John Tullamarine:
Well done on a, no doubt, successful flying career - now to fishing, drinking and other fine activities more appropriate to the senior group.
Thus far I have mixed some of those retirement activities with a continuing involvement as a consultant in TERPs as it evolves into performance based navigation (PNB), the most advanced iteration of which is RNP AR. I work with an associate who is also heavily involved in takeoff performance issues. There is a crossover, though, when I see how far behind OEI takeoff flight path navigation is from the other work we are doing.
As to my flying carrer, I was very happy the day I no longer had to fly those TWA 727s out of places like ABQ. After many years of flying that airplane into that station, it was a real pleasure to make my first departure on Runway 8 in a 767. It brought back fond memories of the early days of departing Runway 8 as a F/O on the 707-100B (fan engines, as opposed to those awful "water wagons.")
And, as to net vs. gross, I have understood that for years. My hunch was that TWA's 727-200s with the smallest engine Boeing optioned, would have been more in the arena of net than gross.