Aviation has played a big part in my family's history. My father is a former pilot and still loves to fly (although mom made him give up his pilot's license years ago).

My father used to sit in the co-pilot seat on this B 47 and flew Nukes when he was in the air force. My great uncle also flew many missions over Germany during World War II.

Although my first love is the trucking industry, I spent four years as the night operations manager for a northwest based, Part 135 air freight airline...which sadly enough lost 2 pilots in separate accidents during 2006.

The job was intense. Ninety percent of what I did was contingency management and during the time I was at the helm we suffered through the WTO and Mardi Gras Riots in Seattle as well as the Nisqually Earthquake, which left tremendous damage in its wake to Boeing Field, one of our primary operations centers.

Our aircraft were ancient and the maintenance challenges were continuous. One of our older airplanes was a twin engine Chieftan once owned by country western star Tammy Wynette. By far the worst challenge we experienced were the 9-11 related impacts to aviation. Try running an airline when the skies are grounded.

During the time I worked for the airline, I gained a tremendous respect for pilots. I often flew on our flights to meet with our customers and in an attempt to try to improve the efficiency of our operations. I quickly learned first hand that the experience of severe icing, flying by instriments and taking off and landing in extreme weather conditions is the stuff of courage.

On one flight, the pilot and I damn near got slammed back to earth from wind shear. Taking off out of Redmond, Oregon the tower forgot about us sitting at the end of the runway awaiting clearance for departure. It was during a major thunderstorm and as I was sitting in the co pilot's seat, I watched in frustration as more and more hail covered the wings. It occured to me that the current scenario bore a strange resemblence to every NTSB accident report I'd ever read, usually with the words "Pilot Error" stamped all over it. We finally got clearance, but by this time the runway was under water and as the pilot full throttled both engines, I thought for sure we were going to run out of runway before we gained enough speed to get airborn. Sitting in the cockpit, I could see the end of the runway rapidly approaching and I prayed that aircraft off the ground.

Once in the air flying over the Cascades neither of us spoke again until we were cleared for landing in Portland on our second stop. It would be days before the color returned to my face.

On another occasion, I jump seated to Spokane on my last flight of the night and found myself holding the door of the cockpit closed all the way across the state of Washington. At Night. Not exactly "the only way to fly". At least not in comfort...

So the next time you jump in a jet and fly, remember that those guys up front have had to go through all sorts of "flying by the seat of their pants" to get into the pilot or co pilot's seat. They deserve every penny they make. And then some.