Eggs are better then cash

[ovrszd]

I believe it was either 50 cents or a buck at most. Big money back then. Especially for a weekend job.

Thinking about it, I had some pretty decent responsibilities for an 18 year old kid. Show up early, review the flight schedule, pull the planes out of the hangars, add requested amount of fuel, stock with catering (donuts and drinks), and stage them in order of departure time. These were all small planes. Cessna 310's, 421's, Piper Navajo, Rockwell Turbo Commander, Beech King Air and 18. Plus a bunch of 2 and 4 seat trainers. Get the planes on their way. Tend to the trainers as they came and went throughout the day. Take care of any T-hangar and tie-down customers. Refuel customers. Stuff like that. We had a tug, but I only used it on the Turbo Commander and Beech 18. I could move the rest by hand.

Unstacking the hangar in the mornings and re-stacking it at the end of the day was the most nerve wracking. Trying to fit as many planes in the hangar in the reverse order that they'll be used the following day without bumping them into each other or the walls.

Anyhow, the owner was the father of a good friend of mine in grade and high school and he and I always had a good relationship, so he offered me a job the summer after high school. First day on the job was an air show! Got to refuel numerous war birds first day on the job. Great memories. :thumbsup:

Awesome job for a young man!!! I envision the concentration and stress of loading/unloading the hangar!!!

 

[MossRoad]

Awesome job for a young man!!! I envision the concentration and stress of loading/unloading the hangar!!!

It was an art. If you're good at Tetris, spacial relationships, packing a car trunk, you'd enjoy that kind of work. Having to move planes around, swinging tails around wingtips, interlacing them to maximize the space. One thing you always had to watch was if you put a surface of one plane over the surface of another, and for some reason a person would enter the plane in the hangar, the surface could drop down onto the other one and damage it. Some smaller planes I'd sit on the tail to drop it down and walk it under the wing of another. That would really frustrate some folks when they had unstack the hangar. It was a head scratcher on how to get it out of the hangar if you didn't know how it was put in.

One of my favorite memories, however, was a snow day when the airport was closed. Old Harold, a city employee, brought out a plow truck and asked if I wanted to go for a ride since no planes were landing and taking off that day. So we went out and plowed the runways. As we're driving along, he lifts his hat and gloves off the seat between us and there's a couple bottles of cherry wine that his wife had made. So, we started sipping. About 3 hours into it (I think) I woke up in the cab leaning against the door. I was hammered. I look around and we're a couple miles away from the airport at the town police station. Harold is outside talking to a cop and pumping gas into the truck. He's drunk. I'm underage drunk. We're driving a large dumptruck plow truck. And we're at a police station. Cop says "See you later Harold!", he hops in the truck and I'm like "What are you doing?" He says "We needed gas." And off we went back to the airport. Imaging doing that in this day and age? YIKES! That was the first and last time I was ever not sober at work.

 

[MossRoad]

I had that job for about a year, then with the owner's blessing took a full-time job at another airport here in town. I did that for another 5-6 years. Did carpentry, painting, groundskeeping, plus all that other stuff I mentioned. Eventually became the line chief and did fuel ordering, charter flight quotes and scheduling, training of employees, etc... great job, but had few benefits. But it paid my way through tech school and a down payment on our first house. I'd have stayed if it would have paid more and had benefits. Great job.

Notre Dame football game weekends were insane. We'd get 150-200 private aircraft in VS 15-20 on a normal day. No one realizes the amount of money that is spent at an airport on a football weekend in a big college football market. Millions.

 

[TnAndy]

What I find interesting is how nice it feels to know that we'll never go hungry as long as we have chickens!!!

Exactly Eddie. Reason we keep them as well. Prudence is not always about the bottom dollar of price.

 

[ultrarunner]

Better than crude oil...

Reports of trading for 10 a barrel and idle tankers used for storage.