Half Century of Flight Has Included Some Altitude and Ground Speed

Pilot career experiences both fast and slow, and high and low.

Dick Karl

Wednesday, October 09, 2024 at 09:03 AM ET

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Edited By: tccjeremy

Time led to a succession of airplanes, each a little faster than its predecessor. [Courtesy: Dick Karl]

Key Takeaways:

The author chronicles a lifelong passion for aviation, starting with a propeller plane in 1972 and progressively upgrading to faster, more capable aircraft over several decades.
His journey included various piston planes, a significant move to reliable turbine aircraft like the Piper Cheyenne, and later experience flying commercial jets and owning a personal jet.
This progression allowed him to achieve higher speeds (up to 577 knots ground speed) and altitudes (FL 410), making travel more efficient and less susceptible to weather challenges.
The pinnacle of his high-speed experiences was a memorable passenger flight on the Concorde, where he reached Mach 2 at over 56,000 feet and gained unique insights into supersonic flight from the cockpit.

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In 1972 while I was stationed at Fort Knox, I purchased a 1967 Beechcraft Musketeer at auction. The battery was dead, and I had no idea about the condition of the airplane, its engine, or avionics.

Charged up and inspected (a post-buy I guess you could call it), I enjoyed flying this airplane for five years. I cruised at 110 knots and I got to fly fast eastbound and slow westbound. One flight from Chicago’s Meigs Field to St. Louis took over three hours at an average ground speed of 78 knots. At some point traffic on the interstate below appeared to outrun us.