Oklahoma City FSDO needed a DC-3 “specialist” for certification flight checks with Cascade Airlines, a Part 125 operator who, curiously, didn’t actually operate in Oklahoma … nobody seemed to know exactly who they were and where they did fly. But for right now the airplane and pilots were in Guymon, Oklahoma. Having spent a considerable chunk of time in Oklahoma City at the FAA Academy, I long ago concluded that Oklahomans are really, really nice people who live in a really, really dreadful place. But, hey, Guyman might just be interesting … way out in the Panhandle, a long way from, well, from not much of anything and about the epicenter of the 1930’s dustbowl tragedy. Anyway, this was about flying a DC-3 so of course I’d go to Guymon.
FAA’s pretty comfortable certificating big operators like NetJets and that endangered species, the single pilot Navajo/Baron/Aerostar guy. But let somebody apply for a 125 or 135 certificate using a DC-3 or Beech 18 to carry freight or (God forbid) passengers, and cold terror grips the hearts of FSDO managers. So they often assign the project to a brand-new inspector who curls up in a fetal position, semi-catatonic at the fear of screwing up. Paperwork submitted by the hopeful operator gets shuffled around the office, misfiled, lost, found, reviewed and then sent back for correction. So it goes, back and forth, until an even greener inspector inherits the project. With a little practice even novice bureaucrats can stonewall things until the applicant dies or runs out of money, whichever comes first.
