Small Plane, Why You Tell The Truth
This reminds me that traveling with a pregnant woman and a toddler from island to island can be a story by itself. We were in Honolulu transferring to an airplane for Kauai. I expected a twin-engine passenger jet, you know, the big one. As we pulled up to the airport they asked for our weight, which should have been the big clue. I told them mine and thought nothing more until we boarded a small twin engine airplane (12 passengers). Lisa was sweating profusely and clearly agitated. I thought that this was the pregnancy and corralling J. No, she tearfully cried as the doors closed, “I lied about my weight!” “So what it’s only a few pounds,” I said reassuringly. She wailed it was wrong by a whole lot more than …. Well, we weren’t done. The plane taxied behind a big ass regular passenger jet on the take off line. I could look out the forward window along with the pilots. They were conferring and then taxied back to the gate for some repair. I thought we would switch planes (bigger) and the weight thing would be solved. Nope. We got on board the same plane, this time without the co-pilot (what did he know and why did he leave? maybe Lisa’s weight?). Oh great! I was sitting close enough to see the gauges – including gas, the only one I could understand. We were at 1/8 in one tank and less in the other. It’s ok in a car but I thought it was a bit reckless in a plane. We took off into a rain storm, struggled to maintain heading and altitude, and landed by diving out of the clouds descending abruptly to the tarmac. The pilot waited till the luggage was off and then took off again without refueling. I’m glad I wasn’t on the return flight and out of gas. At the car rental counter I asked for directions to the hotel and was told to go out and turn right. Ha ha! The hotel was steps to the right of the airport entrance.
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