CONVENTION NEWSPAUL RICHTER RECEIVES AWARD OF MERITDAVE KUHN'S BUD GORMAN STORYTHE OTIS BRYAN STORYPERSONAL EXPERIENCESTHE GRAPEVINE

THE ACTIVE RETIRED PILOTS ASSOCIATON OF TWA

JULY 1986

PAUL RICHTER

The Paul Richter family receivingThe Award of Merit at the Fridayevening dinner.

TARPA TOPICSThe official magazine of the Active Retired Pilots Association of TWApublished quarterly. Editor: Alfia J. Clay, Jr.

OFFICERS & DIRECTORSPresident, R. G . Derickson Senior Director, A. T . HumblesFirst Vice President, Ed. A. Hall Director, Jeremiah S. BurnsSecond Vice President, Phil S. Hollar Director, Jesse A. FiserSecretary/Treasurer, Joseph S. McCombs Director, Lule A. Spencer

The Active Retired Pilots Association of TWA

P R E S I D E N T'S M E S S A G E

The TARPA Convention at the Adams's Mark Hotel in St. Louis, May 28-30thwas indeed an interesting and happy affair. The credit for this out-standing Convention and/or Reunion goes to Marge and Sam Luckey who,with the able assistance of many other helpers and workers, gave us oneof the best.

It was encouraging to have twelve of our TARPA EAGLES join with us inSt. Louis. We were also honored to have Gordon Parkinson, " Mr. TWAHisself " , as our guest.

Following the 1985 Convention in Las Vegas, Lyle Spencer and CharlieStrickler were assigned to do an in depth study for the purpose ofstreamlining our By-Laws and Policies. Their efforts, resulting in aprofessional organizational structure, are outlined in the Secretary'sreport in this issue.

The 1987 Convention will be held in the Grand Hotel in Anaheim, CA. Inorder to avoid conflict with the Seniors gathering and to offer somerespite to "winter-weary" members, Phil Hollar, Convention Chairman, isattempting to negotiate dates for the last week of March. Positivedates will be announced in the November issue of TOPICS.

The Board of Directors, at the 1986 meeting, voted unanimously to holdthe 1988 Convention in Tucson. It will probably be at the SheratonTucson "El Conquistador". John M. (Jack) Miller will be the 1988Convention Chairman.

TARPA's Award of Merit for 1986 was made to Paul E. Richter. The detailsof this presentation and the family members present are coveredelsewhere in this issue.

Another highlight of the 1986 Convention, and a great honor to all ofus, was the presence of former TWA President, Carter Burgess, whoaddressed the Membership during the May 29th Business Meeting.

In closing, my thanks to the 1985/1986 Board Members and the BoardCommittees for their cooperation and assistance during the past year.

Russ Derickson

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Secretary's R e p o r t

This is necessarily a lengthy report. Much was accomplished during thethree days of Convention '86. I ask your indulgence.

If you missed St Louis '86, you missed one of the best TARPA gatheringsto date. Marjorie and Sam Luckey knocked themselves out to give us agood time. The St. Louis Tourist Bureau presented the Key to the Cityof St. Louis to TARPA and, in turn, the Board presented the Award to theLuckey's as a small token of it's appreciation.

A highlight of the Convention, and a honor to TARPA, was the presence ofMr. Carter Burgess, former President of TWA. Mr. Burgess' inspiringaddress to the group on Thursday recalled those better days for all ofus.

TARPA was further honored by the presence of TWA's Tom Ashwood, FirstVice-President of ALPA. Tom commented upon problems within the industryand existing problems within ALPA itself. The gathering was pleased tolearn that Tom will seek the Presidency at the next ALPA Convention.His awareness of the need for recognition of the retired pilot groups byALPA was well received.

The Convention also recognized Jim McIntyre, the MEC's hard workingChairman of the Accident/Incident Investigating- " GO-TEAM " . Jim reviewedthe Athens Flite 840 incident and future preventative measures.

From the business side of the meeting, there were quite a few importantdevelopments reflecting the growth and maturity of our organization.Only major revisions are noted herein. Check the By-Laws & Policysection of the 1986 Directory when received. Changes will be printed inITALICS .

1. The Offices of the Secretary and the Treasurer are combined into oneOffice that of Secretary/Treasurer.

2. To increase the efficiency of the organization, the Board ofDirectors has been reduced to seven. The Executive Committee willconsist of the President, a First Vice-President, a Second Vice-Pres-ident, Secretary/Treasurer and a Senior Director. In addition therewill be two non-Officer Directors. The non-Officer Directors will beAssociate Members. In addition, the past-President of TARPA will be anon-voting member of the Board of Directors.

3. Following these directives, Lloyd Hubbard, Chairman of the NominatingCommittee, presented the following nominees and the Conventionelected:

Russ Derickson .Ed HallPhil HollarJoe McCombsDave RichwineJesse FiserJerry Burns

. President

. First Vice-President

. Second Vice-President

. Secretary/Treasurer

. Senior Director

. Director

. Director

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Take note of the following major changes in TARPA Policy:

1. The so-called "grace period" for payment of dues has been reduced tothree months. Dues for 1987 will remain at $20.00 due January 1stwith a delinquency date of April 1st at which time those unpaid willbe automatically removed from the mailing list by the computer.

2. Mailing dates for TARPA TOPICS will be changed to April & July tobracket normal Convention dates. The dues return envelope will beincluded in the November issue and the January issue should arrivealong with those unexpected Christmas bills.

The Secretary reported an increase of 10% in new membership. Roster nowstands at 987 Regular; 176 Associate; 82 Eagles and 96 Honorary. Total1341. There were 23 deaths since our last gathering.

Treasurer Bob Gwin reported financial stability and, as previouslystated, dues for 1987 will remain at $20.00.

Bob Sherman, MEC Liaison & Investment Committee observer includes hisreport elsewhere in this issue. The July 1st check from Boston Safewill represent an 11.7% increase.

Al Clay, Chairman of the Ad Hoc "Lump Sum" Committee offered anextensive report gleaned from Actuarial and Legal sources by hisCommittee. After much discussion, a report by P. T . McCarty and a lessonfrom the floor regarding proper Rules of Order, the Convention acceptedthe full report of the Ad Hoc Committee and passed the followingresolution:

" Resolved, that this Convention directs the President of TARPA to use_any prudent means to determine if any Plan Option available to theActive Pilot and not available to Retirees should be pursued"

TARPA extends its appreciation to Al Mundo, MEC Investment Committee andJim Carmack, Investment Consultant, for their informative presentation.

Ed Hall, RAPA (Retired Airline Pilots Assoc.) Liaison and Dave Richwine,TARPA Insurance Committee, expressed extreme dissatisfaction with theoperation and leadership of RAPA thus questioning the need for continuedaffiliation with that body. Because supplemental insurance iscontingent upon association with RAPA, the Convention, after acceptingthe reports of both Committees, passed the following resolution:

Whereas: The continuing deterioration of TARPA's relationship with RAPAhas raised the serious question of whether or not TARPA shoulddisassociate from RAPA and,

Whereas: Disassociation from RAPA would adversely affect the MedicareSupplemental Insurance coverage of approximately 200 TARPA members,

Be it therefore Resolved:that TARPA continue its membership in RAPAwhile known insurance alternatives are further investigated and,

Be it further Resolved: that TARPA representatives to RAPA will not berequired to participate unless, and until, present long-standingadministrative problems are resolved.

Phil Hollar, Alcoholic Counseling, advises continued success with theprogram.

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Harry Mokler, President of the TWA Pilots Retirement Foundation,expressed gratitude for the participation of the Active and Retiredpilot group. He requests to be advised if anyone has knowledge of aneedy flight crew member or the widow of a deceased flight crew member.

Dick Guillan, Grapevine Editor for TARPA TOPICS, welcomes any and allletters or notes concerning members activities and/or well-being.

Dr. Charles C. Gullett was unanimously awarded Honorary Membership inTARPA for his contributions to the health and welfare of TWA flightcrews during his tenure as Medical Director of TWA. Dr. Gullett'sgreatest contribution to the employees of TWA was the origination of theSpecial Health Program. Many pilots owe their continued careers to hispreventative medicine programs and to his intervention with the FAA ontheir behalf.

Captain Paul C. Richter was chosen to receive the 1986 Award of Merit.The name Paul Richter can be associated with the development of many ofthe predecessor companies of Trans World Airlines. All of us today arethe beneficiaries of the likes of Paul Richter. It can be positivelystated that he deserves the right and honor of having his name placednear those other pioneers on the TARPA Award of Merit plaque gracing awall of the TWA Training Center in Kansas City. The posthumous awardwas accepted during the banquet ceremonies by Captain Richter's charmingwidow Daisy, his daughter, Ruth Holden and his son, Paul, Jr . now aCaptain with United Airlines.

This report is lengthy and does not intend to cover all facets of theConvention. It was a progressive gathering, well planned and executedby the Officers, Committees and by active membership participation.Attendance at the 1987 Convention scheduled for Anaheim, CA next yearshould be the goal of every member of TARPA. Originally scheduled forMay, there is a good possibility the event will be moved to the lastweek of March, primarily, to avoid conflict with the Seniors gatheringnow scheduled to convene two days after the original TARPA dates.

On a personal note, our esteemed President, Russ Derickson, is to becongratulated for his achievement by winning "High Gun" in the Trapcompetition. I know he has worked hard the past three years since hisfootwork was severely criticized by several more experienced shooters.Be advised, he is out to get " Top Gun " in all events next year. Russ ismodest but also determined to prevail. Shooters, beware!

In closing, if you have not already done so, PLEASE complete the UPDATEform in the back of this issue of TOPICS and mail it to the Secretary.The success of the computer program requires 100% participation in thiseffort to make it work.

J. S. McCombs

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BUSINESS MEETING

Left: Guest speaker JimMcIntyre and PresidentRuss Derickson

Right: Ritchie Beighlieand Dave Richwine get alaugh.

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TO: Board of Directors

FROM: Chairman, TARPA Insurance Committee

SUBJECT: Insurance Committee Report, May 1986

Pursuant to the continued deterioration of the TARPA/RAPA relationship,I was requested to determine what our insurance position would be inthe event TARPA were to disassociate with RAPA. A letter of inquiry toAlexander and Alexander dated January 28, 1986 , produced, among otherthings, a reply which indicated that, since TARPA accounts for approxi-mately 42% of all policies now in force, the RAPA Medicare supplementinsurance program would probably be terminated if TARPA were to loseits eligibility by dropping out of RAPA. Howard Wincele, the insur-ance plan coordinator for Alexander and Alexander, also advised thatHartford would not be interested in extending such a program to justthe TARPA group, and that no other company wrote a Medicare supplementpolicy which paid 100% of the Part B doctor's charges. Accordingly,I sent out letters of inquiry to 60 insurance companies known to writesome kind of Medicare supplement policy. To date, I have had responsesfrom approximately 50% of these, some by mail some by phone and someby personal visits from company representatives. I found the interestquite encouraging.

There is a wide variety of Medicare supplement policies on the market.Generally speaking, all of the better policies have virtually the samecoverage for the Part A (hospitalization), which pays virtually all thedeductibles in that section. Part B coverages pay all the way from anincreased percentage of the Medicare allowable (up to 80% more) to100% of doctor's actual charge, as in the RAPA policy. However, a num-ber of them have higher deductibles of up to $500. All of those offer-ing the same 100% doctor expense coverage that Hartford does havepremium rates much higher than those of the RAPA policy. Some of thepolicies offered are franchise group types and some have individualrate shcedules. While it is not a guaranteed policy and does havecertain limitations, there is no doubt that, for those members who want100% doctors coverage, the RAPA policy is presently the most costeffective available.

Of the other companies offering the 100% doctor's coverage, three haveevidenced interest in negotiating a franchise group arrangement atlower than advertised premium rates. All three are willing to handlethe administration of such a plan on the same basis that the RAPA policyis. handled, namely individually, but under a group franchise rate andservice structure. While I was contacted recently by a Hartford insur-ance consultant familiar.. with our needs, I do not, as of this writing,

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have a specific reply as to what they may be willing to do directlythrough their company office. I hope to have their position by thetime of our Board meeting in St. Louis next week.

In summary, the Medicare supplement insurance field is a very complexand constantly changing one, but appears to be sufficiently competitiveto justify pursuing the matter further in an effort to better meetthe needs and desires of our membership which are quite diverse, asevidenced by the relatively small percentage of our total membershipwho are RAPA policy holders.

Accordingly, it is recommended that:

1. A continued effort be made to find a company that willoffer a Medicare supplement plan with several optionsof coverage with corresponding rates.

2. The Board authorize the release of our TARPA mailinglist to the company or companies approved for thispurpose, and

3. TARPA maintain at least a technical membership inRAPA until suitable options to the present RAPA Medicaresupplement policy can be found.

D. W. Richwine, ChairmanTARPA Insurance Committee

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LAW OF ANNOYANCE: When working on a project, if you put away a tool,that you're certain you're finished with, you will need it instantly.

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ANTHONY'S LAW OF THE WORKSHOP: Any tool, when dropped, will roll intothe least accessible corner of the workshop.

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EXCERPTS FROM A REPORT ON THE B-PLAN

PRESENTED TO THE 1986 TARPA CONVENTION

By R. C. Sherman

The highlights of 1985 and other information can be viewed in theTables that follow. A word of caution is in order concerning the useof these figures for other purposes: some could be misleading whentaken out of context. Besides possible error - including mine - spacedoes not permit all of the explanations that define or limit many ofthe figures.

TABLE I: MEMBERSHIP COMPARISONS AT YEAR END

Actives 12/82 12/83 12/84 12/85

Number 3509 3326 3084 2968Retirements 135 153 141 137Deaths 8 7 6 4New Members 2 0 0 75

Retirees and Beneficiaries

Number 856 992 1124 1249Deaths 20 20 15 15Retirees:

members% of

20 23 27 30Net ASSETS (Mil $) 587 672 674 857Retiree % of Assets 15 19 21 24Unit Value 28.315 30.908 30.019 36.656

FIRST QUARTER 1986 ASSETS/PERFORMANCE

Manager Assets % Change 3 Mos.* 12 Mos.*

Morgan 203.5 M 14.0% 35.0%Putnam 221.6 16.3 46.5State St. 291.5 15.8 41.7Mellon 65.5 14.0 37.9Mer-Meid 155.3 2.9 12.3L.O.R. 20.0 N/A N/ABos. Safe .5 N/A N/A

Total Plan 957.9 M 12.5% 27.7%

*Investment performance is computed on theoretical assets with a "timeweighted" formula:- as though no money was added or removed by thetrustee. Such was not the case, therefore comparison of listed assetsto various other periods would yield inaccurate performance percentages.

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Comparisons between managers must consider their roles as assigned bythe Investment Committee. Neither the D. J. nor the S&P indices areshown because neither apply. The plan is less than 80% invested inequities, thus it cannot be expected to equal market gains (nor losses).

March 31, 1986, index of change = 1.12535, equivalent to a unit valueof 41.9+

PLAN STRUCTURE

In 1972 Putnam and State Street Research and Management replaced twoof the three managers: Morgan remained. Their orders continued to beFull Investment, with approximately 10% in bonds.

Late 1974 (The downturn began in 1972, bottomed out in third quarter1974.) Full investment requirement removed; managers discretion tohold cash and other short term items.

End of 1977 New orders require an approximately 80-20 mix of stocksand bonds, with allowance for cash and short term items.

