Eventful Flight
Steve Shoop took off on another PnP mission and delivered five pups from Charleston, WV to Linden, NJ. He connected with Bill Curtis again at Leesburg, however this time Steve was the receiving party. They were treated to gorgeous, clear weather. Steve enlightens us on the trip…
“As cute as all the rescue dogs seem to be, there is usually one—like Dasher—that to me is just a crackerjack special pup that I covet. This time it was an Aussie-mix named Gabe, a dog that seemed to just exude an overflowing joie de vivre — even after throwing up in my plane. The receiving rescue, Christina Lee, indicated that there were new digs (takes on a new meaning with a dog, doesn’t it?) awaiting him in Manhattan, so I didn’t get to take him home with me.
In the ‘untoward events’ column, the pilot’s microphone switch on my control yoke failed at the worst possible time, right when New York Approach Control was vectoring us clear of Newark Airport for our approach into Linden. Maddening—I could hear and was trying to answer the controller, but he couldn’t hear me. Fortunately, I had another PNP pilot, Dave Klain, in the right seat, and he was able to handle radios for the rest of the trip. We had magnificent views of NYC and the new Freedom Tower on climb-out from Linden.”