"The keys were the only thing that survived. But they were keys to nowhere. All the houses had been destroyed," he says.

The Saratogan is still shocked by what he saw in the states hit by Hurricane Katrina.

Comes, with friend and business partner Eric McAfee, flew their Pilatus PC-12 turboprop plane to Mississippi and Louisiana barely a week after the hurricane.

It was a mission of hope and help.

McAfee and Comes bought their plane a month ago. McAfee is a venture capitalist with interests in the energy industry. Comes, a former United Airlines pilot, is a venture capitalist who also dabbles in real estate development.

They bought the plane so that it would be easier to do business. But when Hurricane Katrina hit, they decided to help out.

The hurricane

Comes and McAfee are members of the Saratoga Federated Church. In fact, that's where they first met some years ago.

Both have been active in the community.

A few months ago, the McAfee family donated $1 million to Saratoga High School so that the construction of the Performing Arts and Lecture Center could be completed by this fall. Comes, too, has a philanthropic bent. As part of a church program, he has helped build houses for the poor in Tijuana, Mexico.

McAfee, who has business interests in the affected states, was scheduled to go there in any case. The two then decided to fly officials from CityTeam, a San Jose based nonprofit Christian ministry that helps the poor, to the affected areas.

Walt Jones, vice president for development of CityTeam, was one of the people aboard that flight to Stennis International Airport in Bay St. Louis, Miss.

"We had already been to the area right after the hurricane hit. This was our second visit," Jones says. "It was incredibly convenient just to fly in there and get down to business."

The trip enabled CityTeam officials to reconnect with the contacts they had made on their first visit.

"We also went on a little tour on the plane so that we could picture the devastation ourselves. No photograph can do justice to what has happened there," he says.

Accompanying them were a few firefighters from Saratoga and San Jose.

"We also flew back and forth from Jackson, Miss.," Jones says.

He says he is humbled by the generosity of people like McAfee and Comes. "I am honored to know them and the passion of their hearts. To be financially able and to be able to give is exciting."

As for the plane, Jones found that cool, too. "It was fast and we flew non-stop. And we had chicken burritos as our in-flight meal. Now that is much better than what you get on commercial flights," he says.

For McAfee, the devastation in the gulf states has been especially painful because he visits the area often. "Everything has been destroyed. It is as if a giant came around and stepped on all the buildings," he says.

Before he got to check out the devastation caused by the hurricane, the only natural disasters he had experienced were earthquakes in California. "But this is on a different scale all together. I met some of the victims in Bay St. Louis. Most of them were still in shock. They do not know where their next meal is coming from," McAfee says.

Saratoga seems heavenly compared to what he has just seen.

"We live in paradise; the problem is we begin to think that everyplace else is paradise, too," he says.

"The weather is phenomenal here, so is the school system. There, the weather is humid and the school system is perhaps the worst in the country," he says.

Comes took his son along for the ride. It was an educational experience for the middle school student. "He missed a few days of school, but it was well worth the experience," Comes says.

The fun of flying

McAfee and Comes took very different routes when it comes to their love for airplanes.

McAfee grew up on a farm west of Fresno. "My father used to own a small plane. We used to fly all the time," he says.

The Saratogan first learned to fly on a plane called the Maule. "It was a five-seater Alaskan bush plane, and could take off from dirt strips," he says. "I was really young."

That initial adrenaline rush of taking off into the skies has never really left him. "But buying this plane was more a business decision than anything else," McAfee says.

Comes went to flight school in Arizona and then became a pilot with Aspen Airlines in Colorado. Soon after, he started working for United Airlines. For the next 20 years, the job would take him away to far-flung corners of the globe. "I flew to Sydney and Hong Kong all the time," he says. He also went to Europe, Japan, Taiwan and New Zealand.

In recent years, as one of United's more experienced pilots, he flew the Boeing 747-400, one of the largest commercial aircraft in the world.

Comes also had the onerous responsibility of flying one of the first commercial flights out of the country right after 9-11. "We were flying to Sydney from Boston. There were special procedures in place but no one really knew what was going on," Comes says. "It was an interesting flight." Just before takeoff, Comes welcomed the passengers on board and tried to soothe their nerves. "I just told them that everyone had been triple screened and they should feel at ease."

But with the downturn in the airline industry, being a commercial airline pilot did not make a lot of sense for Comes anymore. "I stopped flying six months ago. I'm glad that my relationship with Eric has worked out perfectly," he says.

The plane

McAfee describes his newest acquisition, the Pilatus PC-12, as the aircraft of choice for venture capitalists. "It can land on very short strips and can fly more than 2,000 miles without refueling," he says.

Comes says he likes the plane because it is detail oriented. "It is like a Rolex watch," he says.

Both think that the plane makes perfect sense from a business standpoint. "I have to go to Sacramento very often. It saves me a lot of driving time," McAfee says. "That is one of the reasons we bought a plane."

Comes and his business partner thought long and hard before they decided to buy the Pilatus, which is made in Switzerland. It was Comes who flew the new plane from Lake Lucerne in Switzerland to the San Jose Jet Center. The plane can carry eight passengers, besides two pilots, and has a top speed of 500 miles per hour.

"Our wives decided on what they wanted for the inside of the plane," Comes says, pointing to the leather and wood interior.

On the outside, an intertwined C and M on the tail and the wingtip tell the world that it is owned by Comes and McAfee.

The future

Comes and McAfee say that they want to help out some more in the hurricane-ravaged states if the opportunity presents itself.

"We want to continue the work we do in our community and the charities that we are associated with," says Comes. "We want this to be an ongoing effort. If people approach us and we see a void, we will be glad to help."

Comes is already thinking about starting an organization that will fly sick children from smaller cities to sophisticated hospitals in the major metropolitan areas.

Whatever they do, both will surely be logging in a lot of flight hours.