During 1984 New orders to the three managers:

Morgan: 85% Core, 15% AggressiveState Street: 85% Core, 15% AggressivePutnam: 70% Core, 15% Aggressive - 15% International

Core = large company conservative stock; Aggressive = somewhat lessconservative with greater growth potential. Percentages are approxi-mate with reasonable variation including cash and short term items.Mercer-Meidinger added to manage a G.I.C. portfolio. GuaranteedInvestment Contracts are loans to the largest insurance companies,generally repaid in monthly installments. Their management fees arelow and no commissions are associated with G.I.C.'s. Mellon wasadded. They manage a large portfolio of "S&P 500 Index Funds", areplication of the S&P 500 in both names and weighted ratio of shares.We own a share of this fund. Low management fee (no decisions onwhat to buy or sell) and very low commissions. Leland, O'Brien andRubenstein was added to supply protection on one-half of the totalequities. L.O.R.'s strategy is based on trading in S&P 500 futurecontracts, using T-Bills for collateral. They begin by selling con-tracts to equal about 20% of the dollar value to be protected. Thecontracts are kept current by daily settlement based on the closingS&P 500 index compared to that of the previous day. When the indexdecreases (market downturn), L.O.R. receives the difference in cash.If the market continues down, L.O.R. sells more contracts to offsetthe equity managers losses, from any fraction, to well over 100% ofthe losses, as the client desires. When the market rises, L.O.R.buys contracts to offset their own losses on those they previouslysold. The catch - our cost - is maintaining the residual hedge; wepay every day the market rises. To receive more than what is lost inmarket downturns, a greater residual hedge is required, thus a highercost during rising markets. The protection was set at a +38 level

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because with a net 38 gain, there will be no reduction in retireeschecks. Moderate management fee, moderate commissions.

During 1985

Several investment programs investigated in 1984 for implementation in'85 were tabled due to the uncertainties on TWA and the probable needfor greater liquidity. L.O.R. protection was extended to cover thetotal equity portfolios, at the +38 level. Real estate programs wereupdated for 1986 implementation.

Multiply May check by 1.117 (adjusted for 38 factor) to get amount ofJul/Aug/Sept. checks (IRS withholding, if any, could affect exactamount); an 11.7% gain for the quarter, and a 27.7% gain over 3rdquarter 1984.

Early 1986

Mellon will shift between the S&P Index Fund and their futures, wheneverprice differentials warrant (arbitrage). They will also shift betweenequities, bonds, and cash depending on which is under-valued (best buy).The anticipated gain should more than offset higher management fees andhigher commissions. Three real estate managers have been added, to befunded with about 15 mil. each, in irregular payments over the nexttwelve months in accordance with investment opportunities.. Morgan willtransfer 5 mil. from their equity assets to the 10 mil. they alreadyhave in their real estate fund. North Carolina National Bank developsand manages office and industrial parks. State Street Bank, with Aldrich,Eastman, & Waltch manages a closed end R.E. fund.

Because of the large increase in assets since 3rd quarter 1985, theprotection on 635 mil. of equities, now 802 mil. (early 1986) left theequities under-insured. The floor was raised to 802 mil. to lock inthe gains, but the +38 level was changed to 0% - break even - to lowerwhat had become a sizeable cost.

Proposed for Mid 1986

The addition of a Contrarian manager. Finalists have been ready to gofor some time. These managers pick stocks contrary to market opinion,yet they do well. At the time L.O.R. was selected for portfolio pro-tection, they were the only practitioners. Now there are several otherstrategies that do not use a residual hedge, hence are less costly.The Investment Committee would like to try this approach.

Many pilots have contributed their efforts to the B Plan over the years.Another pilot, Jim Carmack, albeit not TWA, deserves a great deal ofcredit for his help in restructuring the plan and the timely performancetracking of its many parts, as consultant to the Investment Committee.From the retiree's view, the Investment Committee has been the driving

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force force behind the B Plan of the eighties.

May Update

Plan assets were 970.1 at the end of May. They continue to increase,but at a slower rate. Due to a number of lump sum payments this year,payouts will exceed contributions by quite a bit. This will not affectour retirement checks.

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RETIRED

My heart is overflowingWith a siege of ecstasy,

Because a very precious thingHas happened unto me.

Through all the many, many yearsI've labored ardently.

I hear the alarm clock ringingBut it sure ain't calling me,

I'm through with all that getting up,Sometimes still in my sleep.

I'm through with facing ice and snowEnough to make you weep.

I don't have to catch a city busWhen rain is falling free,

So the clock is ringing all in vain'Cause it sure ain't calling me.

So turn it off and throw it outIt's breaking up my rest,

And don't pack me no sandwichesNot even chicken breast!

Ant take those work clothes off my bedThey make me sick to see,

For today I have retiredAnd my life belongs to me!

- Author unknown

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WEDNESDAY MORNING BREWERY TOUR

--The start of something big?

Right: John Peek and Dave Halperin deepin discussion

Left: Bob and GladysMontgomery

Left: Gerry and Peggy Schemeland many others in the Brewerytour group. Liquid lunch?

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THE PENSION SITUATION

To clarify our present position regarding a possible lump sum payoutfrom the B plan and because of some inquiries and confusion aboutSection 402 of the Internal Revenue Code, President Russ Dericksonand I met on May 2nd with Actuary Bryan Jones of the actuarial firmof O'Donnell and Schwartz.

THINGS WE KNOW

Except for possibly having to pay a small administrative fee, a lumpsum option would be a no cost item for TWA, the active pilots andretirees.

It would not harm anyone who chose to stay on a variable annuity or afixed annuity.

Some pension plans have been separated and terminated to provide alump sum payout for some participants, while other participantsretained fixed or variable annuities. If the retiree' plan isseparated and terminated, no physical examination or proof of goodhealth will be required from retirees who elect a lump sum payout,

We can't obtain an injunction to prevent anyone from initiating aplan that provides for a lump sum payout. To obtain an injunction wewould have to show that immediate harm would result from implementation. -

We do not have grounds for a lawsuit to stop implementation of a newplan by the active pilots, nor do we have grounds for a lawsuit toforce anyone to provide a lump sum option for retirees.

TARPA doesn't have authorization to act for anyone, but counseladvises that if a substantial number of retirees want a lump sumoption, TARPA would be acting legally should it try to obtain it forthem. There would be some expenses and a funding plan would benecessary.

The actuary told us that the amended pension plan of the actives waswritten in a way that will not harm retirees.

Legal counsel told us that the amended plan cannot harm us andappeared to have been carefully worded to avoid affecting retirees.Counsel advised that the plan couldn't have been revised if it hadharmed retirees, and that retirees are free to obtain any optionsthey are able to because they would also be required to have a planthat would not harm any active or retired pilots.

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Section 402 of the Internal Revenue Code does not give any rights toan individual to obtain a lump sum payment. It deals solely with hisapplication for certain tax treatment of a lump sum provided he isable to get a lump sum in the first place.

WHERE WE STAND

Further exploration has not revealed much that we did not know at thelast convention. Our chances of success are dependent upon theactions of the MEC. They do not have to negotiate for us but thereis no reason for them to oppose us. Their plan doesn't hurt us andanything we could negotiate wouldn't hurt them.

A. J. Clay, Jr.TARPA Pension Chairman

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QUESTIONS ANSWERED

President Derickson asked two questions of labor counsellor David Rosenof the law firm of O'Donnell and Schwartz:

a. Does Section 402(a) (5) (d) of the Internal Revenue Code provide anindividual receiving a pension from a qualified trust, funded pursuantto a defined contribution plan, a right to a "lump sum" that representshis equity in the trust?

b. If the ALPA --TWA MEC and TWA provide for it by agreement, may theplan be amended so as-to lawfully provide a retiree to a right to a"lump sum" that represents his equity in the trust?

Mr. Rosen's response to a:

Section 402(a) (5) of the code sets forth the circumstances under whicha distribution of an employee's equity in a trust to him may be "rolledover" into an "eligible retirement plan", and thus not be includablein gross income for the taxable year in which paid.

Thus it sets forth the law regarding the roll-over of lump sum distri-butions if a plan beneficiary receives such a distribution. However,Section 402(a) (5) provides no right to such a distribution.

Any right to the lump sum distribution sought here must be providedby the plan itself.

Mr. Rosen poses the question:

Might the desired amendments have the forbidden results of decreasingthe amounts in the accounts of other plan participants?

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In answering his own question, Mr. Rosen says that technically thisis a question for an actuary, but then goes on to say that it ishard to see why the same logic that allowed the actives to negotiatea lump sum payout, would not apply to retirees.

The question was then put to Mr. Bryan Jones of Leef and Jones,Actuaries and Consultants.

"I agree with David that it is possible to withdraw substantialamounts of B Fund monies without any adverse effects on the planparticipants. This could not, I think, be construed as a reductionin accrued benefits of remaining participants since the accruedbenefit is synonymous with the participant's account and the trans-fer or withdrawal would be simply a removal of a different participant'saccount."

If you want a full copy of Mr. Rosen's and Mr. Jones' letters, let meknow and I'll have a copy made for you.

A. J. Clay, Jr.

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ALCOHOLISM COUNSELLING REPORT

By Phil Hollar

The past year has seen some changes in the Alcoholism ProgramThese changes are relatively minor, but all are aimed at making theprogram more effective and easier to administer.

Probably the most effective of these changes is the delegation ofthe authority to issue an airman's medical certificate to the AviationMedical Examiner. This certificate is still subject to review bythe Federal Air Surgeon and revocable on due cause.

Processing time has now been reduced to approximately 90 days pro-vided all necessary paper work is in order and that all requirementshave been met. This only applies to the first time around and thesix month waiting period for second strikers is still in effect. Thismeans six months of certified sobriety before the process can becommenced.

Success rate has remained constant, and the expectation is that itremain so in the future. This can be attributed to the fact thatdue to the publicity, education and efforts of many individualsapproximately 30% of those entering the program are now self referrals.That means that they have approached some one in the know and askedfor help. This is usually done in a manner that would give one to

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think that they are concerned about a significant other person;brother, sister, spouse or whatever. However, since the personcontacted is usually well versed in the mechanics of the program,it is soon determined that the concern is for themselves. Whenthis is established it is a simple operation to enter that personinto the program.

As a side note to the success of the program: I have heard theCommandant of the Marine Corps state: "There are no alcoholicofficers in the Corps, much less one (1) alcoholic pilot. Godforbid!" Recent developments have caused the Corps to modify itsstance somewhat. Now, they admit that they have a few who "occasion-ally imbibe a little too freely". Nevertheless, the Naval Hospital,Long Beach, now has several Marine Corps pilots in for rehabilitation.Even the Corps has come to realize that the problem exists and thatthere is a solution-for it.

One of the most effective follow-up tools, and also useful while thepilot is still in treatment, is the Pilots AA Group - The Birds ofa Feather. The members of the Birds cannot get a pilot sober, norcan they keep him sober after he has achieved sobriety. The primarypurpose of the BOAF is to provide a safe haven, among contemporaries,those who have been there. Those who are living sober from day today, one day at a time. Those who have learned to live, comfortably,without alcohol. We can only relate where we were, what we did, andwhere we are today. The BOAF members cannot tailor a program forany other person. We can share the pitfalls we encountered, themethods we use to stay sober, and provide moral support. Each indi-vidual has to work out their own program of sobriety and live itdaily. There is no magic formula, no guarantee, no fancy awards.

There is only the ability to look one's self in the mirror everymorning and say, "I like and respect the man in the mirror."

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GREAT REUNION IN ST. LOUIS

By Al Clay

Sam and Marge Luckey worked long and had to arrange this conventionand the results showed it. The hotel was not quite completed forour arrival, but the friendliness of the hotel staff more than madeup for any slight inconvenience. We had many TARPANS at the reunion.The talk was plentiful and good. I enjoyed watching old friendsgreet each other almost as much as I enjoyed seeing and greeting myold friends myself.

The convention was opened with an address by Mr. Carter Burgess,former President of TWA. It was most interesting to hear about frontoffice happenings during Mr. Burgess's tenure.

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Friday night we had a delicious banquet meal which Sam had so muchconfidence in that he had the head chef come out and take a bowBEFORE the meal! If he had waited until after the meal, the chefwould have received an even bigger hand. The members and theirladies later enjoyed dancing to music provided by the famous discjockey, Ole Olson.

The business meetings of the convention are reported by the Secre-tary/Treasurer elsewhere in this issue.

NEW DATES FOR '87 CONVENTION

1987 convention chairman Phil Hollar has announced firm dates forthe '87 convention which will be held at the Grand Hotel in Anaheim.The dates are the 24th, 25th, and 26th of March. The business meetingswill be on the 25th and 26th and the banquet will be the night ofthe 26th. There will be more about the convention in the next issue.

COMMITTEE CHAIRMEN

Here is a list of your committee chairmen for the next year.

Alcoholic Counselling............... Phil S. HollarAward of Merit.......................Lyle D. Bobzin

By-Laws and Policies.................Lyle A. Spencer

Permanent Convention site ............Joseph A. BrownConvention 1987..................... Phil S. Hollar

Convention 1988......................John M. Miller

Directory........................... A. T. Humbles

Historian............................Edward C. Betts

MEC Liaison and InvestmentCommittee observer...............Robert C. Sherman

Pensions.............................A. J. Clay

Newsletter Editor....................A. J. Clay

Grapevine............................Richard M. Guillan

Nominating...........................George A. Hinton

Insurance............................Edward A. Hall

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TARPA TENNIS 1986

By Larry Girard

The 1986 TARPA Tennis Tournament was held at the Forest LakeTennis Club in Chesterfield, Missouri, some 22 miles from theAdams Mark Hotel. The club facilities were excellent, play washeld indoors, with a very spirited, high quality of play. Anew member to the tennis group this year, Dick Faulds, was thewinner in the men's division with Mickey Wind the runner-up.Yours truly was lost in the pack!

The women's division winner was Adrienne Sturtevant with JuneMcFarland the runner-up. A great time was enjoyed by all andthough our numbers are small, they are examples of physicalfitness. (We hope!)

Pictured above from left to right are: Clancy Green, GinnyConverse, Adrienne / Hank Sturtevant, Lee Butler, Phyllis / LarryGirard, Jeannie Wisenhunt, Ken Hippe, June McFarland, DickFaulds, Mickey Wind, Tom Anderson, Leo McFarland.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

1 8

TRAP AND SKEET REPORT

By Earl Heinrich

We had two nice summer mornings for our Trap and Skeet shootingin St. Louis.

There were five new shooters to join the seven of 1985 for a totalof twelve shooters. Returning were Beighlie, Derickson, Heinrich,Hollar, Hubbard, McCombs and Peters. They were joined this yearby Larry Haake, John Happy, Lee Laurin, Don Stitt and Bob Widholm.George Long went along to lend support and help keep scores.

This was the first year we awarded trophies. Joe McCombs has beenthrowing the lead for a good number of years so he won the highoverall trophy for combined Trap and Skeet score, Russ Derickson,who has really practiced since 1983, drove to St. Louis to bringhis excellent trap gun along and won the trophy for high Trap.Phil Hollar was the high Skeet winner. Larry Haake was Trap runner-up. The runner-up at Skeet was Don Stitts. The five new shootersshowed good sportsman's spirit and probably will be back next year.

On Thursday John Happy shot extremely well but on Friday justcouldn't get it going.

Les Laurin joined us on Friday and after shooting a round of trapand skeet is enthused about the sport. He might start practicingfor 1987!

Phil Hollar obtained the trophies and helped me present them atthe Friday night banquet.

Phil is 1987 TARPA convention chairman in Anaheim, California. Ibelieve he had lined up the site for the Trap and Skeet shootingbefore he had the hotel. Our president, Russ Derickson, had toremind him that there is more to a convention than the trap andskeet shooting.

See you in '87.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

JUDGE: "Couldn't this case have been settled out of court?"

