slick gravy
Contrary to popular belief, I, too, suffered the horrors of a time in GA.
The boss, a borderline psychotic who suffered from manic-depression and piles, told me he had 'a job' for me. He was smiling which meant it was probably illegal in some small way.
A drilling team in the middle of the outback needed a new drill bit and the boss wanted me to "drop it off" to them in a C210. We went into the pilots' briefing room which also happened, of course, to be the smallest room in the building after the boss's office, secretary's office, Op.s Manager's office, tea-room, toilet and broom closet. I looked up the co-ords of this place on the usual faded collection of faded WAC charts (like when I use my PIN Number at an ATM Machine Machine).
The catch was there was no runway so I would have to wrap the drill bit in rags and bubble mat, place it inside one of those small eskies, tie a "streamer" (his idea) made of hessian potato sacks tied together and push it out the window to them.
I hid my glee at being instructed to carry out this sort of anarchy and tried to focus on the smell of cash and the joy of eating again after the job.
There was no time to brief properly or examine the aircraft to determine the best way to deliver the package. I would have to rely upon my intensive instruction and training at the aero club
and I tried to focus on this on the way to the "drop-zone" but all I could come up with was foggy Dr. Nick Riviera-type memories of booze and poon.
Feeling that a clean exit was the best option, I approached the drop zone as fast as the C210 could go with the window open and the esky balanced on the window ledge. I could see these guys all standing in the middle of the "drop-zone", waving their arms so I knew I was in the right place. At about 300', I used my recently calibrated Eyeball and the correct procedures, as instructed, to carefully calculate all the variables, taking into account wind, height, speed, mass, drag, season, coriolis, moon-phase, and which ball was currently hanging lower, to arrive at the decision to drop the package.........NOW.
I thought about pushing the esky and it disappeared. It didn't just fall out the window, it vanished. Job done, I banked around to observe the impact (I had no illusions about my boss's
"streamer" bullsh!t) and mentally superimposed an image of
a 500Kg Snake-eye scoring a direct hit on a VC weapons cache along with spectacular concussion ring and expanding welter of gore and disassembled commies. It was fun.
I couldn't see the esky so I descended down to tree-top height to have a bit more fun before returning to check out the damage. On my first pass, I could see the guys still waving their arms and also jumping up and down excitedly. I must have hit the spot dead-on. I had plenty of juice and liked the reaction so I hauled it around for another pass, this time even lower. As I flew over the guys were going nuts and I thought I heard them yelling as I flew past. While I was thinking how funny and cool I was giving them the royal wave at prop height, I noticed they were pointing at me.
I climbed a little and looked back at them, wondering what the ****? That's when I noticed the hession sacks draped over the tail-plane.
Hooz ya daddy...
Next week: The day we flew every aircraft in the fleet
"in formation" for a TV ad.