Used to fly on these puppies a lot out of HPN, we'd get a DC9 occasionally but it was mostly Mesaba and the RJs. F/C seats kinda small, and rows 5 and 6 had sucky overhead bins cause of the overhead wings, but it beat a lot of the alternatives, and I can't say it was any worse than the DC9-30s...

We used to joke about the little "jump jets" we had to fly all the time (our HQ was in MSP, a few of us did a lot of shuttling), til one flight out of there, we flew straight into a flock of birds - mustnt have been a few hundred feet off the ground. Pilot declared emergency, brought it back 'round nice as you please, put 'er back on the ground nary a whimper. Found out later we lost two engines, and I saw one hell of a dent in the nose cone. I heard they had to ship in replacement engines just to ferry it back to MSP for repair.

Right about then, I decided it was a fantastic airplane. Good pilot, too.