“Always have an out.” That’s what my roommate and more experienced pilot buddy warned me about flying in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). It was sage advice when this story took place, 24 years ago.
I had arrived in Pontiac, Michigan, from the Deep South in January to begin a “dream job” of flying on-demand cargo as a charter pilot. It was a quantum leap for a fair-weather (VFR) flight instructor who only flew small aircraft. On this particularly drearisome day in early March, our dispatcher, Earl, received a call at about 4 p.m. from a traffic manager in Lansing to charter an airplane to pick up some widgets in Tennessee and deliver them to the assembly plant in Lansing as soon as possible. I was next out in the pilot rotation, so Earl barked for me to jump into the Cessna 310 and get down to “Hooterville” quick. He said he would file the flight plan while I got the ship ready. Our machines were always preflighted and ready to go, so I climbed in, fired up and began taxiing out to the runway as fast as I could. I did remember to grab some chocolate-chip cookies that Rose, our secretary/receptionist, had baked that morning and dropped them into my jacket vest pocket as I dashed out the back door of the hangar.
