Corporate Pilots Go for Lunch
May 24, 1983
Corporate pilots and their lunches!! How many underweight corporate pilots have you seen around? I dare say most of the ones I knew and worked with tipped the scales somewhat above the standard FAA weight allowance. Not outright fat, though, because unless you're lucky enough to be flying a Challenger or a Gulfstream, corporate jet cockpits tend to be on the tight side. And you don't want to get your AME upset about your blood pressure!! You can diet when you're at home and off duty, but not when you're on the road. Who knows when or where you'll get your next meal? Besides, it's often enough when an oh-dark-thirty departure before the hotel restaurant opens means a skipped breakfast. Make up for it at lunch!!
Because we were sometimes able to eat our on-duty or RON meals at some really wonderful dining establishments, I occasionally noted the name of the establishment in my logbook line entry for that trip. Perhaps as a reference for a future trip to the same destination? As per the logbook entry pictured above, during a multi-day Challenger trip with Curt B., which included a stop at Sarasota, Florida. While there, the FBO, Dolphin Aviation, gave us a ride to Marina Jack's, a notable local dining establishment, for our lunch. There's no seafood like fresh, just-caught seafood. Then ... dessert!! And when at Marina Jack's, you have to have their key lime pie. To this day, almost 40 years later, upon reading that logbook entry, I can still almost taste their key lime pie. You have to have eaten real key lime pie made from real key limes to get it.
And it's helpful, after a big lunch at a fancy place, if the pax aren't scheduled to show until 4:00 pm, because a snooze in the FBO's transient pilot's lounge is definitely the right way to deal with a lunch like that. Quite an approvement over the peanut butter sandwiches and granola bars I brown-bagged on my trips as an FBO charter pilot. In those days I had no worries about my weight.
Flying during lunch time? No problem. Unless you're departing from some really podunk airport, the local FBO can set up catered on-board meals for passengers and crew. And since the pax are corporate execs, they get the best, and the crew gets the same. Yes, corporate pilots will always go for lunch. Hey, it's part of the job.
12-23-2022
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