DEFENDANT: "Your Honor, that's exactly what we were doing whenthe policeman butted in.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

19

Left to right:

George LongPhil HollarRuss DericksonDon PetersBob WidholmJoe McCombsRichie BeighlieLloyd HubbardDon StittsLarry HaakeEarl Heinrich

Above: Russ Derickson, Earl Heinrich andDon Stitts

Left: "Is this anyway to bag a bird?"Richie "Funny Boy" Beighlie

20

Earl Heinrich keepin' things movin' on theTrap range.

Richie Beighlie, George Long, Phil Hollar andRuss Derickson

2 1

TARPA GOLF, ST. LOUIS MAY 29 and 30, 1986

By Joe Brown

A small but elite group of golfers enjoyed the facilities of theColumbia Golf Club on the mornings before the meetings at theconvention. It rained so hard on Thursday evening that the coursewas still soaked on Friday morning and the carts had to be kept onthe cart paths. Also, we were delayed by fog so dense your drivewould go out of sight (just like the runway center line on thesimulator on rotation after an engine failure right at V1). Thiscaused the bus to be late getting back to the hotel but we had agreat tournament.

The personable young golf pro, Bob Furkin, also part owner of thecourse, figured the net scores for us using the Callaway Handicapsystem.

Ladies low gross, Jean Koughan; Ladies low net, Fran Sorenson;"The Golf God Award", Jo Clay.

Thursday: Men's low gross, John Clark, Clem Witman, Dean Miller,Roy Van Etten all tied; Men's low net, Bob Montgomery.

Friday: Men's low gross, Bill Rae; Men's low net, Cliff Davis.

Two day total: Men's low gross, Dub Youngblood; Men's low net,Bill Merrigan.

All of the other contestants each received three golf balls forshowing up and completing two rounds of golf. Ole Olsen playedonly on Thursday because he had to set up the music on Friday.

Hope we have a much bigger turnout next year at Anaheim.

Don't forget TWA Seniors at the Lodge of the Four Seasons onMissouri's beautiful Lake of the Ozarks, May 26 and 27, 1987

Our government at work: Latest advice for golfers, USA TODAYMay 29, 1986

ONE LINE ON THE NEWSA new government report on lightnings danger to golf-

ers advises: "If hair stands on end, lightning may beabout to strike. Drop to your knees and bend forward."

Then kiss your clubs goodbye.

22

FRIDAY, MAY 30 - Cocktail PartyPreceding the Awards Banquet

Claire and Jim Hendrix,

Gay and Russ Bowen, and

Ed Hall, above

Right, Bill Bainbridge,

Terry Rager, Frank and

Mary Lou McKee

MORE HAPPY FACES AT THE MAY 30 AWARDSBANQUET

Al Clay, Bob Sherman and his lady

et

Ted Widmayer andClancy Green Katherine and Stan Chichester24

Phil Rimmler, currently on the 767-International at JFK,

sent this picture with a note: "Here is a picture of the

latest prescribed array of equipment for the emergency

descent drill. Those are swim goggles behind the headlights."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Tell strangers you work for another airline and they'll tell youhow much better yours is.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

A Pilot is a confused soul who talks about women when he's flyingand about flying when he's with a woman.

- Len Morgan, FLYING

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25

Special old Fud's EditionSubmitted by Oscar Cleal

YOU'RE OLD IF -

Everything hurts and what doesn't hurt doesn'twork . .

The gleam in your eye is the sun hitting yourbifocals . . .

You feel like the morning after, and youhaven't been anywhere . . .

Your little black book contains only namesending with M. D.

Your children begin to look middle-aged . . .You finally reached the top of the ladder and

find it leaning against the wrong wall . .Your mind makes contracts your body can't

keep . . .A dripping faucet causes an uncontrollable

bladder urge . . .You look forward to a dull evening . .Your favorite part in the newspaper is "20 Years

Ago Today" . . .You turn out the lights for economic reasons

rather than romantic reasons . .You sit in a rocking chair and can't get

going . . .Your knees buckle and your belt won't . . .You regret all the mistakes you made by resist-

ing temptation .You're 17 around the neck, 42 around the waist,

and 96 around the golf course . .Your back goes out more than you do . . .The little old grayhaired lady you help across

the street is your wife .You sink your teeth into a steak, and they stay

there . . .You have too much room in the house and not

enough room in the medicine cabinet . . .You get exercise acting as pallbearer for your

friends who exercised . ..You bend down to tie your shoe, and your stomach

beats you to the floor . . .You put your bra on backwards and it fits

better . .You know all the answers. but nobody asks you

any questions . .26

MEN WHO FLY

The men who fly are a breed of menUnto themselves. We'll not know again

The little boy on a grassy hillWho sees a hawk and knows the thrill

Of the summer wind on an up-turned wingAnd the joy a graceful flight can bring.

There was a dream in this boy's eyesThat reflected the challenge of distant skies.

The passing of time and the greying of hair...But the eye is still sharp and the light still there.

And he sees, as he scans the far blue sky,A dream that is missed by the passerby.

The men who fly are a special breed.It's true, they spring from a certain seed.

A new kind of pilot has now made the scene:His flesh is firm and his mind is keen.

He's good - it's true - no need to ask.The computers say he's right for the task.

His eyes, like steel, his determined faceShow he's looking farther into space.

But his life will never know the thrillOf the little boy on the grassy hill.

Where, as far as his eager eyes could see,The air was clean and the sky was free;

Where the hawk soared light on the summer air,And the boy imagined he was there.

Before it's too late, if the world is wise,It will honor these men who love the skies.

- Author UnknownSubmitted by Howard Hall

27

OTIS F. BRYAN

By Ed Betts

Back in the years of the DC-2, DC-3 and Stratoliners TWA was knownas the "Pilot's Airline", the airline run by pilots. It was alsoknown as the "Lindbergh Line", although Lindbergh (following the intro-duction of the DC-2) was no longer active as a member of the company'stechnical committee. These were the years when Jack Frye was thepresident and, starting in 1939, Howard Hughes the majority stockholderor owner. Starting with Paul Richter in December of 1934, a number ofpilots were to be promoted to various vice presidential positionsincluding Larry Fritz, "Tommy" Tomlinson, John Collings and Otis Bryan.Otis was the first to start out as copilot and captain on the line,the others had all been hired by the predecessor airlines in manage-ment positions.

Otis was the sixth of eleven children in the family and was born onJanuary 3, 1908 in Crotherville, Indiana. His father was a farmer,the beginnings of Otis's roots and love for farming and ranching,although aviation was to be an important part of his life. His formaleducation was studying math, chemistry and some engineering for threeyears at the University of Indiana. It was here that he also beganhis military career (in the infantry) as a cadet in the ROTC program.In 1927, while on temporary duty with the ROTC at Fort Knox, that hedecided that a flying career in the military was more desirable thantoting a 43 pound pack plus rifle and ammunition. He applied for, andwas later accepted, pilot training in the Army Air Corps. It wasn'teasy, as only two out of seventy five applicants from his area wereaccepted after the mental and physical exams. His flight trainingbegan on April 2, 1928 at March Field flying the Hisso - powered PT-1'sand Whirlwind powered PT-3's. A week later, after six hours of dualinstruction, he first soloed in a flight that lasted all of fifteenminutes. After eight months of basic training there were but 27 leftout of the group of 110 who had started together. The next phase oftraining was at Kelly Field with pursuit planes, although in Februaryof 1929 he was assigned to the 2nd Bombardment Group, based at LangleyField.

This was a period where many new airlines were forming and there wasno assurance from the Army as to when or how long it would be forextended active duty or a permanent commission, an airline job lookedmore promising. Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT) had been formedin May of 1928 and after a year's delay for construction of airportsand airway systems was about to finally take to the air. First pilotswere (advertised) to have several thousand hours experience on multi-engine equipment to fly their Ford tri-motors, and most had beentrained at the Ford facilities in Dearborn. The copilots were recruitedfrom the Army and many, at the time, had but two or three hundredhours in the air. Among those recruited by John Collings, who wereto see many years of service with TWA in later years, were Cliff Abbott,Otis Bryan, Joe Bartles, Bill Campbell, Harry Campbell, Howard Hall,

28

Fred Richardson and Jack Zimmerman.

Operations began with the fly by day / train by night transcontinentalservice in July of 1929, with Otis based at St. Louis flying westto Waynoka, Oklahoma. On February 14, 1930, at the age of 21, hetook his first trip out as captain (first pilot) and, until the T&WAmerger in October of that year, spent a lot of his time flying vaca-tion relief at Waynoka, Clovis and LA. His transport license is#6968.

While based at Langley, Otis had met and courted Helen Lenore (Lee)Schofield, the daughter of a career military officer. On October 8,1930, they were married. There was hardly time for a honeymoon, ason the 25th of that month the new T&WA inaugurated its passenger andmail service from coast to coast, all by air. Otis, then based atKC, flew the inaugural eastbound flight to Indianapolis and Columbus.

The Fords were slow and the 36 hour transcon schedule included atwelve hour overnight layover at Tulsa or KC. In March of 1931 thesingle engine planes were introduced, which could get the mail acrossthe nation in 24 hours or less and the mail revenues were the company'slife blood compared to those from passengers and express. The Fords(and Fokkers) did little, if any, instrument flying and it was up tothe mail pilots to complete their flights under almost any kind ofweather conditions. It was not without its risks as many were lostdue to weather and mechanical problems. Although not considered anaccident, Otis had a close one.

It happened while flying the night mail run on the leg from KC to STLand the weather went below landing limits; he proceeded to an alternatefield near New Florence, Missouri, which was giving a 400' ceiling.The field was poorly lit and, as was the procedure, he decided to useone of the plane's emergency flares to help light up the area. Normallythe pilot pulled a wire which would release the flare (attached to asmall parachute) and it would drop through a 4" tube in the cockpitby gravity. However, a new system had been installed that used a smallamount of gunpowder to help release the flare that was already ignited,and in this instance the gunpowder was wet and wouldn't ignite. Theburning flare was still in the tube and was now burning Otis's heavywinter flying suit. He made a fast approach and landing, jumped fromthe plane and rolled in the snow to snuff the burning flying suit.

When TWA resumed carrying the mail following the infamous mail can-cellation, in May of 1934, the company had lost approximately 40% ofits former mail routes and gained but one addition, Terre Haute. Thiswas the same period that the DC-2's were introduced, but the newstation was too small for the Douglas plane and could be served by theAlphas only. On May 13th Otis brought the inaugural westbound flightthrough Terre Haute, although the amount of mail loaded at the stationthat day wasn't too impressive - ten letters. Otis was also the piloton the DC-2 when regular service to Dayton was inaugurated on December17, 1936. The mail loaded aboard the eastbound flight was a littlemore impressive, 114 letters.

29

In 1936 Otis was appointed the Division Chief Pilot (KC-East) aswell as assistant to System Chief Pilot, Harlan Hull. According toOtis, everybody else turned the job down as it was more paper workthan anything else. Although the company was expanding rapidly andhad a fleet of DC-3's and DST's scheduled for delivery in 1937,research was in progress by Tommy Tomlinson with regards to highaltitude flying and a pressurized cabin. A contract was made withBoeing for a four-engine pressurized airliner, later dubbed the"Stratoliner". Six were ordered with deliveries scheduled for thespring of 1938, and an option for an additional 17 aircraft. Thepurchase of the planes, together with spare engines and equipmentwould involve an expenditure of approximately $2,043,000.

The proposed plane was basically a civilian or commercial version ofthe Army's B-17 long range bomber, but with a different fuselage.In June of 1936 Otis spent a month of active duty with the SecondBombardment Group at Langley flying the B-17 and gained first handknowledge of what features were desirable for the commercial version,what was not or what might be marginal. Tomlinson was assigned tothe Boeing plant during the early stages of constructing the proto-type, and later Bryan to supervise with the cockpit layout, etc.The prototype flew on December 31, 1938. By this time the order forTWA was for five aircraft, PanAm four and Howard Hughes one. TWAwas having trouble with the financing and it wasn't until Hughesassociation with the company that this could be arranged (by selling119,154 shares of stock to Hughes at $14 per share). Jack Frye andHughes were now looking further ahead to the proposed Lockheed air-liner, the Constellation.

In March of 1939 the Stratoliner program received a severe setbackwith the crash of the prototype plane during a trial flight by a groupof KLM representatives and pilots. All aboard were killed includingTWA's Harlan Hull, who was riding as an observer. Soon after Hull'sdeath, Otis Bryan was named System Chief Pilot by Jack Frye.

In April of 1940 Tomlinson and Bryan had completed the acceptancetests for the first Stratoliner and with Lloyd Hubbard, Fred Kirk andPete Redpath, they ferried the plane from Seattle to KC. A huge crowdof company and local observers were on hand for their arrival, includ-ing Frye. Unbeknownst to Bryan, Frye had scheduled a flight the nextday for the benefit of his friends and VIP's, with cocktails and lunchpreceding the local air tour. Bryan protested as they had not hadthe time during the ferry flight to check out certain of the plane'snew features, but Frye insisted.

They took off the next day following the cocktails and lunch, theweather was hot and humid. Rather than wait until they had reachedcolder outside air, the pressurization system was eased in graduallyin order to demonstrate the nation's first airliner that could flyat 20,000' and the cabin altitude would be at about 12,000'. As theywere climbing between 6,000' and 7,000' the hostess came rushing to

30

the cockpit with a message from Jack Frye---he wanted to see CaptainBryan immediately! As Otis left the cockpit, one glance at the cabinthermometer told him the reason for Jack's urgent request: it was128° and climbing! They quickly depressurized the cabin and circulatedsome warm, but cooler outside air to the relief of Jack's sufferingguests.

With cold air, such as at Seattle or at higher altitudes, the systemworked fine, but there was no provision for cooling the air after itwas heated by compression, as was necessary in this case, and a rad-iator was soon installed in the system. Another engineering typeproblem that Otis found out during one of the 100 hour proving testswas with the plane's hydraulic boost system for the elevator andaileron controls. The plane could be steered with no boost, such asa broken hydraulic line, but in this case while cruising at 23,000'with outside air temperature of 20° below zero, the controls locked.He was able to ease the plane down to lower altitudes where, fortunatelythe air was warm enough and the controls returned to normal. It waslater determined that the small cylinder and piston (or pump) thatwere part of the system were made of different metals and there was adifferent rate of contraction with the minute shrinkage in the freez-ing temperature. The piston had locked inside the cylinder whichtrapped the hydraulic fluid and in turn locked the flight controls.This was also soon modified.

The next engineering-type problem experienced by Otis during theproving tests had more serious consequences. This was on a flightfrom KC to Albuquerque with about a dozen pilots and a hostess aboard.Over Wichita there was a large area of thunderstorms in the directionof Amarillo so they made a detour and headed west, direct towardsAlbuquerque. Detours were made further north and finally, when overthe southeast corner of Colorado, it was obvious that they could nolonger top the clouds and a course was taken direct to the Moriartyradio just to the east of Albuquerque. Before entering the cloudsthe carburetor heat was applied to all four engines. They were atabout 20,000' at the time.

They hadn't been in the clouds but a minute or two when the #1 enginequit. Bryan decided to do a 180° turn and get back into clear airand investigate the problem before proceeding on, but before he couldcomplete the turn the remaining three engines quit .... carburetor ice!They were now a 17 ton glider headed down into the mountainous terrainbelow. All of the old remedies were tried such as "backfiring" theengines, but nothing worked. It was a very quiet group of non-revsin the cabin as Ida Staggers made the necessary preparations for acrash landing.

