God I loved the low alt 146. With ALF 502/503's, we were blowing engines left and right on the 100, so the company took us out and three-engined takeoff qualled all of us in the actual airplane! They figured we were all going to be at an out station and would need to ferry it back to a mtc base sooner or later! Interesting procedure. We wouldn't spool up the asymmetrical engine until 80 kts.
That was my first clue to update my resume....
Solution was to throttle back to .75 cruise according to Avco Lycoming. Of course, on a busy corridor in the cheap fuel days that made us very unpopular. We started having to file for FL260 and often got much lower because ATC got tired of vectoring us off the airway to let everybody by.
But with those big beautiful picture windows on a new airplane at low altitude over the mountains it was a shear delight, even if it wasn't particularly profitable. Next job was old 74 freighters where most of the windows were so crazed I couldn't see out at all!
Ah the 146. Small gas tanks, pretty girls, home all the time...
Not sure now why I wanted to commute just to fly the big iron....
