Turbo Commander - Overhead Break

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A quick video covering an overhead break to runway 12 at KSAD, Safford, Arizona. Not a typical civilian traffic pattern maneuver, only try this if you wish you were a military pilot or you were a military pilot at some point in your life and think that you still are in your RV-8 or Bonanza. I am neither so I did this at a non-towered airport with no traffic to spare frustration and cringe-worthiness from the control tower and fellow pilots who unfortunately have to put up with this nonsense on a daily basis in the Phoenix metro area. September 2021.

Flying Wild AZ

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Brings back a lot of memories of my first flying job, hauling cancelled checks at night in an AC690! It was 1979 and I was 19 when I started at a part 135 in BOS, we flew from BOS at 9pm, down to EWR loaded up more checks there, then out to DET, met up with 8 Shrike Commanders there at 1am, and did the sort.

When the checks were all sorted by city we loaded up the NYC checks in the cabin, put the BOS checks in the baggage compartment, and took off for EWR about 2:30:am, arrived there about 2hrs later, unloaded the NYC checks, then flew up to BOS arriving around 6am, unloaded the BOS checks, got in my Chevy Vega and drove up to Hampton, NH, took a shower, got back in the Vega and drove 17 miles to college at UNH in Durham, sat in class trying to stay awake from 8am until noon, drove back to Hampton, got in bed at 1pm, slept until 6pm, get up, eat, make a thermos full of coffee, drive back to Logan (BOS) tug the airplane (N9166N) out of the Butler Aviation hanger and load up the BOS checks, and fly to EWR….

I did that job 4 nights a week Monday night through Friday morning, for 4 years. No vacation, no sick leave, and it paid $150/week, which worked out to about $6/hr! On the weekends I was on call to fly copilot in their Lear 23, that thing was a rocket ship!

When I quit that job to join the NH Air National Guard I had over 4, 000 hrs in N9166N, most of it at night. We never once canceled for bad weather, we just flew through it, snow, fog, mTRW’s in the Ohio Valley, we were young, dumb and full of cum! When I got to Air Force pilot training in Del Rio, TX, June of 1983, age 23, I had 4, 500 hrs and my ATP. My first “Instructor” in the T37 had 220hrs, day VFR in West Texas! I blew his mind with the stories I would tell him of some of the crap we flew through every night. We both ended up flying for Delta, but I got there in 1985, he didn’t get there until 1989 I think.

I really miss flying the Turbo Commander though, you never forget your first love! For 4 years at age 19-23 I spent more time in N9166N than I did in my bed or anywhere else!

TimboLR

Fantastic video. In the mid 80’s my late father used to work for the British Airports Authority (BAA) and they used one of these to check landing lights at Heathrow/Gatwick/Edinburgh and so on. He would go as P2. I remember him telling me of a failure of the cockpit lighting and having to use a torch. I think the plane was registered as G-BXYZ or G-OBAA ? before the number transferred to their KingAir. Now long gone. Edit - almost forgot, the nose had a special fairing in it that housed a Hasselblad camera.

giles

Cool vid Tim. Glad to see you're having fun.

Neilazbiker

The desert is so green. Amazing! Good job.

ndegepilot

Just the other day, I saw a Cessna coming in really high. I thought that he was just flying through, but then the plane started circling in the approach, lost a bunch of altitude, and then landed with a very short final. I'm guessing he was just practicing, and it was pretty impressive. It was kind of like your flight, but it was a lot more confined, and he never was over the airport prior to landing. I think that I've seen C130's doing something similar to this? Must be some kind of combat approach?

dave