At about 2,000' above the ground there was a break in the clouds andOtis sighted what looked to be a clearing, although it wasn't untilabout 500' (with about a mile visibility and rain) that he was ableto line up with this clearing and make a gear up landing. Fortunately,

31

while skidding along, dirt had forced open the cargo doors whichacted as plows or brakes to help stop the plane, just 200' short ofa huge canyon. There were no injuries and the damage to the planewas minimal. Later the plane was jacked up and, with the wheelsdown, was ferried back to KC by Bryan and Al MacKrille for theneeded repairs.

The problem was with a new system of carburetor heat that had beeninstalled by Wright engineers on the "Cyclone" engines. They hadbeen concerned that pilots had been applying too much heat from theexhaust system that was causing engine detonation; the new system( which was quickly modified) took air underneath the cowling, whichwas far from warm enough to prevent the ice forming and choking offthe fuel supply.

Elaborate christening ceremonies for the new plane were held on May27th at Bolling Field, Washington, and on July 9-10, 1940 the inau-guration of regular service began. Bryan was pilot on the firstwestbound out of LGA as far as KC where "Mc)" Bowen took over to LA.Among the group of Hollywood notables aboard were Tyrone Power,Brenda Joyce, Nancy Kelly and Paulette Goddard. The 14 hour 9 minuteflight (and the 12 hour 13 minute eastbound) set new transcontin-ental records that day.

Starting in late 1940 the Priorities Board started restricting theproduction of civilian aircraft as the factories upped their pro-duction of multi-engine bombers (such as the Lockheed "Hudson" andConsolidated " Liberator". The civilian flight crews recruited forferrying these planes to England were having troubles and the losseswere high, particularly on the flight from Gander to Prestwick.Since we were not officially at war at the time, the military couldnot give these crews the training necessary for flying the NorthAtlantic. Then-Major General H. "Hap" Arnold requested TWA to setup such a training school and further requested that Otis Bryan(they had become acquainted during the B-17 - Stratoliner days atSeattle) set up this school.

The "Eagles Nest", the title given the training center, was locatedat ABQ (Kirkland Field) which was a combination military base andmunicipal airport. Training of crews began on June 23, 1941 withabout 50 staff members (many hired for the ground school and flighttraining remained as TWA employees in later years). Among Bryan'sheads of departments were Joe Mountain, director of training; "Swede"Golien, superintendent transition flying; Hal Blackburn, superinten-dent instrument flying; Max Knudsen, superintendent ground school;Frank Busch, head of twin engine instruction, and later Harry Camp-bell on four engine instruction; and Ray Dunn, head of equipmentinstruction. The total personnel soon expanded to over 118, andafter the US entered the war the Army took over the instruction withtheir own personnel. Training was generally by crews that includedpilot, copilot, navigator, flight engineer and radio operator.

32

OTIS BRYAN and FRANK BUSCH

33

Soon after the Pearl Harbor attack a high level meeting was heldin Washington between certain government officials, military headsand airline executives as to how civilian transports and personnelwere to be utilized for the all-out war effort. At the time, theStratoliners were the only four-engine transports available exceptfor Pan Am's flying boats. Initially Pan Am was to use ten of theirflying boats and crews to transport personnel and supplies to Singa-pore via Brazil, Africa and India. On December 18th they dispatchedtheir first flight with a load of P-40 spare parts for General Chen-nault's Flying Tigers.

The contract with TWA was signed on December 24th and, per the requestof Jack Frye and General Arnold, Otis Bryan was put in charge of thecompany's new Inter Continental Division (ICD). There was a delaybefore TWA took to the air as all five of the Stratoliners had to bemodified for long range operation---excess weight such as cabin fur-nishings, pressurization system, etc., had to be removed and extrafuel tanks installed in the forward cabin. Although the planes nowbelonged to the government and were painted in the Army's familiarolive drab, the old TWA names such as Navaho, Apache, etc., werestill a-part of the plane's identification. They were now C-75's.

The first of what would eventually be 9,500 transocean crossings bythe ICD got started on February 26, 1942 with three C-75's loaded with25,000 pounds of anti-personnel fuses for artillery shells destinedfor Field Marshall Montgomery. At the time Montgomery's army wasabout 75 miles from Cairo trying to prevent Rommel's Afrika Corpsfrom breaking through to Cairo and the Suez Canal. The crew on thefirst flight (a 17 day round trip) was Otis Bryan, Don Terry, MiloCampbell, Bill Noftsinger, Pete Redpath as navigator, Guy Arnold,navigator, W. R. Shook, radio, and Bob "Lewie" Proctor. Within weeksthe ICD assignments stretched as far as India, half way around theworld.

Jack Frye and Otis Bryan were now occupying adjoining offices inWashington, D. C., working with government officials, military headsand the fledgling Air Transport Command (ATC). Often the request fora certain flight would also include that Bryan be the pilot, such asa trip to Prestwick in March of 1942 with a load of military brassthat included (all of them were in much lower grades of rank than thefour or five stars later to come) Generals Marshall, Eisenhower,Clark and Colonel Vandenberg, Rear Admiral Towers plus Harry Hopkinsand Averill Harriman. They ran into bad weather off the coast ofGreenland and returned to Gander to await improvement. While atGander some of the group did some skeet shooting and Bryan, an avidhunter, won high score with 24 out of 25. Trips with Eisenhoweraboard would often find him in the copilot's seat flying the airplane(he was a pilot with small aircraft).

By mid-1942 the ATC was in full operation headed by General Harold

34

George with Colonel C. R. Smith, former president of American AL,his chief aide. Colonel Lawrence "Larry" Fritz from TWA headed theNorth Atlantic Division. Their (and the ICD) equipment now includedthe Douglas C-54 (DC-4) transport and the C087, a converted LiberatorBomber, with greater range and payload capabilities than the C-75.

In late 1942 the ICD received an important order, and again therequest for Bryan to be the pilot, for a flight with a speciallyequipped C-54 from Bathurst, Gambia, to Casablanca and return. Itwas top secret, with all kinds of security measures involved and thepassenger list was not known to the flight crew until the final board-ing at Bathurst. There was a clue, however, as a special ramp had tobe used to bring a certain passenger aboard in his wheel chair.....President Roosevelt. Pan Am had brought the President to Bathurstin one of their "Clippers" and the ICD crew would take him on theland portion to Casablanca for his meeting with Prime Minister Churchillon January 14, 1943. This historic trip was the first flight by a U.S.president while in office. Teddy Roosevelt once flew, but it wasafter he was no longer in office.

Bryan had numerous occasions to chat with the President and found himto be an avid tourist enjoying the scenery below. Churchill hadarrived two days earlier in his Liberator piloted by Bill Vanderclootwho was a TWA pilot from 10/38 to 1941. Don Terry piloted a second .C-54 or backup plane for the President. Churchill overslept the morn-ing of Roosevelt's departure and, when he awoke, came running out inhis fancy bathrobe to say goodbye.

Following the Casablanca conference and return to Bathurst, Bryanflew the President south to Monrovia, Liberia for a brief inspectionof the Firestone rubber plantation. Once again PanAm flew him acrossthe South Atlantic to Natal. Bryan's plane passed the "Clipper" enroute,and again picked the President up for the overland portion to Trinidad,then on by "Clipper" to Miami.

At the TWA Board of Directors meeting on February 24, 1943, Otis Bryanwas elected to the office of Vice President, in charge of all warprojects. These included the ICD, ATC contracts, a training schoolfor the military, a B-25 modification program and certain secret workfor the USAAF. It wasn't exactly a desk job, as he made about fortyocean crossings as pilot during the period of the ICD operation.Cliff Mutchler took over as the operations manager for the ICD, follow-ing Otis's promotion.

At first Otis was the pilot on these flights as a civilian, in theICD summer or winter uniforms of TWA. Later he was piloting certainflights while on temporary active duty, originally with the rank ofCaptain and later to Major and Lt. Colonel. From November 22 to 27,1943, he was again the pilot for the land portion of the President'sand Chiefs of Staff conferences at Cairo with Churchill. The C-54for the President now had a special elevator built for his boarding.Following the Cairo conference, Churchill and Roosevelt flew separateroutes to Teheran to meet with Marshall Stalin. It was during a

35

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AND OTIS BRYAN, CASABLANCA

side trip from Cairo to Malta that a problem developed with theplane's hydraulic system. The gear could be lowered by alternatemeans, but not the landing flaps, which required an extra 20 mph ap-proach and landing speed than normal. According to Otis, when thePresident was informed of the problem, he said, "Well go ahead, takeall precautions, and we'll all have a good time". It was a safe, butfast, approach and landing.

The President's personal physician did present one hurdle with regardsto the flight from Cairo to Teheran---except in an emergency, and withthe doctor's OK, they were not not fly above 8,000' due to the President'sheart condition. Otis made a preview flight to make certain that thiscould be done and, fortunately, on the day of the President's trip theweather was beautiful and this could be accomplished. Roosevelt enjoyedthe scenery. His last trip with the President was on February 2, 1945.Churchill had arrived at Malta in a new C-54 given to him by GeneralArnold. The Chiefs of Staff had already arrived for their conferencesand Roosevelt arrived by sea. The whole party was then to fly to theCrimea for a conference at Yalta with Stalin and his advisors. Bryanand "Hank" Meyers flew the President to Yalta and return. One of thetwo aircraft taking Churchill's staff to Malta crashed off the islandof Pantelleria leaving only five survivors. Although the Presidentwas a cheerful passenger, it was obvious to Otis and many insidersthat his physical condition had deteriorated rapidly during the waryears. He died on May 12 at the age of 63.

The Lockheed C-69 (Constellation) program had been curtailed at theoutbreak of the war in favor of the C-54, but a limited productionwas resumed in 1943. On April 19, 1944, TWA got a preview of itspost-war airliner when Howard Hughes and Jack Frye delivered a mili-tary prototype, painted in TWA colors, to Washington, D. C. Hughes,Frye and Bryan alternated as pilots to demonstrate the plane to variouscongressmen and military heads. A few C-69's were assigned to the ICDduring the latter stages of the war. With the ending of hostilities,TWA concentrated on its new International Division as the ICD graduallycame to a close. Otis was named Vice President of this division withoffices at Wilmington in October of 1945, and following the resignationof T. B. Wilson, in January of 1946 was the General Manager. Aftermany survey and preview flights, TWA's first international flighttook off on February 5th bound for Ireland and France.

The immediate post-war years saw the problems between TWA managementand Howard Hughes, plus the grounding of the Connies and the pilotstrike, which led to numerous resignations by executives that includedJack Frye and Paul Richter. Bryan still had a good rapport with Hughes,(if you could stand the late night-early morning phone calls) andagreed to stay on for another year. This developed into an impossiblesituation, not so much with Hughes, but dealing with his aide, NoahDietrich, and on June 17, 1948 Bryan also resigned from TWA. Anotherfactor that influenced his resignation was his health at that time...Dr. Lovelace had advised a change, and a rest from the pressure ofthe war years, etc.

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TWA had been involved with the re-organization of the PhilippineAirlines as they sought help to resume their post-war operations.Bryan had worked with Andres Soriano, whose company had a managementcontract with the airline in setting up and recruiting certain manage-ment and supervisory personnel to operate the airline. At Soriano'srequest, Otis accepted the job as operations Vice President for theairline as well as an advisor on the company's other world-wide inter-ests. At the time, the airline was operating with a fleet of aboutsixty worn out surplus C-47 / DC-3's that were sadly in need of repair.After two years with Bryan's supervision the airline was operating onschedule and expanding rapidly with newer aircraft in the fleet.

Living in the Philippines was fairly good, but Lee was homesick. Thekids, Skippy and Sis, ages 10 and 12, loved it, but it was time toreturn home to the U.S.A. and, for the first time in over two decades,Otis was no longer associated in the aviation business. His next job,again working for Soriano, was managing the Muehlbach Beer Breweryin the Kansas City area and managing other Soriano interests in theU.S.A. At the time Muehlbach was number five in beer sales, but wassoon number one with other areas included. Seven years later thebrewery was sold to the Schlitz Corporation and Otis returned to thefield of aviation as a vice president with the Link Division, a sub-sidiary of the Singer Corporation. Otis's duties were to finalizecontracts with various nations, their airforces or airlines for their"Link Trainers". It required a lot of world travel, although hisoffice was at the company plant at Binghamton, NY.

The world famous Link Trainer had progressed and come a long waysince the days during the Air Mail Crisis in 1934 when it was firstused by the Army to train its pilots and practice with the art ofinstrument flying. The airlines, including TWA in 1936, soon adoptedthe same trainer and by 1941 with the escalated training by the military,CPT and airlines, it was the most widely used training device ever.The old trainers were shaped like an airplane with a small fuselage,wings, tail and a hood over the small cockpit. It was anchored tothe floor, but could turn in any direction and could assume a climbor descent attitude which gave a touch of realism to the pilotsteering under the hooded cockpit. Outside, the instructor had adesk with dials to tune in necessary radio aids, adjust and monitorsame and a movable stylus would trace on a map the path the "airplane"was flying. It didn't exactly teach you to fly, as was the case withpost war simulators, but it was an invaluable aid to learning andpracticing orientation by radio, various approaches and letdowns toairports, etc.

During Bryan's fifteen years with the Link Division the simulatorsadvanced into the jet age, they were as complicated as the aircraftitself, and almost as expensive, and used by the airlines, militaryand FAA for a number of purposes: checking out new pilots on aircraft,rating rides or instrument checks, etc. Link had over 600 personnel

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based at Houston at the Johnson Center as part of the space programwith computers and simulators.

Otis retired from Singer / Link in January 1973 at the then-mandatoryage of 65. It wasn't exactly retiring as he was able to devote fulltime to his first love and interest, farming and ranching. He hasfrom 200 to 300 head of his cattle grazing on 1200 acres of landowned, and another 2,000 leased near Greeley, Kansas.

A great deal of his aviation memorabilia, such as logbooks, etc.,were lost when a ship transporting his personal effects was sunknorthwest of Guam when the family was moving to the Philippines .However, not all was lost, and proudly displayed in his office todayare some of his most treasured souvenirs and mementos: autographedphotos of some of his most famous passengers such as Roosevelt,Eisenhower, Marshall, Arnold and Leahy along with letters of commen-dation thanking him for a job well done.

Today there is a fleet of aircraft, headed by Air Force One, and alarge staff of pilots and crews who fly the President, staff andother dignitaries about the world. Otis can look back with pridethat he was among the very first, as well as the first of the TWAICD flight crews to fly across the Atlantic. At the time of hisfirst flight with ammunition supplies to Cairo, he had never beenoutside of the USA before except by a short auto trip to Mexicali.

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The only thing most people get on a silver platter is tarnish.

- NC Farm Bureau News

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O'BRIEN'S LAW: Nothing is ever done for the right reasons,

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JONES' MOTTO: Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.

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MURPHY'S LAW OF RESEARCH: Enough research will tend to supportyour theory.

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In Memoriam

HARRY E. CAMPBELL AVERY LENOIR2-2-86 3-4-86

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THOMAS P. DUFFY ARNOLD C. "ARNE" LUNDBERG

4-18-86 3-9-86

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ALFORD D. HEATH CALVIN H. "PIERRE" MOLLINEAUX2-18-86 3-19-86

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

HALBERT H. "DUTCH" HOLLOWAY WENDELL F. PETERSON

3-4-86 5-23-86

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

ORRIN O. "DIXIE" KIEFER DONOVAN A. SIEBENALER2-15-86 3-13-86

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

DAVID J. KREYSLER4-10-86

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Cap

tain

Har

ry E

. C

ampbel

l

HARRY E. CAMPBELL

By Ed Betts

Captain Harry E. Campbell passed away on February 22nd at the HoagMemorial Hospital in Newport Beach. He had just undergone eighthours of surgery for various complications prior to his death.

