OT: Experience in Small Planes, What can you tell me? Options

[TROJANMAN]

Who has experience flying, or flying in, smallplanes. We are about to take a 4 hour trip in a small plane,and the first question everyone asks, is "do you have a will?"
Sounds funny at first, but then you think there must be a reason they are asking.

Can anyone tell me of their experiences of flying in small planes. We are flying in a 6 seater, single engine prop from CO to AR. I am ok with it, but my wife freaked out when i showed her a picture of the plane.

[Boojum]

You know, I flew around Belize, Guatemala and Honduras in a small plane that was all too likely used to run drugs around South America at least a time or two, and I got to ride shotgun with the pilot.

Some of the instruments were falling out of their mounts, dangling by the wires that they were connected to, and the rest were rattling around. Then the radio fell into my lap and the pilot yells at me "Don't touch that!", as I try to tuck it back into its cubby. Then I told him that I was going to flight school back in the states, and that kinda' put him at ease. At least he didn’t look at me so sternly when the radio fell into my lap again.

I don't know if I was confident that this guy knew what he was doing (being sort of a crazy French barnstormer, I'm sure he knew every rivet in his plane), confident that I could fly if something bad happened to our crazy pilot, or maybe it was the adrenaline, but it was actually an okay thing. I wasn't as worried as some people would be, I think.

Maybe these things I say aren't comforting, but you should take comfort in the fact that your ride will be a thousand times better than this flight of mine (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)