As a non-pilot I have rarely found myself in the cockpit of a jet airplane in flight. In fact, I have been afforded this distinct privilege exactly twice in two distinctly different aircraft. The first came several years ago in a USAF C-17 Globemaster III on a one-way biofuel demonstration flight from McGuire AFB in New Jersey to Andrews AFB outside Washington, D.C. I endured takeoff wearing standard-issue earplugs in a stiff, pallet-mounted seat strapped to the deck of the cavernous, unsoundproofed, windowless cargo bay, along with my fellow journalists. I assumed we were aloft when the majority of the bouncing and creaking subsided and soon an airman stopped by to invite me to visit the cockpit if I wished. In a shot I was at the front of the cargo bay and up the ladder to the flight deck. As I slid into the jumpseat behind the pilot, the first thing I noticed was that even a beast of burden like a C-17 has a head-up display. I sat back and savored the view as the pilot pointed out waypoints such as Atlantic City and Baltimore, before I had to return—reluctantly—to my seat in the dungeon.
The second time came last month under entirely different circumstances. I was part of a media contingent touring Bombardier’s Learjet facilities in Wichita and Querétaro, Mexico, and one of the company’s Challenger 850 demonstrator aircraft had been detailed to carry us there and back. Once we distributed ourselves around the spacious and well appointed cabin (no earplugs necessary on this baby), the flight attendant asked if any of us would care to sit in the jumpseat for takeoff from a stormy Westchester County Airport.
A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined AIN in 2007, Curt came to the publication from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to AIN sister publication Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.
