A Little Hangar Flying: What Happened to All the Airline Pilots?

Falcon.

When I was growing up in Alaska (West Virginia didn’t count. Haha, there weren’t any airplanes to speak of in WV). Back in the early 70’s Vietnam was over and the military was letting pilots out at an alarming rate and the airlines were glad to get them. That isn’t so anymore. Then, there were so many pilots it was impossible to get a job without knowing someone. Then deregulation, mergers, layoffs and really messed up the airlines. Some made it for a whole career but many didn’t. When we were kids we grew up looking at the skies and the noise from and airplanes going over, wondering where he was going, what he was doing and what type of airplane is that? General Chuck Yeager from WV was a National Hero breaking the “Sound Barrier”. Things like that got kids interested in someday flying. The News was all about aviation and the accomplishments that were going on everyday. I remember my first flight on an Eastern Airlines Lockheed Electra. Man was I excited. ( I later flew them for 12 years) Who knew?

I use “HE” because that’s the way it was. Mostly still is a “man’s” profession but that is changing. Yes, women do well in today’s environment but not then. Get those girls interested. They are such good pilots, very attentive to details and very good relating to other crew members in the cockpit. Very important in todays aviation environment. Don’t forget, during WWII women flew the same airplanes men did but NOT in combat. Stereotyping at its best. After the war it was back to the house. Later things changed. Women have just as much opportunity to have an aviation career as men.

So where have all the pilots gone? What happened?

Well, it’s a long story but basically kids aren’t as curious as they were back then with airplanes. The news media only covers airplane crashes, dang it. And thank goodness, there are less of those events. Airlines and airplane flights are so common flying is not so interesting anymore. Oh, it’s still interesting to you reading this article, but you got to put yourself into these kids’ shoes today. How many times have you seen a kid ask to see inside the cockpit lately? We used to have them up in the cockpit all the time. That’s how future pilots are found…looking inside the cockpit as they walk by to the passenger area. The Mom or Dad would say let’s look at the cockpit. If some little guy or gal walked by the cockpit door and looked in and any of the pilots ever saw that, we would immediately have asked them to come on in. We would light up the whole cockpit with the warning lights, bells and voices from who knows where! Heck, I still look in the cockpit when I go by.

A friend of mine’s son at the age of 31 decided to become a pilot for a living. His Dad is and airline pilot and has been all his life and his son’s life. This young man just thought flying was common place. His Dad’s answer to the statement was “you could have figured that out 10 years ago.” Now here’s what you have to do to attain your dream. (Both of Tom Hart’s sons did the same thing). But for whatever reason growing up this kid didn’t want to be a Career Pilot. Until one day it got him bad. He decided that was for him. Flying was truly for him. It’s what he wanted to do. No holding back. Less than a year after the declaration he has his first flying job. Towing banners on the Jersey Shore. What fun! He is now he is on his way. He has a Burning Desire to be a pilot. He will be a pilot. He is a Pilot (Not a Driver). I hate that term. And from what I hear he is a good one (PILOT). The way I got hired to fly floats with No Float Rating is I had been seen flying all over Alaska and was still alive. That’s a good criterion I guess. LOL!

What’s cool is during this day and time in aviation history is we have the biggest shortage of Pilots ever.

Now this kid went to Oshkosh for years. Not on the airliner but in J-5’s, Brunerwinkle Bird Bi-planes. He even flew his Dad there a couple years ago.

The Young Eagles Program is a great venue to find that one in a 1000 kid that might want to someday pursue an aviation career. It would be nice if the schools offered field days to the aviation museums and airports.

Heck only less than 1% of the populace are pilots. Why? Many don’t have the opportunity to get into aviation. Unless! Unless! They have a burning desire and are encouraged by their parents, supported by grandparents to be interested in flying, or going somewhere new all the time in an airplane or just being a pain in the ass hanging out at the airport begging rides for washing an airplane, cutting the grass, anything to get money to get a flying lesson. That’s what future pilots do.

