I spent about 4800 hours in the III. Not sure that I "enjoyed" it, but the airplane definitely earned my respect as a workhorse. It carried a load, had good speed, good range and decent climb performance. FL 280 is the highest I remember going on an empty leg.

We used AWI a lot during the summer months. Since it wasn't available at all stations, it took some finesse to make the 16 gallons last through 4 takeoffs. When you shut it off, there was enough deceleration feel and noise reduction that we always mentioned it to pax during preflight briefings.

Scariest thing for pax, though, was the ice. The props didn't shed evenly or well, so there was a lot of vibration and banging on the fuselage. My company ended up replacing the right window adjacent to the prop with metal after a window blew out, possibly due to ice damage. Had one of those incidents with a passenger's head and shoulder outside--good thing the window wasn't larger. From a pilot's perspective, I thought it handled ice pretty well. It didn't shed the ice as efficiently as I would have liked, but you still had adequate climb/speed performance and, with proper speed additives, still seemed solid on the approach. Most difficult for the pilot was the poor visibility through the "hot plate" on the windshield. If you still had that much ice, you probably had wind and low weather as you peered through that little rectangle--fun times.

My company had a lot of "weedeater" problems, for some reason. Our fleet was retrofitted with a "new and improved" system that included a joystick, we still had problems. Eventually our procedure was to use NWS for taxi only, we turned the system off prior to takeoff roll and back on when at taxi speed after landing. I spent quite a few hours in taildraggers prior to the Metro and it reminded me of that--you had to stay on top of it. The rudder needed some speed for effectiveness, the brakes were not great and the props could pull differentially. Didn't help that I'm over 6 feet tall, the rudder pedal placement was especially awkward for someone with long legs and big feet.

We had a very basic panel, no FD or autopilot. The ADI looked like it came out of a 172. I always thought the airplane would have been a lot "easier" to fly with a decent big ADI.

I had an unrestricted type-rating but never trained or flew as single pilot. Later crews at our company were issued types that required a second pilot.

After Air Wisconsin nearly lost one after an engine failure at rotation (actually clipped the prop tips of the good engine) the FAA realized that what the pilots were all complaining about was true. All the -3 engines were dynoed and the results were shocking. The load restrictions made the airplanes (Is and IIs) so impractical that it gave birth to the -10 engine STC which made it a usable airplane instead of a lead sled.
The JATO was part of a desperate program to make the airplane usable for the launch customer, which was Rocky Mountain Airways. Some of the certification film taken at ABQ was horrifying to watch. Actual stop and feather yanks at rotation and you can't see air between the airplane and the runway!!!! Rocky never took delivery, and wisely, stayed with the Twin Otter and eventually the incredible Dash seven.
The airplane(Is and IIs) was a victim of the 12,500 rule and the empty weight reduction was so intense, they dipped it in acid until the weight came down. (not really, but they did resort to chemically milled skins and light weight wiring, and who could forget the wonderful click-clacks which eliminated heavy door frames and plug doors?)

85L going for its last flight, late 1996 PSP Hangar, with Juan, our prep mechanic.

http://i418.photobucket.com/albums/p..._17_56_456.jpg

85L showing its stuff, FL310, ~ 250ktas, 350kt ground with ~100kt tail.

http://i418.photobucket.com/albums/p..._18_08_142.jpg

And at the Springfield boneyard/lessor ramp, ~ 4 hrs. later, never to fly again.

http://i418.photobucket.com/albums/p...22f8784995.jpg

25D getting prepped to go to the Springfield boneyard

http://i418.photobucket.com/albums/p...7_56_456-1.jpg

24S at the Springfield boneyard, last flight of the airframe.

http://i418.photobucket.com/albums/p..._17_56_457.jpg

And a cool, rare pic of Skywest's first RJ operating simultaneously with one of their last Metros.
Late 1996 at the PSP domicile, happened for a couple months.

http://i418.photobucket.com/albums/p..._18_15_534.jpg

The III was OK in ice, yeah, but don't climb too steep as it could accumulate on the belly in-between the wing-roots. A larger ADI did indeed help and to this day you've still got to twirl the prop after shut-down on a TPE331.

It seems Skywest probably had the biggest Metroliner fleet. They started with Navajo's I believe and then acquired Sun Aire out of Palm Springs with their Metroliners, who, by the way, paid very well. You could live quite well in California on their pay - but after that it was all down-hill. (Thread drift abort....)

Actually Skywest started with 206's in 1972 out of SGU.
Jerry had an open door policy, and you could walk into the CEO's office anytime to talk.
I remember one or two other airlines having more Metros, but can't remember if it was Horizon/Eagle/Air Wisconsin/other.
My Skywest pay was second only to Horizon's, on the Metro.
It was #2 or #3 depending on the month (1996-1997) on the Brazilia.

What's the IAS? Looks like 110-120 KIAS? Talk about standing on a basketball. And you had to fire the AWI to get there? No wonder you have smoke goggles on.

lol Doug, such the debbie downer
The IAS you see is ~140kt., at level off, and would slowly climb to ~152kt. usually, at 625 egt. (max cont.)
The min. clean speed is the red bug at ~120kt. so we had about 20kt. margin at level off when the pic was taken and
usually ~30kt. while level in cruise.

You didn't have to fire the water to get to 310, it was more to comply with controllers
who couldn't handle us taking 10+min. to go from FL290-310 where there was a better tailwind.
We were a big enough roadblock as it was doing 250kt true without the climb taking forever.
("Uh, United 100, you have the Metro at FL310 in sight? You have a 225kt. overtake on it"
"We have a 225kt. overtake on what??, where??")
lol

Yeah, after 9,000+ hours in one (almost all IIs, some IIAs, and very little IIIs) I guess you could say I have PTSD (Post Traumatic Swearingen Disorder). Bottom line is I don't know anyone that flew it very much that misses it. You wont find some organization restoring one to fly to air shows like a DC-3 or DC-4. It was a helluva lot of experience with no A/P or F/D and 12 or as much as 16 legs a day with the only limit being 10 flight hours a day. (no weekly/monthly limits) I wouldn't take a million bucks for the experience but I'd never do it again. Couldn't take flying one with one bleed inop and the other not putting out enough air to blow out a match. Recorded 160 degrees in the cockpit of one on the ramp one day. Back in the II days, someone posted this on the crew board:

"Yeah I know what yer thinkin' , punk
Do I have six gallons of AWI or only three?
And since your flying a Metroliner, the poorest
performing airplane in the world on one engine,
you have to ask yourself just one question?
Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

Never flew the 1900 but the many times I've ridden in the back, what always amazed me was, good lord, this thing puts out the AIR!

Apparently type ratings in the SA226/7's are being issued with a SIC requirement; i. e., you have to have a copilot if you're so restricted. I took my ride 'way back, so I have a "normal" type. If their op specs require the f/o (and especially if you have paperwork for a 135 checkride) I'd say you're golden, and certainly so if the captains have the SIC restriction. There are a lot of people (hundreds? thousands?) who logged SIC time in it back "in the day"; I'd hate to see someone try to invalidate those times. :) People are funny, though, and I suppose it's possible.

I did have one foreign outfit (who wanted turboprop time) invalidate my Metro PIC time. They wanted multi-crew turboprop, and didn't consider it multi-crew. It met all other requirements. I told 'em (nicely) to stick it ... :D