Well well well... it’s amazing that with all the magnificent flying machines available today, a thread about the rare little C209 can continue to grow three years after it was started. Guys this is one amazing aircraft! I now have 2000 hrs on the machine and still love it. Although strangely enough I still haven’t found a POH for it
It’s really funny that at the start so many people refused to believe me that such an aircraft even existed! I think that attitude has finally disappeared and although most of you will never get the chance to see one in real life, you can accept that there are 209's buzzing around the outback as we speak.
One of my most memorable experiences with the 209 involved transporting 27 Emu's from Calcutta to some place in China. We didn’t have any cages available so we just squashed them into the cabin. There was even one sitting in the co-pilots seat, and he (or she) helped heaps by reading the checklists and poking me in the eye if I fell asleep. Anyway, as we were rolling down the runway for takeoff, I suddenly figured out that we were well over MTOW and it was too late to stop. Somehow the Emu's sensed the trouble and started flapping their wings which created enough extra lift to get the plane into the air. I couldn’t thank them enough after we landed! They were my best passengers ever, and to show my appreciation I decided to adopt them all as pets.
I think there’s a few more 209's in Aus now, compared to a few years ago. So don’t hold back if you get the chance for a ride in one.
Cheers
Tiger