I guess that it started a long time ago. It was probably in the late1980s that I first noticed a big single engine plane descending southwest- bound while I drove my school bus northeast up into the hills near Odessa. The sight was most prominent in autumn and early winter when the sky was barely gray with the dawn. From my seat inside the moving bus, I would watch the plane, with its bright landing and strobe lights in each wing, silently rise from behind the hill and pass overhead. My curiosity was piqued.

During those years, I had just returned to aviation from ten years of other work. I came to learn that the plane was a Cessna Caravan, a large boxy single engine turboprop airplane which flew express freight between Elmira and Syracuse. As my circle of travel expanded, I would see these planes tied down at Elmira, and would sometimes be there when they took off on their nightly rounds.

Another ten years later found me as a mechanic at the Elmira airport, and occasionally I would work on one of these planes. I admired the beauty of their design as dependable short- haul freighters. The 600 HP turboprop engine is a compact and reliable package in an uncluttered engine bay, and the rest of the aircraft systems and components are arranged and located as if they were designed by an old mechanic rather than a young engineer. It is like the panel trucks of old, before they became "custom vans"; just a plain box with big doors, and a simple engine up front.

Nothing was spared though, when it came to the flight deck. The pilot got easy access to a comfortable seat, excellent visibility, good heat and ventilation, and all the electronics that might be necessary to make the trip on schedule. I could enumerate all the gadgets, but its easier to say that the pilot can program almost the whole flight from liftoff to landing and just sit, supervise the redundant information displays, and talk to the controllers. I like flying by myself, I like flying at night, and I fancied that it would be fun to fly one of these planes.

Time flowed onwards and I continued as a mechanic and a flight instructor, but always kept a view of the Caravans in the corner of my eye. Mostly as a matter of coincidence, I regained my long- unused instrument rating just about the time that a vacancy occurred for an Elmira- based Caravan pilot. The door had opened up right in front of me, and I was compelled to look inside.

When I first started flying commercially, the industry was in a deep layoff. The availability of furloughed airline pilots was pushing less experienced pilots down the ladder, and as a brand new pilot, I was lucky to get a full time job as an instructor. As time went on, I came to like instructing, and stayed even as the industry improved. Of the thousands of hours I spent flying around in circles, many of them were irrelevant for flying in a straight line through weather at night. I've had a lot of catching up to do.

I have been on my own now for three weeks, and I can see that there is a routine to things. I'm still busy at times when a more experienced pilot would be relaxing, but now there is time to become acquainted with things. With few exceptions, I fly a ton of overnight freight five nights a week between Elmira and Newark, New Jersey. The round trip, leaving in the evening and returning just before dawn, takes about two and a half flight hours and gives me plenty of time to look around and contemplate my new job.

Plane Talk disappeared in August when I left for two weeks of training in different corners of the country. When I returned home for final training, the work only got more serious. On my own now, I still find myself studying things in my spare time, although less and less as the weeks go by.

One recent afternoon I couldn't help but marvel at the extremes at either end of my daily flight. I was sitting on the tailgate of my "woods truck", surrounded by freshly cut firewood and listening to the afternoon breeze in the tops of the trees. Dapples of sunshine danced through the woods and splashed on the ground. I found it hard to imagine that six hours later I would be walking across the freight ramp at Newark, amid the noise, smell, and confusion of the giant Boeings and the skittering ramp vehicles.

I seem to live in three worlds: The world of Home, the world of City, and in between, the world of Airplane. I no longer sit next to aviation's entry gate, where I can talk to people who are on the outside looking in, and to the everyday people who are at the heart of fun aviation, flying simple planes from quiet country airports. I hope that my new vantage can provide enough Plane Talk stories that are interesting enough for the folks that I have always written for.