Has anyone in DAllas noticed yet-

[JohnB]

...everyones favorite feederliner the METROLINER lawn dart.

The most concerned (I won't say afraid) I've ever been in an aircraft was in a Empire (IIRC) Metro going from Newark to Utica in early 1982.
Utica was closed due to snow/ice/end of the world so we diveredted to Syracuse...IIRC we did a missed apperoaced and made it on the second try....I was watching the snow blow over the wings and was hopefull the pilots didn't forget the deicer boots.
The crew must have been busy, they didn't even tell use where we were until I saw the Syracuse ANG hangar with its big sign.

In the early 80s, there was an outfit out of Idaho called Gem State doing Boise, Sun Valley, Pocetello, Idaho Falls, Couer d' Alene trips.
Their Metros has a small rocket in the tail cone. I was told that at high altitudes it would give them enough thrust to get the gear up in the event of an engine failure at takeoff.
True?

[The Inspector]

I used to push fuel for GALVINS @ SEATAC in the late 70's. Two of my steady assigned clients were a feeder named CASCADE who operated BEECH 99's and when you asked the flight crew what they needed for fuel the reply was always 'pour it in till it runs out onto the wing', the polar opposite was another feeder called 'COLUMBIA-PACIFIC (referred to as Clumsy and Pathetic) using lawn darts and their fuel load was so critical I got load info for '13 gallons left, and 7....no make that 6 gallons right'.
I also did a daily CONTINENTAL DC-10 to Hawai'i that took over 100K and always had at least three of the four service point gages INOP requiring a mechanic to go sit @ the F/E desk and turn on the beacon when the tank being filled was at required level.