AUGUSTA (AP) — A pilot who logged 26,000 hours of flight time in 40 years says he won’t be grounded after retiring as chief pilot of Maine Instrument Flight in Augusta.
David Smith spent the past four decades overseeing the company’s charter pilot operation, instructing pilots and serving as one of the chief charter pilots.
He tells the Kennebec Journal that flying is something you “just can’t give up.”
He’s still a part-time employee and on-call pilot who flies a couple of times a week. But he says he decided Federal Aviation Administration regulations had become too oppressive, so he decided it was time for semi-retirement.
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