BLUEGRASS AIRLINE

CARIBBEAN HUB

NARRATIVE TO ACCOMPANY THE FLA FLIGHTS 1 & 2

The flight list for Florida Airlines are actually a route as we flew linear (as opposed to Hub and Spoke) flights with originations in several of the cities over the course of a day. We operated south bound flights originating in Tallahassee, Jacksonville at 0700. We operated northbound originating in Freeport, Miami and Ft Myers at 0700. The 0700 from Ft Myers was designed to connect with the 0755 at Tampa to Tallahassee. This, in my mind, makes an interesting assortment of flights. It is obvious that the 0700 flights are the result of RON’s the night before. Ah! We can fly at night!! And even take off in the dark.

This is supposed to be a narrative of flights 1 & 2. We will depart Flt. 1 from TPA after boarding the connecting passengers from Ft Myers for Tallahassee. This must mean that Flt. 2 is departing from Ft. Myers. The day began with reporting in to OPS (by phone or TWX if at other than TPA) for the flight plan, expected loads and a WX summary. The First Officer did the walk around and fuel ordering based on the load while the Captain discussed the day with Ops. Fifteen minutes before the crew boarded and after a check of the pre flight check list would run up the engines and taxi to the gate. After shutting down the port engine the station loaded the passengers, freight, mail and freight In the case of the FMY departure, the TLH load was put on last as a convenience to the TPA ground personnel as they usually only had 6 minutes.

FLA 2, departing Ft Myers at 0700 hours, with 8 pax for TLH with 4 bags, !0 pax for TPA, with interline conx. 10 bags, 5 pcs frt., 2 pax for OCF, 3 bags, 4 pax for GNV, 5 bags.

After signing the weight and balance, passenger manifest and giving copy to station. Lite the seat belt/no smoking light. Flight attendant gives pre take-off instructions. Lets roll. Since Flt 2 is connecting with Flt 1, we will take the most direct flight to Tampa. Winds are 20 degrees at 10 knots, so we will be using rwy 36L (our terminal is in the Southwest airside). How many of you use a yoke and rudder pedals — hands please. Ok for those with the yoke how many use the prop, mixture, throttle levers --hands. How many can’t see the runway in the DC3 (BTW we are flying a DC3) An easy solution is to hold the shift key while you click the enter key 5 times. Now that we see our way, take the taxiway to the end of rwy 5. As you start down the runway and your ground speed increases to 60 Kts hit clr/space bar and ease forward on the yoke as the tail comes up. The DC3 should sart to lift off a about 80 kts. You do not need flaps! A heading of 320 should head us to TPA, level of at 4500, our assigned level. About 15 mile out of TPA turn to 270 degrees, descend to 2600', intercept ILS RWY 36L --108.9 heading at 004 deg. We make two wheel landings in the DC3 letting the tail wheel down gradually as you brake for the turn on to the taxi way.

The passengers are now boarded for the second leg to Ocala. In Kentucky (Bluegrass they have Horse farms, we have them at Ocala, a large Horse Auction facility is just adjacent to the airfield. Usually there are a lot of Biz Jets there from all over the world. Our flight is ready with 6 pax for OCF, 6 bags, 2 bags mail for OCF , 10 pax for GNV, 11 bags, 1 bag mail, 8 pcs freight , 4 pax Jax, 4 bags, 1 bag mail.

Ok taxi on to rwy 36L, clear for take off, climb to 4500, heading 20 degrees. This heading puts us on a nice approach to OCF ILS RWY 36 — 111.5 heading at 004 deg. Elev. 89'.

Ok pax are on board and baggage loaded for our next destination — GNV, our flight usually has a number of ill people heading to Shands Hospital, a great research and teaching hospital, and don’t forget our Gator’s, the University is a great source of income for the airline . We have 10 pax for GNV, 11 bags, 1 bag mail , 8 pcs freight, Jax has 12 pax with 12 bags, 1 bag mail and 4 pcs freight. GNV is only 32 miles up the road so we will fly at 3500' on a heading of 20 degrees to intercept GNV ILS RWY 28 --111.3 heading at 285 deg. Elev. 152'.

The last leg on the Northbound portion for our flight, Jacksonville, lot of business here with the insurance companies, our schedule was designed to get the pax on business getting there at the correct time. Our pax load to JAX is 18 with 20 bags, 1 bag mail, 18 pcs freight. We will be heading 028 deg to intercept JAX ILS RWY 7 — 110.7 — heading 074 deg. Elev. 30'

Our flight to GNV will be using the same ILS RWY as guess what, the wind has not changed direction. So we will head south at 5500' heading 205 deg. The Rwy and ILS are the same. You can make up your own loads (remember 26 PAX limit).