Harry was one of TWA's original pilots, a well known "character",famous for his jokes, gags and antics on the humorous side, and onthe serious side known to be tough and irascible if he didn't likea situation or individual. During his lifetime he made many friends,among them many of aviation's famous; there were others who didn'tappreciate his sense of humor or an occasional tirade. Whateveropinion or reaction one had to Harry, the stories and yarns will goon for decades about some of his escapades and flying experiences.

He was born on December 18, 1904, on a farm in Hillsboro, Iowa, andsix years later the family moved to Bloomfield where his dad operateda funeral furniture (including coffins) business. Young Harry'sfirst encounter with a body on a slab resulted in his breaking thedoor off the hinges as he bolted from the room. He graduated fromKemper Military Academy and then to Drake University, then attendedWashington University Law School in St. Louis on a football scholar-ship. One of his S.A.E fraternity brothers had thoughts of joiningthe Army's aviation cadet program, but changed his mind and gaveHarry the application papers.

Harry decided it was a good idea and on March 1, 1928 was acceptedand was among the 142 cadets who reported to March Field for training.This was the second class to attend March Field as it had just beenre-activated. Howard Hall was in the first class to attend, thebeginning of a life long friendship between the two men. Cadets wererestricted to the base during their first month of training. Theywere all set for their first leave when it was discovered that JackZimmerman had the measles, which brought about another month on thebase, in quarantine. At long last the group of 125 cadets made ama. exodus to nearby Riverside and a good dinner at a restaurantwhich gave credit privileges to the servicemen. Typical of Harry,he was impatient with the service and kept tapping his glass to geta young waitress's attention. This was Evelyn, her family owned therestaurant, and her immediate reply was for him to take his businessto one of the other 38 eating places in the area....a rather inaus-picious beginning to a future romance.

After eight months at March, there were 42 cadets remaining who tooktheir final three months of training at Kelly Field and receivedtheir wings and commissions. Campbell was then sent to Langley Fieldwhere there were too few airplanes and too many pilots to get in muchflying time. This was about the time when TAT was ready to start

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their 48 hour coast-to-coast service and John Collings was recruitingprospective copilots from various Army fields. Harry was hired onMay 20, 1929 and was based at St. Louis when operations began onJuly 7th . At the last minute it was discovered that most of thecopilots didn't have the required Third Class Radio-Telephone lic-ense. Fortunately, someone had the answers to the exam, and thegroup completed the test in a record 35 minutes (compared to thenormal near three hours), much to the chagrin of the inspector incharge.

During their bachelor years, Harry, Howard Hall and Ted Ashfordoften shared an aprtment, which was the beginning of the endlessstories of the young pilots and copilots adventures and antics inthe early days of commercial flying. There were the usual fraternitytype capers, such as bombing with water bags, limberger cheese, etc.,and the time when Harry arrived at his hotel room during a layoverand discovered all of his clothes and shaving kit missing from hissuitcase, and the bag loaded with the chocks and chains to park theaircraft.

Some of the flying stunts would bring a frown of disapproval fromthe FAA or company today, such as the time Harry was copilot withAmbrose Banks ferrying an empty Ford from Waynoka east. They spotteda Western Fokker F-10 just ahead, "poured on the coal" and overtookthe competitor's plane and when about a mile or so ahead proceededto do a "loop". Ben Howard, well known for his escapades (and forimporting bathtub gin to those based at Waynoka) once showed offa "slow roll" to Otis Bryan, who was standing in the doorway to thecockpit at the time.

Harry had the bare minimum (200 was required) 205 flying hours whenhe was hired. He had 316 hours when he reported to Columbus andDivision Chief Pilot, Harry McGee, for checkout to first pilot. Thisincluded three takeoffs and landings. This was after three monthson the line, although Harry's pilot seniority date was February 16,1930. After the merger of TAT - Maddux and Western he was a juniorpilot, based at KC. On October 1, 1931, he married Evelyn; therewas little time for a honeymoon as Harry was needed for some reservework, and a "wedding present" was a notice to all employees therewould be a 25% pay cut. For the first two years of their marriagethe newlyweds were constantly being shifted from domicile to domicile,a total of eight times: KC-Tulsa-KC-Tulsa-KC-CMH-EWR-CMH-KC.

As a senior TWA pilot (he was #35 on the first list by senioritypublished in May of 1934), Harry flew them all; the Fords and Fokkers,single-engine mail planes, twin-engine Douglas liners and the fourengine Stratoliners in the pre-war years, numerous types of twin andfour engine bombers during the war, and the DC-4, Connies and Boeing707 in the post war years. He had a number of problems, includingone with the B707 "water wagon" landing at JFK.

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His first incident was on May 3, 1932 when he was practicing landingsat KC with the Northrop "Alpha" and was unable to loosen the brakesquickly enough during a turn on the ground which resulted in a slightlybent propeller and buckled fuselage. On July 3rd of that year he hadquite an experience soon after departing STL at night with an "Alpha".There was a sudden and severe vibration in the engine (later deter-mined caused by a large piece of the prop breaking off), the enginetore loose from its mounts and, minus the weight of the engine, theplane went into an uncontrollable loop. Harry bailed out and landedin the Mississippi near the confluence of the Missouri River. Para-chuting at night is complicated by having little or no reference towhen or where you are going to light, and to be prepared, landingin water has the risk of getting entrapped by the chute or shroudlines. Also, there was no water flotation gear, such as a "Mae West",but Harry made it and was able to stay afloat until his cries forhelp were heard by two fishermen in a rowboat. They rescued him, andretrieved the mail from the "Alpha", which had miraculously pancakeddown on a nearby island.

On his next trip with an "Alpha", he had an incident which didn'tmake the usual accident investigating reports, and could have hadfatal consequences with the cause unknown, Ted Hereford once landedat Tucumcari complaining of dizziness and being drowsy. On Harry'strip east from KC he landed at New Florence with similar complaints.However, the fresh air revived him and he continued to STL, and afterlanding he passed out. As it was later determined, there was an openarea in the rear fuselage where the tailwheel assembly entered andwas attached; carbon monoxide fumes from the plane's exhaust weredrawn through this hole and then to the cockpit. This was correctedby the installation of a sock or boot to cover the hole.

Harry was rushed to the hospital where he remained for ten days dueto the lack of red corpuscles. He was off duty recovering for threemonths and after the doctor's OK to fly, spent the next three monthsas copilot on the Fords.

Albuquerque was, in those years, the popular layover city for thecrews from both the east and west. For several summers it was a"mini" domicile for Harry and during his off duty hours he pursuedhis favorite pastimes of hunting and fishing. The lobbies of theAlvarado and later the Hilton (Hilton's first hotel) were the meccafor news and rumors about the system and you would often find Harryin the poker game usually in progress. Harry loved to gamble andwas always ready for a contest for a wager in arm wrestling, etc.The pilots had purchased a car for transportation to and from theairport, but it was losing money at 25c each way per passenger, andthe kitty was in the hole until Harry took over the management. Woebe it for the pilot who failed to leave the required fee with thehotel desk clerk and have it recorded or those who used it for extracurricular activities during the layover. They had to account toHarry, and were sometimes fined $5.00 as well.

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Harry had one minor incident landing a DC-2 at KC where $727.25in damages was done to the plane's right wing tip and aileron. Thepilot group had long argued and contended that pilot fatigue due tolong hours was unsafe. In Harry's case the company examining boardconcluded it was pilot error, but also conceded that the long hoursHarry had already been on duty was an important contributing factor -a TWA first where this problem was recognized.

Son Dick was born in 1936 and daughter Nancy in 1938, as the familyfinally settled in KC, although there was still the summers in ABQ.In mid-1941 the company contracted with the military for the train-ing of civilian ferry crews to deliver aircraft to our allies inEurope via the North Atlantic route. Harry was assigned as head offour-engine instruction for this training at the "Eagles Nest" opera-tion at ABQ. On one trip with a B-24 "Liberator" Harry lost twogenerators in flight and the remaining two after landing at MaxwellField. Spare generators were at a premium and he spent ten daysawaiting repairs. A wire to Otis Bryan, head of the Eagles Nestfor TWA at ABQ, explaining the situation was typical of Harry's wit:

Here we sit and it is damn hotThe parts we need we ain't got.

The corn pone is good and so's the 'tatersBut what we need is generators.

On July 16, 1942, which was about the time when the Army took overits own training, Harry volunteered for the service. He was thena First Lieutenant, and his first assignment was at the B-24 trainingbase at Symra, Tennessee. He was soon promoted to Captain and assignedto General Yount's staff at Fort Worth. Then back to Kirkland andpromotion to Major where he was the director of all training for theB-24 Pilot Training School. This was on November 1, 1943 and thisnew assignment placed him in charge of both the Bombardier TrainingSchool and the AAF Pilot School and included instrument training.He was promoted to Lt. Colonel on March 10, 1944 and was second incommand of a base at Reno when he retired from the service in July of1945 and returned to TWA. He received numerous commendations for ajob well done. Harry was an influence and instrumental with thepaperwork for a number of his instructors and students in seeking aTWA pilot career after their discharge from the service.

His first assignment with TWA was interviewing and screening pros-pective copilots as the company embarked on its biggest expansionprogram ever, following the war. In ;September of 1946 he replacedStan "Toots" Kasper as head of TWA's domestic training department atKC. He soon had a reputation as a strict and stern disciplinarian(I know, I was in captain school at the time). In April of 1948 hewas named Chief Pilot for the Atlantic Region, based at New Castle,and reporting to Regional Operations Manager, Bob Springer.

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"Desk Flying" and management were not for Harry and in 1950 he bidback on the line flying the Connies out of LAX. The family settledin Corona del Mar, the last of about 36 moves, domiciles and militarylocations they had during Harry's flying career. In November of 1962it was discovered that he had blocked arteries in his legs and inJanuary of the following year he underwent four hours of surgery atthe Lovelace Clinic in ABQ. He didn't fly again, and his favoritesports of hunting and fishing were curtailed. He remained on sickleave until retiring in December of 1964. At that time he was thenumber two pilot on the seniority list, behind another former TATcopilot, Joe Bartles, and had accumulated about 30,000 flying hours.

His retirement party was a typical "Campbell Bash", a stag affairattended by his pilot friends and others throughout his flying career,including then VP "Oz" Cocke, who started with TAT as a passengeragent. There were lots of jokes and stories and Harry was eager totake on all comers (for a wager) in the sport of arm wrestling.

Retirement for Harry was the opportunity to frequently visit hisfavorite mountain hideaways in New Mexico with Evelyn as well asTWA functions such as retirement parties and the annual Wickenbergouting. It was Harry's suggestion to "Parky" in 1961 which broughtabout the formation of the TWA Seniors Club. He was a charter memberof the Irving Coast Country Club, a long time member of the QB's, theMasonic Lodge, and of course, TARPA. A 36 year resident of the OrangeCounty area, he was one of the first members of their airport commis-sion (now the John Wayne airport). He was also active in communityaffairs and led a group to block oil companies from erecting derricksor rigs which would blot the scenic shorelines. In July of 1979, thefiftieth anniversary of TAT, he represented TWA with dedication cere-monies where a Ford propeller blade and plaque were presented atcertain airport terminals.

In case this article has left the impression that Harry was all fightand no compassion, there was another side that many didn't see unlessthey were in distress and in need of help; he was always among thefirst when a friend needed assistance. This started back in the olddays, when the airline and its personnel were small; they had to helpeach other...especially in the days of no insurance for a widow ora mutual aid plan for a pilot who was off duty. There was a lot ofhorseplay that helped relieve the tensions of getting the passengersand mail through all kinds of weather without benefit of good radiosand navigation aids.

A Masonic Memorial Service was held for Harry and long-time friend"Parky" delivered the eulogy. As "Parky" related: there are millionsof stories, good and bad (and many unprintable) which could be toldabout Harry .... he was a legend in his time and part of TWA's rootsfrom the beginning. He is survived by his wife, Evelyn, daughterNancy and son Dick, two grandchildren and a sister, Pearl Armstrong.

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46

"DUTCH" HOLLOWAY

By Ed Betts

Pioneer airman and retired Captain Halbert H. Holloway, better knownto TWAers as "Dutch", passed away on March 24 at the age of 90. Anative of Bakersfield, California, his first introduction to flyingwas in 1917 as a cadet assigned to a French flying school located atChateauroux. His instructor could speak no English so the inflighttraining was usually by slamming the control stick from side to side.Their training planes were designed in 1911, the Caugron, which usedwarped wings for lateral control rather than the conventional ailerons.Hal, as he was known then, soloed after just four hours and twentyminutes of dual instruction and after three months with the French wasassigned to an American school, located at Issoudon, for final training.They were flying the French-built Nieuports. After receiving his"brevet" (license) he was assigned to the 141st Squadron of the 4thPursuit Group, then flying the famous French "Spads". At the time thegroup was patrolling the Moselle sector of the front from their baseat Toul.

The war was practically over by the time he had finished his training,although he did fly about forty hours of offensive patrol. After thewar he was with the Army of Occupation based at Koblenz, Germany, untilhe returned home in July of 1919

In 1920 he bought his first plane, a Hall-Scott powered "Standard"biplane for $3,000 and soon established his "H. H. Holloway AerialService" near Bakersfield. Besides the usual "barnstorming", he wasavailable for tours, charters and local rides for the thrill seekingpublic. Hal had an advantage over his competitors as he could squeezetwo in the front cockpit (at $10 each). Other planes such as the Curtiss"Jenny" could only carry one. He later modified his "Standard" withan OX-5 engine which increased the performance. He also did some flyingout of Santa Barbara, and in 1921 he sold his thriving business andpurchased a flying boat which he had to assemble.

On one flight where he landed at Avalon Bay, Catalina Island, he metthe owner, William Wrigley, and received authorization to operate aflying service there. Hal had a new slogan painted on the bottom ofthe plan's hull: "FLY WITH ME". For the next two years he flew awe-struck passengers over the scenic island and, according to Hal, thiswas the most profitable and enjoyable flying in his life. He alsosold this business and did some other flying out of such harbor areasas Balboa and Santa Cruz.

In 1928 Western Air Express bought the Pacific Marine Airlines, thenoperating regular passenger schedules from the LA harbor area to Avalon,about 22 miles west. Western modernized the fleet by replacing theold Curtiss flying boats with such aircraft as the Boeing 204 flying

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boat, Sikorsky model S-38 and Leoning "Air Yachts". The latter twowere of the amphibian type that could be operated out of Western'sairport at Alhambra, just east of LA. This was also the year thatWestern began operating on their "model airway" to SFO using the tri-motor Fokker F-10's.

On June 15, 1928, Holloway and another veteran seaplane pilot, FranklinYoung, who also learned to fly in France during WWI, joined Western.They alternated flying the Fokkers to SFO, and later to SLC as well asthe shuttles to Avalon . TAT inaugurated their deluxe 48 hour trans-continental (fly by day, train by night service) on July 7, 1929 ---Western inaugurated a similar service in June, flying the Fokkers asfar as KC. Holloway also flew this route, and the following year flewthe nation's first four engine airliner, the 32 passenger F-32. Thetwo companies, WAE and TAT - Maddux, merged in late 1930 to form T&WA.The Catalina shuttle was not part of the merger.

As a senior T&WA pilot, (Holloway was the #8 captain on the firstofficial seniority list published in May 1934, Young #9 and George Rice#10), "Dutch" flew them all: the Fords and Fokkers, single-engine mailplanes, twin-engine Douglases and four engine "Stratoliners" in thepre-war years - the C-54 and C-87 during the war - and the post-warConstellations.

On March 1, 1933 the Post Office awarded T&WA its first addition tothe transcon route (the old CAM #34), an extension to SFO by way ofBakersfield and Fresno. Rice flew the inaugural northbound flightwith the Northrop "Alpha" and Holloway the first southbound . He alsoflew the first southbound mail when Oakland was included as a stop onMarch 16th.