If the kids just ask for a ride that’s cool, but make him work for it. If he is serious he will figure out how to pay for the gas. He’ll figure out how to get to the airport, he’ll figure out if he works a little and has some money he can get a ride and some instruction.

Heck, my late father-in-law started flying at 16, was a WW II Pilot, and Captain for Alaska. When he figured out he was going to fly DC-3’s from Anchorage to Fairbanks and back for several years he started his own airline hauling freight, and Alaska went by the way side. That’s right, he didn’t actually quit he just stopped flying Alaska’s freight and started flying his own. Get it? He loved to see new areas and things on his own terms. He had so many stories we would run out of time every time the family got together for dinner talking about planes and flying. One of his sons is a B-747-400 Captain, the same son’s wife was a Bush Pilot and later a B-737 Captain, is Daughter (Kathy) married me, a Bush Pilot and B-747 Captain, Retired. His other Son is a top Aviation Mechanic, etc. Pilots all around.

I was talking to him one night and found out one of the lakes I was going into in the Brooks Range he flew in all the stuff that I was hauling out some 40 years later. Little did I know that would happen. I did it on Floats in the summer, he flew it in with a DC-3 on skies. How much flight time he had is unknown. He flew all the time. His airplanes, Alaska’s airplanes and when times were slow at his place and Alaska, he worked for others at 85 hours a month. As many as three outfits a month or more if he could do it. Pictures I had of airplanes on my walls at home he would go look at and comment that he flew that airplane. That is the type of interaction the young guys and gals need to spark that fire. The young kids of today need guys and gals to show them how fun flying is. They have to want it though. You can’t force it. You could buy them a rating but if they didn’t earn it then it doesn’t mean as much.

One thing comes to mind of what happened was the pay was so low, conditions of the apprentice so bad, so many regulations rules and so on really stymied many aspiring pilots. But the ones that got consistent support from mentors and had a burning desire to be a pilot made it. Many are stories that you would not believe. Like a float plane pilot in the oil fields of Louisiana that got hired at Delta and retired at Delta. From floats to airliners. Go figure… A duster pilot that was making 20 bucks a day flying all day got hired at Delta and retired at Delta. A duster pilot!! Heck they don’t know how to talk on the radios. Many Bush Pilots that got hired at Reeve and retired at Reeve were ex-military pilots.

In Alaska Pilots are everywhere. All of us flew to fly and kept at it. Were we or they better than anyone else? NOPE. They just had one thing in common…A burning desire to be a Pilot. Some people say he’s a pilot cause he’s lazy. That isn’t true. Piloting an airplane is work but its so dang fun no one calls it work. Bob Reeve Said: “Flying Beats Work”. Yea, ask him that when he was flying his Boeing Tri-motor ( now in the Boeing museum) into a mine out of Valdez, AK. And is stuck in the soft snow. Ya, the Regulations won’t get any fewer, the requirements for pilot any less, but the pay is dramatically going up. Supply and demand. I worked several jobs to make a living in this profession. That is not necessary anymore. Starting pay is up like any other trade. Make no mistake, this is a trade. We used to say: “The only way to the Left Seat is thru the Right Seat apprenticeship”. As a copilot, I was often reminded I was the only one in the cockpit on OJT (On the Job Training).

Ya, college degrees are still required. I never got one of those. I was lucky to make it out of the 10th grade. But most people aren’t working in the field they chose in college anyway. So take that degree put it in your back pocket and go fly your ass off and get the minimum time requirements and never give up on your aviation dream. Don’t get caught up in staying at one outfit forever either. But get something out of every job, then move on to what’s best for you. Another thing that happened is, we take flying for granted as a society. It’s almost as common as going to get in your car. The pendulum swings both ways. The pilots will once again be respected for what they do. I don’t know what happened there but I guess it got so safe and reliable people likened flying to a bus ride. Ya, right. I always thank the pilot for not killing me after landing.

