AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2018 - 75

created to fill that niche. Its first aircraft was a 1969
Piper Aztec-a well-traveled performer with a "Dog
is my Co-Pilot" sticker in the window, backseats that
could be removed in 10 minutes, and the capacity to
carry 13 animal crates. The 31 carried 47 Chihuahua
puppies from California to New York in a single day.
On another mission, Cloud Nine transported 32 cats
from Cozumel, Mexico, to Pennsylvania.
In 2011, Cloud Nine acquired a Cessna 310, and
eventually sold the Aztec. The 310 was a highly
capable aircraft that could make longer trips. As
DuPuis and his family relocated from Pennsylvania
to Missouri and then to Kansas, he began planning
for a replacement airplane-one that could climb into
the flight levels, scale the Rocky Mountains handily,
and make coast-to-coast trips not only possible, but
routine.
GOOD MORNING, TEXAS

The Galaxy FBO at Conroe-North Houston Regional
Airport in Conroe, Texas, is about to be overrun with
puppies.
The 414 is parked in front of the FBO. Three rows
of dog crates are lined up next to the airplane, and
a volunteer in a red Operation Pets Alive T-shirt is
making sure the crates are lined with clean absorbent
pads. Today's tally is 40 puppies. Puppy flights are the
messy ones, DuPuis says.
Operation Pets Alive pulled the puppies from
the local animal shelter and placed them with foster
homes. Now old enough to travel, the pups will fly via
general aviation to a rescue in San Diego, California.
The Cloud Nine transport will free up space in the
Conroe shelter, whose residents include dogs that
arrived after Hurricane Harvey, and reduce the possibility of euthanasia.
As the leashed puppies scamper about, foster
families mill outside the chain-link fence and peer
at the 414.
"Which plane is it?" one asks. "Oh, that tiny little plane?"
Adriel Welsh of Conroe and Crystal Dixon of
the Woodlands, Texas, are waiting to relinquish the
puppies they've fostered. Welsh takes photos of her
daughter, Annabelle, and Dixon's daughters Claire and
Marissa, cuddling the pups.
"Lots of people don't want to foster bottle-fed puppies because they need feeding at regular intervals,"
says Resh. She and Dixon are homemakers, so the
feeding routine has been manageable.
"I'm used to being up at night with the kids,"
Dixon says.
Marcia Potter, the president of Operation Pets
Alive, pauses to watch volunteers start loading puppies into crates. "We love Ted," she says. "He was our
savior" in 2011, when Cloud Nine picked up its first
load of dogs from the Conroe, Texas, volunteer organization. "We hit 92.5 percent placement [in 2017], up
from 50 percent in 2000."

GOING FIRST CLASS

The crates are full, and DuPuis begins to load them into the 414 with the
speedy precision of a game of Tetris played many times before. The 414's
useful load of 1,550 pounds is up to the task, but DuPuis says it's easy to go
over gross because the airplane can carry 1,200 pounds of fuel.
Squeals are rising from the crates. Some of the children are crying too;
Charles Dickens probably could not have envisioned a more pitiful scene.
"They're going first class," a volunteer says.
His companion nods. "That's gotta be a labor of love."
As soon as the 300-horsepower Continental TSIO-520-NBs spool up, the
pups start to calm down. This is the pattern for most animal transports of
any size; the passengers sleep during the most exciting part of their journey.
Taxiing out to Runway 19, the Conroe ground controller hails N620CA:
"How many on board today?"
"Forty."
"Good!"
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2018

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