To Ocala again — remember the wind! We will be using the same RWY and ILS. Therefore we now take a few minutes longer as we take off NW fly SE and Land N. A heading of 175 will bring us across north of the runway so after about 5 miles we take dw leg of 184 until about 8 miles south of the field the turn t 274 and intercept the ILS.

Tampa is the same as Ocala as far as the wind so lets head about 151 deg. As we approach Tampa head 195 until south of Mac Dill AFB then turn 274 and intercept the ILS.

On to Fort Myers. The time of day is now bringing us the tourist passengers, we love them as they are the backbone of our traffic. For several years we have taken a little longer on this leg as we make these passengers happy by showing them the coast, they love it. So after heading north on 36 left we turn out about 255 deg. Until we cross the coast line, we now fly south over the islands, cays and beaches. This is great fishing and sailing country. The first thing we see is Ana Maria Island then to the left is Sarasota with its barrier Islands. Then we have Venice with its beautiful beach, if you like sharks teeth, walk the beach after the tide go’s out, you are sure to find some of all sizes. Next off to the left is Port Charlotte in front (for Capt. Bill) is Boca Grande. Home of the Tarpon fishing tournament each year. Next will be Red Fish Pass, what a current, then Captiva Island with its South Seas Plantation, excellent and they hace a great sailing school there. Separated by a few feet is Sanibel Island. As we get to the southernmost tip of Sanibel we turn slowly to the left as we see the Caloosahatchee River, on the right is Fort Myers Beach on the left is Cape Coral, where I lived for 32 years until my wife passed away. We had a 27' tri-marin and sailed most of the time when I wasn’t flying. Now set up for FMY ILS RWY 5 --110.7 — heading 051 deg. Elev. 18'.

Now we turn SE and head to Ft Lauderdale. We have no choice here we are landing on RWY 9L. So after taking off and getting to altitude, lets pickup a heading of 156 deg. This is usually a very uneventful flight unless the Everglades are on fire, quite a site in the evening to see this band of fire for miles in front of you. We will intercept ILS RWY 9L — 110.3, heading 093 deg. Elev 9 deg. Most of the passengers, if not all, boarded in FMY and are heading on to Freeport.

All passengers are on board as well as baggage so lets get going. We usually made three trips a day to Freeport, I preferred the 0700 out of Tampa as it had a 5 hour layover in Freeport, enough for golf at the Lucayan Country Club (we got a big discount) along with lunch which featured one great Lobster Salad. The RON had us staying at the Atlantik Beach Hotel (I splled it right) right on the beach. Lou Rawls (early in his career) sang there at night. Ok lets fly, heading of 65 degrees at 5500' until about 15 miles out then turn to 150 deg to intercept the Freeport ILS RWY 6 — 109.7 heading 062 deg.

You should have no problem now in getting back to FMY the termination of the flight.

Flt 1, is the same sort of thing as Flt 2. I will give you the runways, ILS’s, Elevations and anything else I might find pertinent.

KTLH / ILS RWY 36 --110.3 / Elev. 82'. The best way to fly this is head north out of Tampa to the Cross City VOR 112.0 the take 297 deg out of CTY and intercept the TLH ILS 110.3 --heading 001 deg. Set your ADF to WAKUL 379.

KMIA / ILS RWY 12 — heading 124 deg. Elev. 8'. After taking off from FMY RWY 5 take a heading of 122 deg. This will put you pretty close to the intercept of ILS RWY 12.

MYNN --Nassau. Nassau does not have an ILS. We used to fly to the Bimini VOR then head about 105 deg to Chub Cay then pick up the Nassau VOR radial 140 deg. to the airport RWY 14.

You can tell if you made the turn correctly if, shortly, you see the Nassau / Freeport mail boat just off your nose on the port side.

Flying these flights with Florida was great, you got to meet some very famous passengers, several come to mind, Ted Williams / the great outfielder with the Boston Red Sox, Helen Hayes / in my mind one of the greatest Actresses, then my favorite passenger of all— he entertained the passengers on every flight and made me late on each one--Red Skelton.

Suggestion--fly them all with the DC-3 (my favorite aircraft) then do it again with the Martin.

Great flyin

Sr Capt Bill Odell