Bering Air recognizes longtime pilot with personalized plane tail numbers
Not every pilot gets to fly a plane with his birthday as the tail number. But longtime Bering Air pilot Larry Eggart does. Bering Air recently picked up two more Beechcraft 1900s, the plane that Eggart normally flies. When he first saw the newly painted plane in Oklahoma City, where much of the refurbishing was done, he was surprised to see the plane’s tail number was N954LE. The N is for USA registration and Larry was born Sept. 17, 1954. And LE are his initials. “I was quite surprised to see my birthdate and year on there,” said Eggart.
Eggart started flying for Bering Air in 1983 and his nearly 40 years with the company is the longest of any of their pilots. Bering Air has a good track record for employees staying with the company. “It’s a good place to work and they’ve always had nice equipment,” said Eggart. “They’ve always put the money back into the company and have treated the people real good.”
Bering Air now has four 1900s, a workhorse plane that can fly 19 passengers or a lot of freight. They were last built in 2002 but refurbishing and updating is common. “When we get them we upgrade all the avionics and navigations systems,” said Russell Rowe. “Before they get to Nome they go through a six month process of getting retrofitted with new avionic systems that improve situational awareness and the safety of the aircraft.” Gone are the round analog gauges in the cockpits. They are replaced with glass panels that give a better overview of the terrain and the approaches to the remote airports they fly to.
“If you need one airplane you’ve gotta have two to keep one going,” said Larry Eggart. “Because you’re always working on one.” The 1900s fly a lot every day, sometimes getting five or six hours of airtime. “We’ve just got a lot more mail and just seem to be getting busier,” said Eggart. “So we picked up a couple more.”