In January 1934, "Dutch" had a close one flying the mail run to ABQwith the Lockheed "Orion", a single-engine plane which was the firstwith a retractable gear for the company. A Winslow mechanic had over-looked filling the plane's 16 gallon reserve tank, located behind thepilot's seat. Holloway ran out of gas just short of ABQ and crashlanded in the sage brush. The plane was severely damaged and "Dutch"received some facial cuts on the bridge of his nose.

T&WA was relatively small in those days and everybody seemed to knoweach other around the system, either on the line flying or by meansof the "Skyliner" (also known as the "Windsock" in the early years).Each station had its own contributing editor with news about theiractivities and employees. "Irv" Greenwald, the editor for Burbank, wasalways reporting on the antics and escapades of their two favoritebachelors, "Dutch" and Eddie Bellande. Both had receding hairlineswhich made them more attractive to the fair sex (the gals thought"Dutch" reminded them of the actor Guy Kibbee). Eddie broke a lot offeminine hearts when he married actress Molly Lamont in 1937. "Dutch"remained a bachelor. During the war Holloway flew the ICD operation,making about 70 Atlantic crossings transporting troops and supplies toEurope, Africa and India. After the war he was assigned to Ethiopiato help set up an airline.

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As a background to the situation at that time, Ethiopia was still inthe process of recovery from Italian rule and occupation. This startedin 1936, when Emperor Haile Selassie went into exile and ended in Mayof 1941 when the British ran the Italians out. Although the war wasstill waging, in March of 1945, TWA representatives had made the pre-liminary arrangements with Ethiopian authorities in Washington, D.C.,to help set up and run their airline when the war was officially over.A contract was signed on September 8th which called for Ethiopia toput up $400,000 cash for the purchase of aircraft and other equipmentand to turn over all of their ,, hangars etc., to TWA's disposal.It was to be Ethiopian owned, TWA operated. In return, TWA would havethe option, within two years, of purchasing 25% of their stock at aprice not to exceed $250,000. TWA would charge at a certain cost permile basis. Arrangements were made by TWA's Brigadier General T. B.Wilson and Major General Benjamin Giles.

TWA VP Jack Nichols, Austin J. Naylor and Captain Milo Campbell wereassigned to this operation, but were killed in the crash of a B-25 inEritrea. Two weeks later "Dutch" and H. Bruce "Obie" Obermiller wereassigned to the project and arrived at Addis (also spelled Addes) Ababaon December 15, 1945. They were delivered by a plane whose passengersincluded Generals Wilson and Giles. The two men were left to maketheir own arrangements from there on. At the time, "Dutch" and "Obie"had three suitcases, a dozen fly swatters and a case of soft drinks totransport to town.

The only vehicle available to drive them to town was a blue coloredjeep with a royal insignia and a driver who could speak no English.He delivered them to the Imperial Hotel, refused to leave as well asaccept any payment or tip. For the next three days he stood by thehotel entrance, sleeping in the jeep, ready to serve them. They foundout later that this was the Emperor's private jeep, a gift from Presi-dent Roosevelt, and his chauffeur. During this period they rented aneleven room, two bath villa, which by local standards was a palace.They also bought a 1932 Canadian-built car (right hand drive). Aspecial printed proclamation, dated December 27, was given to Hollowaywhich announced to all concerned that he was the appointed and electedGeneral Manager of the Ethiopian Air Lines, Inc., with full and allrequisite powers and authority to represent, and to act for and inbehalf of their corporation.

Holloway immediately took off for Cairo on a huge shopping and re-cruiting spree, while "Obie" made local arrangements for a staff,office, etc. His shopping list included five aircraft (surplus militaryC-47's), a dozen spare engines, 2,300 spare parts, ten radio stations(equipment) and other equipment to set up an airline. "Dutch" wasbesieged with applicants eager for an airline job who came from allparts of the world and were in Cairo at the time. Five were selected,four of them from Texas, after careful screening and testing by "Dutch".After a month of shopping and recruiting he cabled "Obie" that he wouldbe arriving on February 1st with his armada of planes and supplies.The largest crowd ever, including the royal family, were on hand forthe arrival. The six planes arrived in formation, two sets in "V"formation, and landed. After the supplies were unloaded from the sixthplane, the military pilots departed for Cairo.

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On one occasion "Dutch, "Obie" and chief mechanic Dale Hungerford wereworking in the hangar repairing an engine when a black and silver RollsRoyce drove up. It was the Emperor making a casual inspection. Thetrio were dressed in greasy and grubby overalls at the time of thisfirst introduction to the Emperor. He was an avid aviation enthusiastand would often come to the airport in the evening, sit in an airplane,and chat informally with "Dutch". This was quite different from anofficial audience when the Emperor was seated on his "Peacock" thronein the palace; everybody bowed when they entered and again when theyleft. Nobody turned his back on the Emperor, you backed out of thethrone room.

One of "Dutch's" first flights was to Nairobi with a plane load ofmoney, $3.7 million in bills stacked in 40 pound bales, to exchangefor the nation's credit in order to purchase aircraft and other equip-ment. In order to make money for the return trip, the plane was loadedwith cases of canned peaches, ham, a bicycle, a drum of white paint,(Ethiopians loved white paint) and the balance of space with freshpineapples. According to "Dutch", upon his return, it was like aMacy's after Christmas sale with all of the Ethiopians mobbing thescene.

It was TWA's desire that Cairo be a hub for all of the proposed air-lines to service, with connections to their own International serviceto begin in early 1946. The British had been operating a Cairo-AddisAbaba service with Lockheed Lodestars with bucket seats that took twodays of flying (none at night, and VFR only). Holloway proposed, andmade several survey flights, a route that headed east over Eritrea andthen, with one fuel stop, along the Red Sea to Cairo. This would bea ten hour trip, but would require a lot of hedge hopping of Eritreain the lower valleys. In the meantime, "Obie" was arranging for allkinds of charter flights as well as local scenic tours in order tokeep the planes and pilots busy, and some income provided. Localrides were at the rate of $175 for a half an hour with 21 observersor passengers riding in the bucket seats. Certain charters had nick-names such as "Fanny Farmer" that often went to Kenya with local produceand returned with tons of cocoa and fruits. The most profitable wasthe "A&P". flying six tons of coffee to Somaliland and return withfresh seafood. Cotton was imported from ships at Aden.

TWA radio expert Harry Marshall arrived and set out in a German carfor Aouach (pronounced A-wash) to install a ground radio beaon . Thecar broke down in the Shifta country that was infested with banditsand thieves. He walked the remaining 65 miles, skirting the villages,to Aouach. In the meantime a search party had set out and they foundthe car minus everything but the precious radio equipment.

:n March 25th they inaugurated the first scheduled service to Cairo,departing at 2 A.M. and arriving in the afternoon. This was a twicea week schedule at first, and they usually cruised at 10,000' whereIt was cool. In some areas along the Red Sea it was 130 on the ground.

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Besides the flights to Cairo there were the charters; they would flyanywhere as long as they could find it on a map. Larry Trimble, inhis article on the TWA C-47 ETT-12 in the March 1985 TOPICS, told howthe plane was in Ethiopian registry with "Dutch's" help. The ET-Twas the Ethiopian registered international symbol and used on theirfleet. "Dutch" received an engraved invitation from the Emperor to areception on the 5th of May, 1946, celebrating the fifth anniversaryof his return from exile. Formal dress with decorations was requiredwhich was not in Holloway's wardrobe; this meant another shopping tripto Cairo.

In early 1947 "Dutch" returned to the USA. He was replaced by "Swede"Golien as the General Manager for the Ethiopian Air Line. In Aprilof that year Jack Frye and Paul Richter had resigned from TWA, leavingHolloway as the number one pilot on the seniority list. He soon bidSFO where he flew the Connie nonstops to the Chicago Midway Airportuntil he retired, at age 60, in January of 1956 -.

Flying the line with "Dutch" was always a rewarding experience as hewas the epitome of an airline pIlot who had graduated from the old"seat of your pants" flying to the modern art of instrument flying andstrict airways control. Bob Buck, in an interview with author BobSerling, told of his first six months on the line flying with Holloway.This was in August of 1937, flying the DC-2's and DC-3's out of Burbank.Buck was often promised a landing, but there was always a reason whythis was postponed such as: too much crosswind, the weather wasn'tjust right or it was getting dusk. On one trip they had landed andspent the night on the plane at Saugus due to fog at BUR. They ferriedthe plane to BUR the next morning and Bob was allowed the coveted take-off - but once in the air Holloway yelled: "OK, I've got it! Gear up!"

On a personal note, my first of about two dozen trips with "Dutch" wasin early 1949 on the nonstop daytime Connie Flights 36 and 35, SFO-MDW.Like Buck, there was mention of a landing sometime, but the conditionswere never favorable. I never flew with a pilot who knew his geographyand routes as well as "Dutch"; he didn't need a map or radio beam tostay on course or know his location - he knew every town, highway orother means of identification, and was always studying the smoke fromthe ground in order to mentally compute the groundspeed or drift, etc.When the weather permitted he loved to fly over the Hawthorne, Nevadaarea and study the terrain and topography below as he had mining inter-ests in the area and was always looking for a new claim site. Inbetween flights he was often working his claims and, after retiring,spent the next 26 years in search of gold, along with his brother, whooften worked the mills. He never struck the "bonanza", but did makesome money in the sale of property and mills.

For the last several years he lived in a nursing home in Ventura,near his niece Luella. A frequent visitor was Frank Busch, who des-cribed "Dutch" as always in his jovial spirits and willing to reminisceabout the good old days of flying. Frank says that he received manytakeoffs and landings while copiloting with "Dutch". The conditionsmust have been just right.

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The death of Pierre Mollineaux in April prompted Art Murphy to send acopy of this letter to Joe McCombs.

March 28, 1984

Captain A. T. HumblesTARPA SecretaryRoute 2, Box 151Belhaven, N. C. 27810

Dear A. T.:

For more time than I care to admit, I have procrastinated in writingthis letter.

From 1940 through 1960 the roster of TWA pilots carried the name ofCaptain C. H. Mollineaux, A.K.A. "Pierre" or "Molly", a man well knownto the pilots of BUR and LAX and liked by all. His name does not appearon TWA's retired list and some may be interested to know the reason.

After learning to fly in 1929 at Roosevelt Field in New York and tryingto make a living in aviation around Kingston on Long Island, Pierrejoined TWA in October 1940. He checked out to Captain at LGA and bidto BUR in 1943. It was my good fortune to fly as copilot for him onDC-3's in 1944-45. We became fast friends and have remained incontact since then.

We talked many times about his aviation experiences and he once toldme that he came to TWA with the plan to fly for 20 years and then endhis flying career.

The years passed and I had forgotten the conversation. I was a TWAcheck pilot for quite some time and had ridden with Pierre on a numberof his regular six month proficiency checks. In August 1960 after ascheduled PC, he told me that this had been the final ride for himand reminded me that his 20 years with TWA was up in October, twomonths away. We left the airport and stopped at a local pub forrefreshment and discussion. Several hours later it became obviousthat he was a determined man and the October 1960 date was indeed thedeadline of his flying career. He was not to be dissuaded then andremains convinced to this day of the wisdom of his action.

Over the years Pierre had prepared his own retirement program and inOctober 1960, after what he described as a "mutually satisfactoryarrangement with TWA", he left and closed the book on a safe and suc-cessful flying career.

Pierre has had little contact with other TWAers and does not have muchknowledge of TARPA or its activities. However, I am sure that manypilots will remember him and welcome him back to the fraternity.

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I am also sure that you will welcome him as a dues paying member ofTARPA, so am enclosing a check for his first years dues. I wouldappreciate it if you would send him a membership card and place himon the mailing list.

Very truly yours,

A. J. MurphyCaptain (Ret.)

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AVERY LENOIR

Former TWA Navigator Avery Lenoir passed away on March 4th at the ageof 74. Avery flew on the international routes during the 1950's andwas well known for his colorful personality and abundant humor.

He started his career of traveling and navigating back in the 1930s,when he sailed internationally on several large ocean-going steamyachts. At the start of WWII he learned aircraft navigation at PanAmerican Air Ferries. He than went into the service as a Lieutenantin the Ferry Command of the ATC, flying the "snowball" operation be-tween Presque Isle and Europe. In June of 1945 he was part of thecrew that helped locate and direct a stricken B-17 Flying Fortress toa safe landing. The plane had lost two engines and was lost in theGreenland area with 20 combat crewmen aboard who were returning home.After the war, Avery worked for American Overseas Airlines and a shorttime with Air Haiti before joining TWA. At this time the exact datesof Avery's years with TWA are not available.

After leaving TWA he worked for Airlift International, Capital Airwaysand Southern Air Transport before retiring after about 40 years spenton or above the oceans. His ashes were placed in the Gulf Stream byhis brother, Bill and fellow navigators Ray Terry, Roy Gentry andGordon Brion.

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J. DAVID KREYSSLER

Captain J. David Kreyssler passed away on April 10, at the age of 79.Dave was a native of Minnesota and in later years settled in SouthernCalifornia. He graduated from the University of Redlands, majoring inengineering, in 1929. Dave happened to have the "wheels" when a numberof his classmates wanted to drive to nearby March Field to sign upfor Aviation Cadet training. At the time he had no intention of sign-ing up himself, but was talked into it, and was the only one of thegroup accepted for training.

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After his year of service he stayed in the Reserve, and was calledback briefly during the 1934 Air Mail crisis to fly the mail onWestern's former route from Burbank to Salt Lake City. Dave joinedTWA on March 13, 1940 and had taken his very first trip out as captainin 1942 when he was again called back into the service. During WWIIhe flew with the Troop Carrier Command, leading the group that firsttowed gliders (with troops) into Belgium. As a leader of the 79thGroup he also flew paratroopers on "D" Day. He retired as a Lt. Col-onel and rejoined TWA, based for a short while at NY, then KC and tookearly retirement in December of 1966. At that time he was flying theB707's out of LA.

He was an active member of the First Baptist Church and a past trustee,the V.F.W. Barracks 4417, The American Legion Post 580 and, of course,an Eagle with TARPA. He is survived by his wife, Verna, of fifteenyears; sons Henry and John, daughters Lynn Johnson and Gail Johnson,two sisters, eight grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

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ORRIN O. "DIXIE" KIEFER

Captain Orrin O. Kiefer, better known to his friends as "Dixie", passedaway on February 15th. He would have been age 80 on June 17th of thisyear. Contrary to his southern nickname, he was born in Wayland, NY."Dixie" literally pursued two aviation careers, the Navy and TWA.

He first entered the Navy in September of 1927 for sea duty. InJanuary of 1929 he entered flight training at the Great Lakes primaryschool and received his wings at Pensacola in September of that year.In 1934 he won commendation from the Secretary of the Navy for thehighest gunnery and bombing scores in the cruiser division. He alsoserved as executive officer on the carrier Yorktown. It was while inthe Navy that he picked up the nickname "Dixie".

In late September of 1940 he resigned from the Navy and joined TWA asa KC based copilot on October 2nd of that year. On February 18, 1943,he rejoined the Navy and was made Commanding Officer of the HeadquartersStation of the Naval Air Primary Training Command, based at KC. "Dixie"remained in the service long after the war, until February 1, 1954,when he officially retired and rejoined TWA. At the time of his Navyretirement he had accumulated a total of nearly 24 years of activeduty, including eight years, nine months of foreign or sea service.He retired with the rank of Commander.

