The rotating team of pilots (who only get as high as the plane) is headed by a former chief flight instructor for Douglas Aviation--a man who taught establishment commercial pilots how to fly DC 8 s. Each member of the flights crew has at least 10,000 hours of experience.
Ironically Moss himself does not particularly like to fly and purportedly keeps his seatbelt on most of the way, so it is not likely that he will take any chances or shortcuts with the plane.
One member, after a cross-country flight, said the landing was so smooth that she did not even notice it. One can speculate that this was due to a combination of the pilots' professionalism and the conclusion of one hell of a five-hour party.
Numerous tales of freewheeling Freelandia flights are surfacing. At the end of a scheduled trip from Newark to Brussels last fall, several passengers started talking about whizzing down to Rome. So everyone flew down to Italy to check it out and then there was some mention of Morocco. The idea started catching on, but it turned out that Abbie Hoffman was on board with his two-year-old son america, and he had to be back in the States the next day for his cocaine trial. So the DC 8 headed for Maine and a lobster dinner. As the jet approached Bangor, a confused tower controller radioed: "Freelandia? Uh, who owns this plane?" The pilot replied confidently: "We do." No further comment.
Freelandia planned a trip to Venezuela in December to get a good look at comet Kohoutek, but the flight, like the comet, cancelled--not enough people signed up. You might think that a seat on Freelandia is as hard to come by as a stolen Fogg coin. Not so; in fact, Freelandia needs more passengers to stay alive.
The jet is not operating at full capacity presently (although its engines are maintained at zero airtime, which means they are like new). A DC 8 is most economical when it flies 300 hours a month, and it is now in the air less than 100 hours permonth.
As a result, Freelandia can schedule three times its current number of trips without increasing costs, and the membership could triple without anyone being bumped from flights. Also jet fuel prices increased 345 percent last year, the Cost of Living Council reported, so either more people have to join to offset fuel cost, or the price of Freelandia's airshares (tickets) will go up.
Freelandia's corporate decisions will be made by a board of directors to be elected as soon as there are enough members. Right now Moss, Flynn and journalist David Obst, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the My Lai massacres, form a provisional government of sorts. Obst is also on the board that directs contributions to charities made with Freelandia's occasional profits.
All profits go to Internal Revenue Service-approved charities. In November the club donated money to a children's hospital in Vietnam.
Club members vote every three months on where they would like to go. Freelandia has recently obtained landing rights in Hong Kong, Colombia and Yugoslavia, and is negotiating for permission to land in Greece, Turkey, India, Bali, Afganistan, Tahiti and Australia. Eventually the club hopes to offer round-the-world flights for $300 to $400 (on commercial airlines that would cost about $1500).
An attorney for the FAA in San Francisco has said that Freelandia is entirely legal, as long as the club sticks to the charter of air travel clubs, which stipulates, among other things, that it cannot advertise.
Moss realizes that the lure of low rates and really enjoyable air travel might eventually pose a threat to the profit-making entrenched airlines. So the club sticks carefully to the rules, thus preventing a possible dispute by irritated airlines, and employs lawyers in Washington, New York and Los Angeles to insure that Freelandia doesn't lose it's nonprofit status.
Moss, who presently receives no salary or consulting fees, is now a budding celebrity, and during appearances on several television talk shows, has cautiously touted Freelandia's toll-free Los Angeles number.
Freelandia could revolutionize air travel. Flying commercially these days on America's glittering cattle cars entails a succession of headaches, frustrations and a substantially lightened wallet. Nobody has to be reminded about Cambridge winters, and around this time of year it's not hard to envision a warm ocean, naked white beaches and a peeling nose. Freelandia could be the answer.