So it's late summer of 1987 and I'm flying a Cessna 402C for Provincetown-Boston Airline (PBA). At one time, PBA was the largest regional in the world. They had a fleet that included the Cessna 402, Embraer 110, DC-3, YS-11 and Martin 404. The plane that operated the flight depended on how many passengers they had. In the beginning I was based in Key West, sharing a home with some other pilots in Sugarloaf Key. That place had a dock and boat ramp. For dinner you just put on your swim trunks and jumped in, grabbing a rock lobster or two. It was pretty sweet.
One afternoon I'm flying from Key West to Miami with nine passengers. One passenger was this hot young blonde in a short white dress and she took the seat right next to me! Sometimes you get lucky! We took off and fly this 45 min flight across water and swamps, with about 5 minutes over populated land. Halfway there this lovely young woman leans over and asks, "Is there a bathroom on this plane?" Well obviously there isn't, so I figured we had just reached some sort of critical stage. I answered that there wasn't, but I'd speed up and get there more quickly. So I pushed the throttles and props full forward which made a lot more noise but only gave us about five more knots of airspeed. I called Miami Approach and said I needed to go direct to the airport. Approved, having any difficulties? "No, not yet," I replied. I sure didn't want to have this pretty young lady mess her dress and get all embarrassed so I did what I could. We got switched to another controller. "Are you declaring an emergency?" he asked. What? "No, not yet. We just need direct." Cleared direct. Then they switched me to Miami Tower. I checked in and they replied "PBA 7313, you're cleared to land on any runway you can make!" Oh crap! They thought I had some real emergency going on here. Drat! Well, I figured what the heck and took advantage of their offer, landing on runway 9R. I hit the high speed turnoff and zoomed down the taxiway to the small terminal we used. I whipped up in front and said to her "Through the doors and to the right!" She said "Thanks!" and ran off the plane. Luckily they didn't call out the fire trucks or it would have gone on my permanent record. "Landed with pretty passenger with urgent physical needs. No action taken."
One night I was sitting at this little terminal just before midnight, waiting on the People Express flight from Newark and their connecting passengers going to Key West. The mechanic and I sat outside in the hot Miami night air having a smoke when we heard this loud roar of four big radial engines going to full power. A beautiful sound it was. We watched for the plane to appear from behind the fire house as it took off from 9L. Back then there were plenty of old prop airliners flying freight from the north ramp, also known as the Miami Smithsonian or Miami Boneyard. Well eventually this plane making all the fuss appears, barely moving. Slowly it accelerates, like a long freight train. You can see the flames at the exhaust pipes. It was trying real hard, just not having a lot of success. It roared past us and then, around halfway down the runway, the nose came off the ground, like that was supposed to do something. But it just kept rolling, mains firmly attached to the concrete still. Finally it struggled into the air, so slowly I swear you could almost watch the struts extending. It got about 12 inches above the runway and immediately they retracted the landing gear. Barely climbing they staggered along, turning slowly left to avoid the tall buildings of downtown Miami and the sound faded into the humid night air. I asked one of their pilots later why they climb so flat. He said they have to. They need to get the speed up to cool the engines and not cook them. With the low octane 100LL they were using (130/145 octane hasn't been made in years), the engines get hot real fast. And the long takeoff roll? "The weight of the freight they give us is based more on fantasy than fact." Hot times indeed.