While based at LA he flew the Connies and B707's until his retirementon January 1, 1966. One of his favorite trips with the 707 was inJanuary of 1960 when he set a record from LAX to ORD, two hours andfifty minutes (forty minutes under schedule), then continued on toPIT with a record one hour and fifteen minute flying time. His daughterBeverly, who joined TWA as a hostess in April of 1959, was with "Dixie"on his last flight before retirement.

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Dixie was an avid golfer with a low handicap and fisherman. For thepast fifteen years he and his wife, Frances, traveled this countryand Mexico in a trailer pulled by a van with a fourteen foot aluminumboat on the top. The two celebrated their 50th wedding anniversaryon December 23rd of last year. He is survived by Frances, daughterBeverly Voiss, son Orrin Jr., grandsons Orrin III and Aaron, a brotherand two sisters.

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ARNOLD C. LUNDBERG

Captain Arnold C. Lundberg passed away on March 9th at his home inCedar Ridge, California. He was 72. "Arne was a native of Minnesotaand was an engineering graduate of the state's university.

Arne was among the large group of 1936 Navy Pensacola graduates whowere hired by TWA in the late 1939-1940 period. He started out ascopilot on January 1, 1940 and checked out as a Chicago reserve cap-tain in January 1942. During WWII he was a pilot with Squadron VR-1of the Naval Air Transport Command and made more Atlantic crossingsthan any other member of the squadron.

He took early retirement in December of 1971 and, at the time, wasflying the B-707 on his favorite run between Los Angeles and Washing-ton, D. C. Arne was an avid and adept golfer and while based at LAXwas a member of the Riviera Country Club. In 1970 the family movedto the Cedar Ridge area where he joined the Nevada County CountryClub. Arne was a member of the Retired Officers Association, TrinityEpiscopal Church and TARPA.

He was taken ill in late January, although it wasn't diagnosed untilmid-February that his illness was terminal. He is survived by hiswife, Patricia, daughter Christina of San Francisco and brother Ken-neth of Grenada, Miss.

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JAMES R. RUFF

LAX Captain James R. Ruff suffered a fatal heart attack on March 10that the age of 48. He joined TWA on June 15, 1964 and had been a checkcaptain on the Boeing 727 and 767 aircraft. At the time of his deathhe was in Kansas City checking out on the L1011. He is survived byhis wife, Jan, and three sons, James, Brad and Michael.

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All of the above articles were written by Historian Ed Betts.

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MORE MAY 30th HAPPY HOUR AND FELLOWSHIP

Smiling Lee Butler

Rich Flournoy and Al Mundo

Bill Merrigan

Lou and Dick Beck56

TOUR PLANNING REPORT BY E. C. "LUM" Edwards (805)482-5321.Since our program to MANILA / HONG KONG was met with such enthusiastic support lastyear, we have made arrangements for two more this year. Each tour will accommodatea maximum of 20 people with departures from SFO or LAX aboard PHILIPPINE AIRLINES.Group I will depart on September 2, 1986 and Group II on September 16, 1986. Bothwill follow the same itinerary and return on September 11 and 25 respectfully....Losing a day en route, we arrive in MANILA on September 4 (Grp II Sept 18) andare transferred to the extraordinarily beautiful MANILA HOTEL. Our departure fromManila will be September 7 (Grp II Sept 21) for the short flight to HONG KONG wherewe will be transferred to the PARK LANE HOTEL on Hong Kong Island overlooking theharbor and parks. Our return flight to either SFO or LAX will be on September 11(Grp II Sept 25).... Positive round trip space will be aboard PHILIPPINE Airlines747. All airport transfers overseas are included in this special package designedespecially for the TWA Seniors Club at a price of $649 per person double occupancy.You will also attend the dinner performance of the Bayanihan Dance Troup at theManila Hotel at no additional cost. Departure taxes will be the responsibilityof each passenger. ALL PARTICIPANTS MUST HAVE PASS PRIVILIGES OTHER AIRLINES.Regisfration's on a first received first assigned basis. Indicate a second choiceif you so desire. Double occupancy only. Singles should register on the same form.Full payment must accompany the registration.

TWA SENIORS CLUB, MANILA / HONG KONG TOURSEPTEMBER 1986

Recent activities in Europe have prompted several cruise companies to pull their shipsout of the Mediterranean. Princess Cruises will use the PACIFIC PRINCESS (The Love Boat)for a CANADA / ALASKA 7 night package that will include EXPO '86 in VANCOUVER. The TWASeniors have been offered a sailing date of August 24, 1986 from SEATTLE with arrivalthe next morning in VANCOUVER. Passengers will be provided with a two-day pass forEXPO '86. After an overnight and an opportunity to re-visit the Expo, your ship willdepart Vancouver at 5pm of that second day to cruise the inside passage to the MISTYFJORD with a port of call at KETCHIKAN. The next day will be a full day of cruisingwhile you enjoy the ship. Arrival in VICTORIA the next morning, will give you ampletime to visit this beautiful city and BUTCHART GARDENS before departure at midnight.Arrival in SEATTLE will be at 8am on the morning of the eighth day. Double occupancyonly. Port tax of about $35 PP and $25PP registration fee will be added to cruise cost.OUR SECOND PACKAGE will be a TRANS-CANAL 16 day cruise on THE ROYAL VIKING SKY depart-ing from FT. LAUDERDALE FLORIDA at 7pm OCTOBER 8,1986. Ports of call will be OCHORIOS, JAMICA and WILLEMSTAD, CURACAO, NETHERLANDS ANTILLES before a daylight transitof the PANAMA CANAL. The ship will then call at ALCAPULCO, ZIHUATANEJO, and PUERTOVALLARTO, MEXICO before continuing on to LOS ANGELES. Passengers may stay on the cruiseto SAN FRANCISCO at no extra charge. Port taxes of $50 per person and registrationfee of $25 per person will be added to cruise cost. Our singles please note, you maybe accommodated in and inside cabin for $2191 or outside cabin for $2938, for theRoyal Viking cruise only.

RUNAWAY ELECTRIC SEAT PROCEDURE

1. INITIAL ACTION..............Determine which seat is runningaway. During the stress of routine operations, it is possibleto mistake which seat is running away. Example: If Captain'sseat is running out of control forward, it may appear to the Cap-tain the the F/0's seat is running backwards. This is a commonform of spatial disorientation and will only last until theCaptain is emasculated on the control column. Do not disengagethe autopilot at this time as a violent pitchdown will result.

2. SILENCE AURAL WARNINGS.......With the advent of a runaway seat,crew members describe noises of a low rumbling nature followedby the words, "Jesus, my seat is out of control", followed by apiercing scream of increasing intensity and pitch, in the caseof forward runaways. To comply with procedures, F/0 will silencethe aural warning by clamping his hand over the Captain's mouthand advise "Captain's mouth shut...shut". Refer to the checklist, located under the Captain's seat, for further action.

3. JAMMED BALLS.................Should the seat runaway in theforward mode, the ball bearings will interlock and jam the seatwhen it is four inches from the instrument panel. The seat willthen travel no further forward, but begin traveling up in thevertical mode. The Captain will advise crew, "I have jammedballs". The F/E will read the CAPTAIN JAMMED BALLS check listlocated in the aft lavatory. It is important that the crew checkthe control column for damage at this time. If the controlcolumn is broken, the crew will advise the dispatcher that theCaptain has broken stick and jammed balls.

4. CIRCUIT BREAKER - PULL.......The F/E will pull the Captain's seatC.B. to prevent the seat from running further up in the verticalmode, which could cause the bearings to overheat and result in aball burst. This would necessitate use of the BROKEN BALLS checklist. Since the F/E can rarely find the correct C.B., it is sug-gested that any C.B. be pulled so as not to delay completion ofthe check list. Example: pull V.G.#1. The Captain's positionwill prevent him from cross checking this step.

5. SEAT UP - UP.................Should the seat runaway continue inthe vertical mode, the F/O will advise "Seat Up-Up", to which theCaptain will reply, "Mblxjrubmd crxzwe". Captain's reply willvary with the height to which his seat has risen. It is suggestedprocedure to put a pillow under the Captain's head and land at thenearest suitable airport.

- Submitted by Bill Townsend

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MAY 30th CONTINUED

John Lattimore

Walt Gunn and "Dub" Youngblood

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Tommy Carroll

EDITORS NOTES

We are using a lot of personal experiences in this issue. Thank youfor taking the time to write. Some we can't use because you forgot togive your name, and some of you sent X-rated material. Maybe we'llput out a special adult edition.

A. T. Humbles asked us to remind any of you who served in the 384thBomb Group of the Eighth Air Force that you are invited to join theirfraternal organization. If you wish to join, get in touch with A. T.

SAVE A CONNIE

Captain John Hatcher sends the interesting news that a group has beenformed in Kansas City to preserve a Constellation. Charter members(those willing to donate $1,000.00) will have a priority on seatswhen the ship is being flown to airshows.

Captain Hatcher says that the TWA Seniors in MKC and the KC ClippedWings are lending support. The plan is to buy a 1049H which thegroup has located in Mesa, Arizona. Fuel for the ferry flight toKansas City will be donated and an operator in Kansas City hasoffered free parking. This surely sounds like a worthwhile project.Captain Hatcher's address:

Captain John Hatcher10420 Mohawk Lane,Leawood, Kansas 66206

COLLECTOR NEEDS HELP

Dr. Charles C. Quarles who is an airline historian and collector ofpilot and hostess insignia says he is interested in acquiring someearly TWA and TAT insignia.

His entire collection will eventually go to the Ohio History ofFlight Museum at Port Columbus. Meantime, he would like to preparea mounted TWA flight crew insignia display at Port Columbus which wassuch an important place for early TAT and TWA operations. Dr. Quarlessays he would be happy to accept contributions, or would pay a fairprice for the items he needs.

If you can help, his address is:

Dr. Charles C. Quarles, Associate HistorianCapital Airlines Association204 Reservation DriveSpindale, NC 28160

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EDITORS NOTES

JOHN HAPPY is now working on TARPA TOPICS. The photos of the conven-tion are courtesy of John, and he is also going to do some art work.Welcome, John!

Have you returned your updated personal information form to ourSecretary?

We are sorry this issue of TARPA TOPICS is so late. It was delayedso that we could present some convention news. We will try to improveour on-time performance in the future.

We miss Ole Olson on the GRAPEVINE, but we are lucky to have such acompetent and hard working replacement. DICK GUILLAN invites any ofyou with cartooning talent to volunteer to illustrate something forthe GRAPEVINE occasionally. If you can spare the time, write toDick at his GRAPEVINE address.

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" IF WE WEREN'T MATURE WHEN WE WENT IN,WE CERTAINLY ARE NOW

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MY MOST MEMORABLE TRIP ON THE LINE

By Ed Betts

I would imagine that a number of the yarns (that are printable) sub-mitted by our TARPA members with regards to their most interesting,unusual and exciting trips on the line have to do with a hairy situationwhere they were on their back tossing in a violent thunderstorm, anengine or two on fire and the "stick shaker" going wild. My own wasrather routine, more like a chapter from "Soap". It was Flight 100on May 25, 1946, an all-nighter in both directions from SFO to ABQ viaBurbank with plane #385 (NC1944). The Captain, Jim Moser, was a greatguy and he liked to arrive at his destination well rested. I got lotsof needed practice steering the aircraft and kept awake drinking theluke warm and stale coffee brought to the cockpit by a charming hostess,Donna Breckenridge.

Donna was new to the airline and abided by the rules of not more thanthree minutes in the cockpit, which was just enough time to get acquainted.She passed all of the purity tests such as she never heard of the "MileHigh Club" or Charlie "Black Dog" Davis, so I arranged a date duringthe layover and we agreed to meet at six in the lobby of the AlvaradoHotel. I guess that I wasn't very specific as Donna showed up at 6 a.m.(we arrived about 5 a.m.) expecting breakfast and got stood up .....Iarrived at 6 p.m. and got the same no show treatment. It was not avery good beginning of a romance, but we patched things up and inDecember of that year we were married. So much for the "soap".

In May of 1982 I was contacted by a pilot with Union Oil Company,Bob Beechler, who was doing some research on a DC-3 they were retiringwith regards to a book of its history. It was the same plane, #385,that Union had purchased from TWA in November of 1950 and convertedto an executive type. Ted Weaver and I spent an afternoon at the Bur-bank Airport with Beechler going over the plane. I wrote an articlein the December 20, 1982 SKYLINER on the subject. There wasn't muchto identify it as a former TWA aircraft.

Besides a new paint job it had a new NC number, 760 (part of Union'slogo), and numerous modifications visible from the exterior: the maxi-pack for streamlining that included doors over the main gear in theretracted position, shorter and square wing tips, etc. The interiorwas like a plush lounge with divan, big swivel chairs, bar and stain-less serving area. The cockpit was the same on the copilot's side,but the pilot had modern instruments, flight director, radar and anauto pilot for coupled approaches. Needless to add, there was amodern heating system for the cabin and cockpit and the windshieldswere a single piece and electrically heated which eliminated the leakproblem. It also had 1350 hp P&W engines and grossed at 26,200 pounds(TWA used 25,200).

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The plane had 47,656 hours on it and was in the process of beingdonated by Union to the LA Science Museum in Exposition Park. Themuseum had hoped to have it on display in time for the Olympics butthis was delayed by negotiations between the two parties getting theplane's wings removed and permits to tow it through the city freeways,etc.

(NOTE) Actually, the plane is parked outside (next to a United DC-6)of the new Aerospace building that is part of the California Museum ofScience and Industry, located at LA's Exposition Park.

Back to the "Soap", Donna and I had occasion to look the plane over aswe approach our 40th anniversary and do a bit of reminiscing about ourfirst tryst. I have since learned to be more specific with appointedtimes. Incidentally, "Irv" and Edith Kravitz can top this for "soap".as the Ford Tri-motor that they were married in (in flight) is amuseum attraction at Harrahs in Reno.

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65

THE WILD MAN OF WINSLOW

By Dave Kuhn

When Emily (my wife) and I came back to Texarkana, Arkansas afterthe St. Louis TARPA bash, I took to my recovery room for about a dayand a half. While unpacking my suitcase, I found a note from RichieBeighlie suggesting that I put into writing some things that happenedback when. I know of one about Bud Gorman that has been told butnever, to my knowledge, been jotted down. So without benefit of aword processor and plagued with hardened arteries in the head, heregoes.

Elmer "Bud" Gorman was not out of the same cloth as was most of Trans-continental and Western Air copilots in the thirties. He was no BillyGraham, but was an ordained minister. He could legally perform amarriage or talk about the wages of sin if so requested. Unlike mostof his peers, he was no womanizer, even if opportunities were present.Rather, he was married to a very pretty girl and had started a family -I think. How he did it on our copilots salary attests to good manage-ment and a light appetite. He read books (heavy stuff) on psychologyand philosophy.....things I can't spell unaided. One might suspect-that Bud was a rather colorless sort. Not so, I was there when ithappened.

Now to set the stage, we leave Gorman and go to Winslow, Arizona. Inthe thirties, Winslow was definitely in the fast lane. Located justwest of the Petrified Forest and southwest of the Painted Desert, itwas our first hub on the airline. The Little Colorado river (usuallydry) was just east and for sightseers, meteor crater to the west.Winslow boasted of a nine hole golf course which was all sand, sagebrush and rattlesnakes. Being a division point for the Santa Fe aswell as Greyhound, we pilots had lots of company at the Harvey House.

Transcontinental and Western Air had flights from Burbank, to Needles,Prescott to Winslow, thence to Albuquerque, with a stop at Deep Lakewhen the flag was up. Other flights went by Phoenix. Our run wasfrom San Francisco, Oakland, Fresno, Las Vegas, Boulder City, GrandCanyon (summer time) to Winslow. After that many "up gears" it wastime for a layover. There were more DC-2's in the air than payingcustomers aboard. The company would give passes to most anyone.Jack Frye got some juicy air mail contracts which kept the Lindberghline airborne.

