This is a guest post by Jason Schappert from the highly recommended M0A blog.
Having been a pilot all of my young life I find having an aviation story to inject into just about every conversation a cinch.
I’ll never forget the day our school agreed to send myself and a fellow classmate 600 miles west in the schools C-152, all expenses paid. We were the laughing stock of the school leading up to the flight; I at the time was 6’4and my friend was 6’6. Our classmates marveled at the idea that we could possibly last as long as we did crammed in a Cessna 152.
Although our takeoff roll was slightly longer than normal we were airborne and well on our way. Long before our departure we had decided to travel through New York’s VFR Corridor and see the sights. Knowing we had to stop beforehand we choose to grab lunch and fuel up at KHPN, Westchester county airport, in White Plains, NY.
As we slowed from our landing roll on runway 11, the friendly tower controller asked us which FBO we’d like to taxi to. As my friend and I frantically looked around to find a name, any name of an FBO on the field something caught our eye.
“MillionAir” read one of the signs and both my friend and I knew that’s where we wanted to go.
As we taxied in we were treated just like you would imagine at a place called MillionAir. The line attendant might have mistaken us for some other executive flying his 152 in that day! All joking aside we had carpets laid out for us and were treated like royalty before we even stepped out of the airplane.
When we entered the building it was like walking into an aspiring aviation businessman’s paradise. Flat screen TV’s, massaging chairs, and a copy of Business Week to read as you relaxed.
After taking the advice of a local who shared the adjacent massage chair we opted to go out for lunch. To our surprise when the young lady handed us the key to the courtesy car it read “Jaguar.”
We walked outside to see a beautiful Jaguar XK8 waiting for us in the rear parking lot. We couldn’t believe it! Using the built in navigation we found our way to PF Changs a Chinese bistro in the heart of White Plains. The food was amazing!
Between dining like kings, driving a Jaguar around New York, and have the red carpet laid out for our little 152 we really felt like “Millionaires.”
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