[fingpilot]

Joe and Byron;

Have a funny story about how to tell the other half about an 'impulse buy'.

My best friend in all the world (friendship based on sharing a ditch in 'Nam after both of us punching out from different planes) and I had a business that certificated airlines. We were the ones that took perfectly good money and made stuff happen that ended up with a license to operate airliners for profit. Anyone that knows the economics of the airlines knows we did a lot of rich people a really bad favor.

Nonetheless, our latest 'project' was based in Charlotte, NC. Anyone that lives there might recognize the very short-lived airline. Bill and his wife (both normally living in Dallas) had rented a really nice house for the term of this project (typically a year by the time the Catch-22) stuff was done, and I was renting a room from them. Bill was to be Director of Ops on this one, and I was Chief Pilot. We traded spots every other airline. The Catch-22 was that in order to have an airline you had to have experienced people running it from day 1. Even after granting the OpsSpecs (license to operate) we would stay on in these capacities until the locals were deemed fit (by us and the FAA) to run the thing themselves, but 6 months was the going rate.

Bill and I were quite often out on the road (he dealing with the certification branch of the FAA in DC, and me out in the desert pulling airplanes out of mothballs).

His wife was usually the typist / receptionist for the constant flood of phone calls about pretty much everything. As this process matured, people were added to accommodate the workload. Needless to say, quite often Bill and I lost track of each other's whereabouts and any request from him to me or vice-versa was done without question.

I know long story, but hang in there.

Bill calls me from Dallas and wants to know when the next time I was going to be in Charlotte. Tuesday next week, with an MD87 if the Marana, AZ idiots can get it together. OK, he says. He needs my help with something. He has bought a '63 Corvette in pristeen shape, but his wife will dismember him (you know which member) if she ever finds out. He had just convinced her last week that the MiniCooperS was really for her (4'10" and reaalllly blonde). So there was NOOOO way she was gonna go for a Corvette. He had to get it out of Texas, like yesterday to avoid taxes, so it was ALREADY on a transporter to be delivered to the hangar in Charotte in my name just about the time I got there with the MD87. "Mike, tell her anything, just cover for me until I can get back and think of something to say" Sir, Yes Sir. End of call.

Week goes by, I have completely forgotten about the 'Vette, that's how full your mind is when you are flying an airplane that was in 45 pieces strewn about the hangars in Marana a week ago. I land in Charlotte, the squawk list is over 50 items, and this plane (the first for the airline) has to be painted in Arkansas, all the squawks worked off, and presented to the FAA for conformity checks in another two weeks (almost impossible). BUT! It was the first actual, tangible sign that $hat is actually happening to all the people who are writing checks, doing godless paperwork and pulling 20-hour days to make this all happen, and there is actually a crowd standing in the hangar as I taxi up and shutdown. Of course, open the doors, front and rear, APU fired up, A/C on full blast and everyone gets a chance to see the bird.

Bill's wife walks into the cockpit and says, there's a guy with a semi in the parking lot with a Corvette looking for me and my signature. I recover ASAP and go out and sign for the car. It truly is pristeen. I drive it thru security, and into the hangar, parking it discreetly over in a corner, and putting the car cover on it.

That night, when I finally get home, Bill's wife, as she is serving dinner asks me if she is ever going to see Bill again, as he has been ensconced in DC for almost 3 weeks. Then she asks when I had time to buy a Corvette in all of my travels. I explained that I had bought it online, and was really looking forward to one of those beautiful spring days in NC that everyone talks about for a nice drive. She gets this really stern look (for a blonde) and says I am really going to have to lock it somewhere secure and especially keep Bill away from it because he has wanted one EXACTLY like that all his life, and boy was he gonna be jealous! She said that, in fact, after dinner, she was going to drive me to the airport and make me drive it back to the garage so it would be safe cuz I was gone so much. We did exactly that.

Couple of days later, I blast off with the MD87 to Little Rock for a quickie paint job, leaving the 'Vette in the 3 car garage at home. I was gonna stay with the airplane, cuz constant beer and pizza for the paint/prep crew can shave days off of a paint job. I didn't really say that.

I had left EXPLICIT instructions with Bill's wife about hiding the keys to the 'Vette somewhere he would NEVER find them, and that I was making her responsible for not letting him drive my car before I had a chance to. In fact, I told her I didn't even want him sitting in it, touching it, drooling on it, nada..... I told her he was gonna concoct all kinds of lies to get her to let him drive it, he might even dummy up paperwork, but it would all be just so he could rob me of my first drive in North Carolina. I made as serious a face as I could (to a blonde ex-Braniff F/A) and warned of dire consequences. She looked like she was going to comply as I taxiied away in the MD.

You know what happened.

She's laughing, he's crying, all in the same phone call to me in Arkansas. She told me 'he even tried to convince her that the car was his, showed her reciepts that even looked legit, just like I said he would, but Michael, your car is safe.'

He and I still laugh at that one, and yes, I waited until I got home a week later to tell her the truth.

He admitted that he had been sleeping in it for the last two nights before I got there.