on me right up in the middle of the air.
I'm out of gold admit it. Frankly I'm a coward or man engines just don't quit
and you don't just stop in the middle of the year.
There are more uncontrollable fighters on the highways than there are in the air
yet you accept that look at the facts. It's a safe investment.
I say and maybe but not for me not yet.
Sam said I was hard headed and I said he was soft headed.
Jane came in
and said You're both headed headed for bed because I had to drive three hundred
miles in extent.
But it was that trip that really knocked the feathers off the good news.
I don't get me wrong I'm used to driving thousands of miles a month because I cover
a big character. The pressure was really on me this trip.
I was going to make a full scale presentation that afternoon for a client
that might well spend one hundred thousand a year it was unusually heavy
and I was behind schedule so naturally that's from the tire fixed to go for.
The Course. You know our to have to change that tire and get it fixed.
I called my client and told him I was going to be late. He wasn't happy about it.
I was late and dirty but I crossed my fingers
and asked my clients are you knew
it was already signed a contract with a competitor
for my company's hot shot salesman sure did well by himself missed the biggest deal
of the year. All because of the lousy traffic allows a flat tire.
Here I wasn't allowed a motel room with nothing to do but doodle doodles
when I should have been counting my commish I ever needed it
and carefully it was just a few.
You are getting here are ten
pounds now he's going to fire old purgatory unless.
Thank you got here in time.
Tom Rossley the
rock.
But that was only it during the hard reality was
that I was headed home without a sail in my pocket.
So it was then and there that I decided something had to be done.
I had a home and told my wife. Now look here.
Something has to be done that I say before the Jane always kept up with things.
Well she does. I don't know where she digs up these things
but she came up with these little books called to me fly and look who's flying
and she was waiting for me with a full report and a big smile.
She had it all figured out
that if I took flying lessons she could take them to on the family plan
and it fit very neatly into the budget so around the house we started calling each
other. Million Lindy.
But I didn't feel so much the Intrepid airman the next week
when I went for my first flying
when I had a Hungry Girl for my instructor Bill Roberts
but then I noticed he had forgotten the parishes.
When I pointed this oversight out to him he just laughed and said Only military
and stunt pilots warships.
They would check me out on the basic rules pretty quickly.
Like everything else the basis of flying safety is good common sense.
By the end of a couple of hours I realized
that my fears were if you'll excuse the pun groundless.
Thanks to Bill I was soon thinking takeoffs and landings with my heart
and my stomach in the plane all in the right place.
It was surprisingly easy
but unlike planes practically fly themselves learning the maneuvers took a little
concentration but it was fun.
And there was an unexpected event up there in the blue I forgot my problems on the
ground sails boaters back to delivery day I was feeling better than I had my whole
life.
Another nice surprise was the instant you don't have to be a human Univac to figure
it out in a couple of hours
that panel was as familiar as the dash for my current date of course was taking
lessons too if I do say so myself. She was pretty good.
After a half hour of the do instruction came the big day
when I saw the high think that was just about the biggest thrill of my life and
when I set the plane down Bill was waiting for me with a trophy.
He forgot the citizen
when we got inside he cut a piece of my shirt tail autographed and attached
and he said it wouldn't be many more hours before I could take passengers.
Now I've been running planes and have logged a lot of hours
and I don't mind admitting I get the same thrill up in the air
that I did the first day so I don't exaggerate.
When I say I open up a whole new world for myself as I begin to cover my territory
by plane. I save enough time to make about twenty percent more call.
There have been some customers I was only getting to once a year
and they were glad of the additional service and they gave me more business.
But what was probably more important is that Jane
and Little Debbie got to accompany me on many trips.
We got to go to places we wouldn't have had time for otherwise take the last sales
meeting there was and. So I rented a plane and flew down thinking Jean
and Debbie when they took off on a shopping expedition
and I took the bus out to the airport to show on the plane on Sunday.
I figured out impressive and I really did.
Until he finds out how easy it is to find it going to think I'm a minor genius.
Incidentally if I weren't so modest I'd tell you what kind of a showing I made at
that salesman the day we got back from the sales meeting the Abbotts came over to
hear about the trip. Also my brother in law. The sports car fan and his wife Betty.
Talking about it in the sales meeting my daddy shopping.
And then they flew over and spent the weekend with my folks.
What did you think of the year for DOWNER Oh man it was terrific to have
that runway all to myself mind to just as well as one of those airline you kids at
home way out on this flying business I want you to talk about all the evening.
Man don't you realize you're taking your life in your hands
when you go from one of those things to enter the fray again this time though I was
on the other side of the fence and I must say that with Sam
and I both working on it it didn't take us long to show Bob the error of his ways
and now he's come up with a plan for he and I go in together
and buy a brand new Cessna. As for my wife. Well this is a deal.
I didn't have to sell her she no longer go to psychology articles at me.
She's too busy having fun as far as
that goes we are one of
have had hatched.
Yes.