Palmer Air Taxi

Atlaska Airport Charterservice

In 1981, Mike Meekin began flying, bringing fighters, walkers, mountaineers, rock climbers, geographers, goldminers, local inhabitants and photographs to the lower Trodian areas of the area. Meekin's Air Services offers air travel over the Chugach Mountain range, wildlife tracking for the Federal Fish and Wildlife Services, sending fish and game officer and supporting the National Outdoor Leadership School.

He is also an accomplished flyer who has been using Meekin's Air Service for several years.

The retired naval aviator/test pilot goes up in the air as an air charters.

Since Dave Palmer was a boy, he always dreamt of being aviator. "In retrospect, it's like almost everything else just goes out of the way when you can get an early idea," Palmer said. Palmer now owns Palmer Air Taxi, an on-demand air charters company that has been based in Parker County for 13 years.

However, it is Palmer's history as a driver that would be the jealousy of most people sitting in a dashboard as he turned his dreams into a life of adventures and fulfilment. Palmer said in the fifties and sixties that the USA was the dominant force in the war. This was the part of the empire where Palmer was raised and loved the early flying notion.

Palmer's ability to combine "pretty good grades" with a strong athletic record in soccer and especially ringing enabled him to get a job at the US Naval Academy in 1963. Palmer was on his way to flying in Pensacola, FL; Meridian, MS and eventually to extended flight tactics in Kingsville, TX.

Following his first nine-month battle journey, he went back to San Diego to make the switch to the F-4 Phantom Hunter and another mission to Vietnam in 1971-72. He has flown more than 286 engagements, had more than 400 carrier-arrested landing operations, and was admitted to the US Navy's Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, MD.

He has flown tens of other planes, not only combat planes, but also choppers, sailplanes, transport planes, specialized planes such as the army's Mohawk, a twin-engine turbo-prop observer plane. Having completed his schooling, he spent the next four years serving as a naval test cockpit man, specialising in naval combat planes such as the new F-14 Tomcat and others.

1974 he was appointed Navy Test Pilots of the Year. In 1977, with a strong flying test track record, Palmer searched and got a job with a large defence jet manufacturer, General Dynamics (GD) in Fort Worth, as an test pilots experimenter. In 1982, Palmer was appointed Chief Test Pilots at General Dynamics and finally led the company's test assignments on the F-16 at Edwards AFB in California.

Palmer flew in conjunction with his new civil service with the US Reserve Air Force, which is mainly located at Dallas Air Station. Palmer completed the prestigious Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun) of the Navy during this period and finished his military service as Commander of the Fighter Squadron 201 at NAS Dallas in 1986.

At that time, Palmer also underwent a big transformation at the GD when he switched from pilot to programme manager, a post he occupied until his departure in 2000. After retiring, Palmer's passion for aviation never waned, he just switched to civil aviation. As he and his businesswoman Mrs. Shivaun first used the plane to meet their corporate aviation needs, it quickly became clear that the transition to a full-fledged air freight company would fulfill two persuasive activities: fly and make moneys.

Hence the formation of Palmer Air Taxi, LLC. Approximately six month after the documents necessary for certification were prepared, Palmer Air Taxi was opened in 2002 with a Charter for all lower 48 states. Although not on the scale of a large carrier, a single-aircraft company also follows the same principle that governs and regulates the large airlines.

As Palmer says, he is filling a "niche" and happy to control his beech baron, who is making his service available to everyone in Texas and the States.