Awesome story, this appeared on Salon.com last year:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/06/06/lear_jet_repo_m...

I never understand how this happens. The one reporter sees the other article and thinks "hey, I just have to write the exact same story, but in different words!" Then they probably go home to their wives and complain about the massive downsizing in their industry.

More like, "Oh, wow, they got a lot of attention from their market! If I write the same thing using different words, I can get lots of attention in my market!"

It works.

Isn't everyone's market everyone now?

depends on who's "everyone"

Sort of like cross posting from reddit to digg / news.yc only more time consuming?

I don't understand why we're apparently only ever allowed to have one article on any given subject. Two publications with different target audiences can cover the same thing without plagiarizing each other, after all.

And oddly, this repeat of it appears in the future: the byline says it was published on May 1, 2010.

Nah, I bet it refers to the May issue of the magazine. My understanding is that the cover date on magazines actually refers to when supermarkets and bookstores are supposed to remove them from the shelves.

Of course, this results in all sorts of weirdness, like this article being from the 'mysterious future.'

Good article, and a rather epic job. A fun read :)

I liked the comment about repossessing a train car. That's somewhat more difficult, I have to admit.

If you liked that you may enjoy this: http://www.wired.com/print/science/discoveries/magazine/16-0...

These two details are really quite scary.

"Engines are sometimes leased separately and shuffled around within an airline’s fleet . . ."

"Cut-rate Tower Air kept its wide-body fleet flying by quietly dismantling a trio of 747s leased from GMAC and dispersing the components among its 18 other airplanes."

Why is it scary? Engines are a significant part of airplane cost and just like planes they only make money when flying, so it totally makes sense to use working engines from grounded aircraft as a replacement for flying aircraft. All airlines do this all the time.

I think it's more like this: If they stopped making payments, it's safe to say they might be cutting corners in maintenance as well.

"We just watched and waited until the crew checked into their hotel", Popovich says, "then we grabbed their plane and flew away."

That certainly doesn't sound like they're doing a lot of inspection to ensure a safe return. Granted, it's only their hind-ends and they are aware of the risks, but I think this guy and his crew certainly deserve a brass balls award.

That's one of the beauties of a turbine engine. If it starts and N1, N2 RPM and fuel flow is within spec, and you don't exhaust the fuel, the chance that that engine will run for another 5 hours is extremely high.

If my experiences with my own (single piston engined) airplane are in any way representative, I would be surprised if the first flight out of major maintenance isn't statistically significantly riskier than a random repo flight.

I think they do the inspection and whatnot ahead of time. They don't want to accidentally repossess engines that are not theirs.

now there's a cool job

I would not want to repo a plane from the wrong people. They could sabotage it every time they leave it. I don't know how easy/hard it would be to unplug something on a plane,something that will not look obvious.

I doubt many people would want to make a glider out a 747!