Captain Darby Willcox PGA

[The Old Man]

Sir,
After making a recent telephone call to PGA Headquarters at San Jose, I have been advised that I should make contact with your good self. At first I pointed that whilst some may have seen this as sound advice I did not at this time require my aircraft washing. I have been advised that in fact you do not wash aircraft anymore, and if I may say so I think this has been a wise move on your part, from memory your prices were not the cheapest, and I for one thought your enterprise doomed.

I have been told you are now the Hub Captain for the Seattle area, and in fact from what I understand you are likely to be so for some time to come. In fact the Boss said that she is glad you are there (Seattle) and not here (San Jose), I think between you and I you can take this as a compliment of a job well done.

I am at the moment encamped at a place called Tacoma Narrows and in the short time I have been here I have made myself comfortable although I have say the food and service at the local diner is not very good. I have a GAF Nomad aircraft which is a twin engine STOL aircraft of Australian design and manufacture; however despite that I assure you that it is a very capable and versatile aircraft.

No doubt as Hub Captain you are a very busy gentleman however I wonder if I may take this time to just raise the point of the offer of some free steak knives. I have heard from another source that the quality of these items is to say the least questionable and I may be best served obtaining a set of these knives from a gentleman who appears on the television. I have also heard rumours that sheets and blankets are changed every month, is this compulsory? I am not in the practice of having bed linen changed so often.

Sir I await your instructions, the aircraft and myself are at your disposal and are at full readiness.

I remain sir etc
The Old Man

[Darby]

Dear Esteemed Old Man,

Thank you for your letter. I am surprised you remember my humble past when all I owned in this world was a rusty bucket and a Chux Superwipe. Yes I admit I did overcharge dramatically but then as you may recall for some considerable time I was the only plane washer around so what else could I do? I performed an excellent job washing other peoples aircraft but I do wish to point, out as I do whenever this subject is raised, I did not do windows, or vomit for that matter.

Your offer of service is received with boundless joy from both Herbert and myself and yes please do bring your Nomad. I once had the pleasure of watching one of these aircraft (RAAF) make a difficult short landing on a New Guinea Highlands runway. Its STOL capabilities are superb and will be a great asset to PGA operations in Washington. In fact I beleive that the Lands and Survey Department are planning an extensive survey of the State boundaries. Herbert is currently making inroads to snatch the contract. I was planning on using our DC3 but as venerable as she is I think a Nomad would be just ticketty boo for the job.

About the steak knives. I would be very wary of listening to others opinions concerning our offer. I can tell you that Herbert has an Auntie who knows someone whos cousin got her set of six steak knives from that bloke on television. It seems she only has two left as the blades snapped off in the dishwasher. Ours dont do that I can assure you as we dont have a dishwasher and anyway we have thousands of steak knives as replacements.

In closing, we don't actually change linen here in fact we dont even provide it. That is just a clever ruse we use to suck pilots in to signing on. There is so much work here you won't have much time to engage in personal cleanliness. However all the rest of it is true.

Just fly on in to Boeing Field. After a beer and lunch (this weeks menu is mixed grill) we can omit the preliminaries and you are on your way.

With regards,
Darby Willcox
HubCap Seattle