I was sitting here with my own version of the shits roaring away and, in my concern for what has now gone on for three days, I was searching and I hit your site. Gotta admit it brought a bright spot to my somewhat dismal existence of the last three days. But as it is with so many, this ain't the first time, and certainly isn't the worst case. That happened years ago when I was still flying charter for a small air service.
We had a trip to Las Vegas one Friday evening and, although my guts were churning and gurgling and sputtering, I was young, married and needed the flight. So when my buddy said he'd go with me to fly right seat since I was feeling sub-par, I took the chance.
We loaded up these three banker guys and their chiquitas and headed west into the night. In the Lear it wasn't a long flight, but before we made it to cruise altitude I had a direct line from God in my ear: "You have 30 seconds to find a shitter. 29... 28..." This particular airplane had no head aboard. Wonderful.
I made a quick decision. I pulled all of the charts out of the expensive leather flight case on board, pulled the panel between the cabin and cockpit closed, and blew tubes somewhere between about 18,000 and 31,000. I'm all hunched up, and, as anyone who has ever been in a Lear Jet cockpit knows, the amount of room is not commodious, no pun intended. I managed to contort myself atop the case, got the job done, and ended up wiping with a chart (not one for where we were going), which I dropped on top of the mess inside the case.
The odor was not all THAT bad, and when I closed the lid with a few more New England and Southeast U.S. area charts on top, it was endurable -- although I am sure the passengers were wondering about the smell. On the other hand, they were engaged in a variety of recreational activities that may well have kept them from noticing.
Anyway, fast-forward to McCarran airport and the transient parking ramp. There we are throwing them out and heading in to town for the night. I am not covered in ka-ka -- which is, I think, miraculous -- but I am faced with the need to dump a $300 flight case full of shit. I decide the better part of valor is to leave it unobtrusively stashed for some poor clod to find and think someone lost it. Over the last thirty years or so, I wonder what the poor sod thought when he opened it and found the content, and what he did with the case.
-- DB