Page 11 - Dec 23

A King Air pilot’s perspective
Petrus, 64 years old, has been a pilot for 45 years and has owned Bonanzas and Barons over the years as well as building his own aircraft. He is retired from a career of owning hardware and hunting stores. He currently owns a Cirrus SR22 G5 and is a professional contract pilot for three different King Air owners – two BE200 models and one C90A Blackhawk model – a Kodiak 100 and a Pilatus PC-12.
“Those owners are generous enough that if we have a really big need for a group to go or come back, they will allow me to use their airplanes,” he said. “It’s not that often; I may fly four King Air trips a year for Pilots for Patients.”
Petrus flies approximately 250 hours a year professionally and another 100 hours flying personal and volunteering. Since helping launch Pilots for Patients 16 years ago, he has accumulated 330 PFP missions totaling 118,017 nautical miles and 704 hours ... and counting.
The November afternoon we talked to him, Petrus had just finished flying three passengers from Monroe
to Houston’s Ellington Airport (KEFD) and bringing one passenger back to Monroe. The patients included a 73-year-old man making his 43rd trip with PFP to treat prostate cancer, a man with lymphoma and a woman who was traveling home with a clean bill of health for the first time in three years of regular cancer treatments.
“You have patients who have good outcomes, and some who don’t,” Petrus said. “As a pilot, the people we fly regularly become like a part of your family. You share their journey with them. It’s a blessing for the pilot as much as it is for the patient.”
The majority of PFP flights are accomplished in four- to six-seaters. Petrus most often uses his Cirrus to fly for PFP but appreciates having larger aircraft available as needed. For example, they’ve had as many as five patients and their companions needing transportation on the same day – rather than four aircraft and four pilots, the mission could be accomplished in one flight.
He encourages King Air owners and operators in the Deep South to visit pilotsforpatients.org to get signed up.
“They won’t fly regularly because we don’t want to waste that resource,” he said. “We make sure that if we’re
DECEMBER 2023
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 9