Example, when I was five years old we used to go to the airport to look at airplanes. Before that people used to go to the railroad station and watch trains. Now to get someone to look up to the sky it requires some guy doing loops, rolls, spins, with lots of noise and smoke. I still look up no matter what, just because. So if your talking to me and I hear an airplane I no longer am listening to you. I’m listening to what the engine sounds like, is it a radial? Which way is the plane going, how high the plane is and what kind of airplane is it. We used to play that game when I was a kid in West Virginia. I bet you did also. Piper, Cessna, Bonanza! Tail Dragger? Wow! An airplane! Look!

In Anchorage, Alaska people actually go to Lake Hood in the long Summer evenings, (the busiest Seaplane Base in the World, ATC Tower Controlled) with a pizza and refreshments, just to sit on picnic tables by the water lanes and watch the float planes come and go. Wondering all the time, what fun are they going to get into? Or grading landings. I am guilty of this many times, as many dates with Kathy started out that way. We later on took our boys and girls to the Lake to watch. By then they were watching me come and go.

I wasn’t a float plane pilot when we were dating, but I did have a tail dragger. So she decided I was alright. We would fly that airplane everywhere. Go look at Moose and Bears in the evening, eat lunch on a sand bar somewhere at the base of a glacier, fly down to a secret beach and dig clams, eat lunch on the tail. Then repeat all that with our sons and daughters. So no wonder three out of five people in Alaska have their Pilots Certificate. Imagine that! Maybe that’s the key. If everyone is interested in flying sees people flying everywhere then more kids will be interested. They say you can stand on the street corner in Nome, Alaska, swing a dead salmon in a circle and 3 of 5 people you hit with it would be Pilots. Why is that? Because there are pilots and their planes everywhere you turn.

Airplanes are not Rich Guy play things in Alaska. Airplanes are everyday tools to get to where you need to go. Hunting, cabin, fishing, trapping etc.… Because it’s the ONLY way to see the Alaska Bush.

Not all pilots in Alaska are cool, but if you’re a pilot in Alaska you’re probably cool. Pilots still supply “Bush Alaska” with all supplies needed to live. Pilots landing where they do to bring those supplies is often a landing strip in the middle of no where. Or a small no name lake or creek. If you could not land you would carefully throw the supplies out. Sometimes it worked good; sometimes the supplies landed in a thud and broke all over the place. Like the live turkeys Reeve Aleutian Airways threw out of a DC-3 to the villagers on St. Paul Island one time just before thanksgiving. Not knowing turkeys don’t fly well. Note: Reeve had DC-3 rigged with a mail drop system because in the early days there wasn’t a runway on St. Paul Island.

All villagers and all the kids turn out to see the plane and the pilot upon landing. Ha, I have NEVER seen a Pilot not show a kid the airplane no matter how big a hurry he was in. The villagers all want to shake your hand. Asking, do you have newspaper? The answer always from me was, yes. Everyone shakes your hand for landing with their glove off. (The custom in the Alaskan Bush in winter when shaking hands is to take your gloves off). I have refused to shake peoples hands here in the Lower 48 if they offer their hand with a glove on. Just habit. If you want to FLY, you will find a way. If you really want to learn HOW to FLY, go to Alaska. Tom Hart used to say: “Flying the Chain” (the Aleutians) was a good place to learn HOW to Fly. If you know a kid or grand kid take them to the airport. It doesn’t have to be a Young Eagles program, just you showing your enthusiasm towards aviation and playing games with them in the car maybe just enough to get them going. See you at the airport I’ll be the guy looking up at the sky.

Again, get a kid excited about flying. She or he may or may not continue an aviation career but you did your part in exposing the Fun and Joy you have in flying.

Don’t forget the Air Affair coming up this next weekend. It’s getting bigger and bigger every year. Good weather or not, show up. I still think there ought to be an Outhouse Flour bombing contest.

Mike Radford