Early in college, I used to fly between home in New Jersey and school in Boston. The description of this plane sounds close to spot on (though, thankfully, I wasn't on the flight in this story; my college experience started a couple years later). If I didn't fly this exact model, I flew on planes close enough. Those planes are monsters. It was with them that flying changed for me from a childish joy and fascination into a sad, uncomfortable pause in my life between places I want to be. Small, uncomfortable. Flying below the weather so every gust of wind felt like it shoved us miles off course...and heaven forbid I flew at night during bad weather. Miserable.

I learned to love Amtrak by sophomore year. I sympathize with the author's experience in these awful planes, and I eagerly await part 2 of the story.

Great article; looking forward to the next installment. And your mention of the CCCP shirts brought on a sudden fit of nostalgia for Cold War era magazines and television.

I'm also curious about your co-pilot on that flight. Why would a 26-year-old who has put in the time and effort to become a naval officer quit the Navy to become a poorly paid commercial pilot? Many years ago, I worked with Robert Miller, who was the chief of neurology at Children's Hospital in San Francisco. Dr. Miller was once a Navy pilot (F-4), who quit the Navy in 1965 to go to medical school. When I asked him why, he replied, "Dropping bombs on people just wasn't my thing." I've seldom respected a person more. Did your co-pilot ever say what motivated him to give up his Navy career so soon after it began?

I'm gonna make a guess as to why the plane Patrick Smith was flying to Prince Edward Island was full of non-English speaking tourists from Japan.

They're all fans of "Anne of Green Gables"??

They really say souls? Holy cow.

I've been flying a lot lately, after kicking my 15-year terror of it, and it's great to read your columns and get some insight to what it's like for you guys.

Speaking of square-jawed pilots, what IS it about pilots? They're all so damn good-looking. Do the airlines have hiring standards for their pilots as well as their flight attendants? Or is it just the uniform (and perception of power)?

Some of the finest prose I've read of yours to date. Thanks for this - definitely looking forward to next week's installment. Salon is very fortunate to have you.

Patrick,

What kind of girl is impressed by the name Smith?

I'd expect a good pilot to run away from a woman like that as fast as possible. ;)

Always enjoy the column, but this is a cut above. Very fine read. Looking forward to the next installment.

You should explain that "souls on board" is a term of art (as they say in other professions) intended to cover everyone on the aircraft. It avoids questions like "Does that include the crew?", or "Does that include laps?" when you tell ATC how many there are on board. They just want to know how many bodies to look for in the wreckage.

It also assumes, without the usual discussion, that pilots have souls. I always found that comforting.

Our route will take us over Maine and New Brunswick, and across that same Bay of Fundy where Swissair will splash to its fate four years from now.

I don't fly much though I enjoy reading Patricks columns. I have always taken his words as gospel. But he is wrong about Swissair. The Bay of Fundy is to the west of Nova Scotia and Swissair crashed just off shore into the Atlantic, east of Nova Scotia.

Ah, finally, a good, old-fashioned ATP about the equipment, and flying thereof.

Just my $0.02 but, for articles about travel, I'll pick up something Condé Nast. I come here for articles about flying.

Uh, I flew in a Beech 1900 from MIA to NAS on a Northwest code share and they had a small glitter ball hanging in the cockpit. It was almost like the stuff hanging in the Millenium Falcon of Han Solo.

I thought it added the right amount of kitsch to a bizarre and uncomfortable flight. We had a different plane on the way back, no ball.

Yes, even on the Beech 19, people either stare out the window or stare at the backs of the pilot's heads and the instruments that they can see or the limited view out the windshield. My Bose headphones and an ipod didn't remove the engine noise and nothing could have removed the vibrations which varied from harsh to small cresting wavelets the entire time. You could tell if there were any changes in speed, pitch or airspeed by the change in vibration. (Do they have CV props on the 19?) And rudder movement can be felt quite well...

Although in defense of the Beech 19, the 'seats' are more comfortable than those in the CRJ900 that I flew recently. Those 'seats' felt more like benches during a cookout at a local park. My butt was asleep within minutes and I probably walked funny for the first half hour after getting off. Such is the life of cattle car air travel. The seats in 'first class' didn't look any more comfortable either... Padding must have been a very expensive item in outfitting that plane that year and they saved every penny they could.

Flying the small planes is where the romance of flying is still available, for those that get to experience it. (Example: Fly Cape Air in Puerto Rico for starters. Taxi out in a small Cessna twin behind a 767 to get a different feeling for what 'small plane' looks like (feel like a fly amongst giants). Experience takeoff and flying through mountain rains. Land at an 'airport' that isn't much more than a small brick building and a thin strip of asphalt. Experience 'honor system' security. Get the whole speal about takeoff and landing by the pilot that turns around in the seat and does it all before takeoff himself. No tray tables in this plane, or restroom either. And yes, the seats were more comfortable than the CRJ900. We had the same pilot 'there and back again'. It was fun. Watching things on the ground. Arecibo, etc.)