Originally Posted by
NightIP
As a guy who flies a 402 into large mostly-jet airports, thank you for this post. Unfortunately there are a lot of guys who were hired straight from 172s into RJs (yes, and I was once one of them...full disclosure) who feel we're simply in their way. My response? I'm flying an old turbocharged piston as fast as I can to minimums single-pilot. How did you earn your seat?
And yeah, we're slow, we slow people down when we're 20 or so miles from the airport, but I can also do 180 knots to a 4 mile final and still be stable.
I remember riding on a repo in a 9K 402 to BOS 10+ years ago... We lined up for 33R with a 737 on final for 33L a few miles ahead. We were actually catching him, doing 170kts or something. Of course, we landed on the 2500' runway too. I have a lot of respect for that single pilot flying, especially with the weather in New England.