In the lobby, one late afternoon, some were reading. The bus driverswere talking about Greyhound. The railroaders were talking about theSanta Fe while the pilots were talking about flying. That's about

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normal since people discuss subjects only they are interested in.When Bud came into the lobby, a hush fell over the room. Someonesaid, "Looks like he has been loading hogs". The clothes were filthy,face dirty, a long matted wig hung to his shoulders. A huge set ofbuck teeth filled his face. Liquid soap frothed from his mouth downto his bare feet. The desk clerk was a new hire. Gorman demanded aroom on the west side in order to watch the sun set. With some hesi-tation, he got the key and headed down the hall. The froth from hisface left an easy trail.

When the shock subsided, the conversation started. "Who was thismonster mad man?" Could it be a renegade Indian who had broken outof the reservation near Gallup? Some speculated that it was a mountainman out of the peaks at Flagstaff. Others were willing to wager hewas a frustrated miner who failed to locate the Lost Dutchman minein Superstition Mountain.

After the hotel manager was located and filled in on the situation,he and the shaken clerk proceeded to the room with a view for a settingsun. The room was empty. The window was open. Huge footprints inthe flower bed were a clue as to how the room was vacated.

Meanwhile, Bud had gone to his room. After discarding his costumeand cleaning up a bit, he came to the lobby. His act was perfect.After being told of the problem, he joined in the hunt. The town mar-shall had been summoned. Too big a job for him. He deputized severalof the locals. The hotel offered a fifty dollar reward for the appre- ,hension of the wildman. Mothers were advised to keep the childrenlocked behind doors and everyone off of the streets. There was fearin Winslow. Fifty dollars was big in the thirties. This promptedcowboys to arm with 30-30's, saddle up and scour the sagebrush aroundtown. The search continued through the night. Bud Gorman did hisfair share of it

I was transferred to Kansas City in the fall, to see if I had theright stuff or possessed qualifications for Captain material, Thelast I heard of this episode, mothers still locked the kids indoorsat night, cowboys still scoured the sage brush and fear remained inWinslow. The monster was never found, much less apprehended.

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MORE ABOUT HUGH HERNDONBy Joe Carr

In the last article about Hugh Herndon, a request was made foradditional news about his early TWA career. By referring back tomy logbooks and some pencilled notations in the margins, I wasable to refresh my memory on some specifics.

Although I must have met Hugh when he attended our new-hireGround and Transition training, my first strong recollection ofhim was made more vivid because of a personal involvement. Earlyon, in the ICD operation, we flew from Washington National toPresque Isle, Maine and, after a layover, proceeded to Prestwick,Scotland. Upon our return to Presque Isle, we shuttled back toPrestwick at least once before returning to Presque Isle andsubsequently home to Washington.

Fred Sigman and I had completed one round trip of his firstcheck-out ride and were preparing to double back to Prestwick,when I finally completed a phone call home and got the news thatmy wife was in a hospital. My face must have hung down to myknees when I came out of the phone booth because Don Terrystopped to ask about my problem. When he heard the news, hevolunteered to take my trip even though he had already done adouble-shuttle; the "Terrible Turk" may have been a thorn in theside of management but he had a huge heart underneath that bluffexterior. He took my trip to Prestwick, with a few of my cleanshirts and socks, and I completed his trip to Washington withHugh Herndon as my copilot on July 1, 1943. At Don's request, Ihand carried a report to Fred Richardson (then Chief Pilot ofICD) that Hugh be checked out to Captain as soon as possiblebased on his airplane handling ability and previous experienceacross the North Atlantic. From what I saw on the relatively easytrip down the coast , I concurred. Old ICD hands will rememberthat we desperately needed Captains during those early yearsbecause many of the pilots all airlines were hiring didn'thave much flying time and little cross-country experience; somedidn't have an Instrument Rating. The local council agreed thatit would be unfair to the inexperienced pilots to begin the checkout process even though they had the seniority so we passed themby until they had received more training; with that intensivetraining they turned out to be some of the finest pilots we haveever had on TWA and I am proud of the part I played in thatprocess.

My next flight with Hugh, on August 2 of that year, was also amemorable one for me because he was the first pilot to whom Igave an A.T.R. check ride. I thanked my lucky stars that he didan outstanding job because, with the F.A.A. along to see if I wastough enough to be the new Designated Flight Examiner for A.T.R.and Instrument Ratings, I threw the book at him. He made that

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old Boeing Stratoliner pirouette and dance as he fine tuned allof the procedures. I was being groomed to replace Swede Gallen,who had been one of the first to be selected by the F.A.A. toperform flight checks in what was then a radical departure fromtheir previous stand that all flight checks be performed by theF.A.A.; but Swede was moving up in the ICD hierachy and his otherduties prevented him from performing many flight checks. BecauseI was then Director of Training, my appointment as "designee"meant that I could combine a TWA check ride with the F.A.A.flight check to speed up the process and save a considerable sumin training costs.

The check- out that Larry Trimble referred to in his letter, wasthe Line Check that followed; those of you who have ever been putthrough the wringer by Larry will remember that it was no pieceof cake. Larry's comments must have been very positive andprobably reinforced Terry's previous remarks because FredRichardson appointed Hugh as a Line Check Pilot after a only fewtrips as Pilot in Command. I have never heard anything but praisefor that appointment.

Many of the older and more experienced pilots we hired duringthe early years of ICD, contributed a great deal to the "go-any-where" type of operation we were engaged in since it was similarto what they had been doing. Several outstanding exceptions tothe old saw that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, were HughHerndon, Eddie Wells, Joe Grant and Jack Hermann. All continuedto learn, adjust, and eventually adapt to the strictly regimentedlife of scheduled operations, both Domestic and International.

Shortly after the establishment of Cairo as a Crew Domicile,after ICD was transformed into the International Division, Hughbid for a transfer to that domicile and flew the North Africanand Bombay runs. When Ray Wells decided to return to the New Yorkdomicile, Hugh was appointed to relieve him as Director of theMiddle East Region. Others who worked with Hugh in Cairo willhave to fill in the gap of the next few years because I saw verylittle of him until I also bid a vacancy at Cairo early in 1950.

I enjoyed only a few weeks of the country-club atmosphere atCairo when Hugh asked me to take over as Chief Pilot of thedomicile for "a few months" until the F.A.A. had calmed down.They blew an incident completely out of proportion when FrancisPope landed at an airport near the Suez Canal because Cairo wasfogged in. The sin, that brought down the wrath of the gods, wasthat he took off without a Dispatch Release! In all fairness toPope, ground communications within Egypt were never the greatestso he performed all of the rest of the required pre-flightbriefing and returned the aircraft and passengers to Cairo

69

without talking to Cairo Dispatch. Bob McReynolds supported hischeck pilot, as any upstanding Chief Pilot would, but thatinfuriated the resident F.A.A. inspector so much that he demandedboth Pope and McReynolds be fired. He backed off a little whenHugh told him that a "new broom" with previous office experiencewould take over and clean up the alleged "loose" practices atthat domicile; McReynolds and Pope were allowed to stay in Cairoto fly bid runs while Neal Lytle and I buckled down to dot thei's and cross the t's for the F.A.A.

Shortly after that, Hugh stopped flying and always had someonewell qualified along, even during his trips with the DC-3(ETT 12) to Jeddah and Addis Ababa to keep in touch with those twoairlines with whom TWA had training and management contracts. Iknew about his love for flying and, on several occasions, I triedto arrange a check ride to requalify him for line flying to helpstop a few snide remarks about a "non-flying" Regional Director.He always had a convincing excuse. Only after the funeral did Il earn from Dr. Honey, the F.A.A. medical examiner and Hugh'spersonal physician, that Hugh had known about his heart conditionfor some time and had promised the doctor that he would do noflying except as copilot.

Unless pressed, Hugh avoided discussing his record making flightacross the Pacific except to say that he felt he had been treatedshabbily by Pangborn in the years that followed; Pangborn's heirshave kept up the drum beat for their side of the story judgingfrom some articles that appeared in trade magazines last year.During my Cairo stay, I had an opportunity to get to know Hughbetter and I was tremendously impressed with him as an completegentleman and an extremely easy man to work with. Perhapsbecause he was brought up in a world of wealth and culture,Hugh had all the social graces and he used them well -- to theadvantage of TWA. In those days, the State Department was moreof a hindrance than a help and the work that Hugh did withrepresentatives of the countries in the Middle East allowed us tocontinue to operate and thrive in that difficult part of theworld. He was quite skillful in countering the undercutting bythe French and British, surprisingly our biggest detractors, whoregarded us as usurpers in what had been their traditionalspheres of influence.

My only criticism of Hugh as a boss was that he was not positiveand forceful enough but, in retrospect, that was an attributethat was needed in the diplomatic circles in which he mingled byvirtue of his position as a representative of a prominentAmerican firm. But in the cockpit he was in complete charge andevery bit a competent airman.

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Aerospace Books

Doing a hammerheadin the Connie

Contributed by Frank Burcham

Aviation before World War II hadbeen for the pioneer, the daringrecord-seeker, the sportsman pilot, afew relatively wealthy travelers, gov-ernment officials, and the military.

A new Lockheed transport, the com-pany's first large one, would carrymore people farther and faster andmore safely than ever before, and eco-nomically enough to broaden the ac-ceptance of flying as an alternative totrain; ship, and automobile.

The Constellation was a tremendouschallenge to Lockheed: It was our firstattempt to enter the large-size transport field

Our commercial Model 14, so suc-cessful as the Hudson anti-submarinepatrol bomber and the related Model18 Lodestar—really a stretched Elec-tra—were not large enough to competein the expected post-war commercialair travel market.

Anticipating the future well beforethe war, we had worked on new de-signs, including Model 27, a canard,with horizontal stabilizer and controlsurfaces in front of the main support-ing surfaces—or simply, with tail infront. We built a mockup but had thesense not to pursue this into produc-tion. The canard was impossible tomake safe at high angles of attack—asthe Russians learned with their super-sonic TU-144 that crashed at the ParisAir Show in 1973.

Another was the Model 44 Excali-bur, a very good "DC-4" in advanceof the DC-4. Pan American Airwaysexpressed interest. Again, we built amockup. Fortunately, we did not buildit in prototype, as it would have been

Excerpted from Kelly by Clarence L."Kelly" Johnson with Maggie Smith.Copyright © 1985 by SmithsonianInstitution. Published by SmithsonianInstitution Press, Washington, $17.50.Aerospace Books edited by Bruce Frisch.

too small for competitive over-oceanservice.

Then, in 1939, Howard Hughes asprincipal stockholder and Jack Frye aspresident of Transcontinental & West-ern Air, Inc:, had asked Robert Grossif a transport could be designed tocarry 20 sleeping passengers and 6,000pounds of cargo across the U.S. non-Atop and at the highest possible cruis-ing speeds. They suggested 250-300mph at around 20,000 feet.

We abandoned our earlier studiesand concentrated on the new airlinerfor TWA. What we proposed—RobertGross, Hall Hibbard, and I—toHughes at a meeting in his MuirfieldRoad residence in the elegant old Han-cock Park section of Los Angeles wasa large airplane, capable of flyingacross the ocean and carrying manymore people. We reasoned that it waseconomically unsound to carry only 20sleeping passengers when we could ac-commodate more than 100 people in

'the same space with normal seating.Our design could fly transatlantic withthe Wright 3350 engine already indevelopment for the military B-29bomber. It was the world's largest air-cooled engine.

That "Day of Infamy," Sunday,December 7, 1941, put a hold on allcommercial aircraft production.

The Air Force, fortunately for theConstellation program, saw a need formilitary transport aircraft to carrylarge numbers of troops. The Constel-lation was "drafted."

The Constellation made its firstflight on January 9, 1943, in militaryolive drab paint, as the C-69.

At the end of World War II, Lock-heed was in the enviable position ofhaving a new, highly-advanced trans-port, thoroughly tested in militaryservice and ready for commercialairline production. The first deliveriesof an initial Model 049 actually were

71

conversions of Air Force C-69s alreadyin work. It took only 90 days to turnout the first commercial model, whichwent to TWA in November 1945.

There were big plans to publicize in-troduction of this new transport inservice with TWA. Howard Hugheshimself wanted to be at the controls ofwhat would be a record-breaking,cross-country flight carrying press andHollywood celebrities.

Hughes would have to be checkedout in the new airplane before attempt-ing the cross-country flight, of course.So, before it was delivered to TWA,Milo Burcham, Dick Stanton as flightengineer, and I took Hughes and JackFrye on a demonstration and indoctri-nation flight. Frye was just observing,but Hughes was to learn how the planeperformed and how best to handle it.

Our normal procedure in checkingout a new pilot in an airplane was to gothrough the maneuvers carefully, thenhave the student follow through on thecontrols from the copilot seat.

We had just taken off from Burbankand were only a few thousand feet overthe foothills behind the plant whenHughes said to Milo: "Why don't youshow me how this thing stalls?" '

So Milo lowered the flaps and gear,put on a moderate amount of power,pulled up, and stalled it. The Constel-lation had fine stall characteristics,and recovered in genteel fashion.

Hughes turned to Milo and said,"Hell, that's no way to stall. Let medo it."

Milo turned the controls over tohim. I was standing between them inthe cockpit. Howard reached up,grabbed all four throttles and appliedtakeoff power with the flaps fulldown. The airplane was so lightlyloaded it would practically fly on theslip stream alone. Hughes then pro-ceeded to pull back the control columnall the way into his lap, as far as it

AEROSPACE AMERICA/JANUARY 1986

Excerpted from

Kelly

by Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson

with Maggie Smith

would go, to stall the airplane.Never before nor since have I seen

an airspeed indicator read zero in theair. But that's the speed we reached—zero—with a big, four engine air-plane pointed 90° to the horizon andalmost no airflow over any of the sur-faces except what the propellers wereproviding. Then the airplane fell for-ward enough to give us some momen-tum. Just inertia did it, not any aero-dynamic control.

At that point, I was floating againstthe ceiling, yelling, "Up flaps! Upflaps!" I was afraid that we'd breakthe flaps, since we'd got into a verysteep angle when we pitched down. Orthat we'd break the tail off with veryhigh flap loads.

Milo jerked the flaps up and got theairplane under control with about2,000 feet between us and the hills.

I was very concerned with Howard'sidea of how to stall a big transport.

We continued on our flight to Palm-dale Airport, where we were going topractice takeoffs and landings. Thewhole desert area was mostly opencountry in those days and an idealplace for test flying.

Once on the runway, Milo andHoward exchanged seats. On takeofffrom Burbank, Milo had shownHoward what the critical speeds were,so Howard now took the plane off.But he had great difficulty in keeping iton a straight course. He used so muchthrust and developed so much torquethat the plane kept angling closer andcloser to the control tower. We circledthe field without incident and came infor an acceptable landing. ThenHoward decided to make additionalflights, and on the next takeoff hecame even closer to the control tower,with an even greater angle of yaw. Hewas not correcting adequately with therudder. He made several more takeoffsand landings, each worse than the last.

He was not getting any better at all,only worse. I was not only concernedfor the safety of all aboard, but for thepreservation of the airplane. It still be-longed to us.

Jack Frye was sitting in the first rowof passenger seats, and I went back totalk to him.

"Jack, this is getting damned dan-gerous," I said. "What should I do?"

"Do what you think is right, Kelly,"he said. That was no great help. Hedidn't want to be the one to crossHughes.

I returned to the cockpit. What Ithought was the right thing to do wasto stop this. And on the sixth takeoff,which was atrocious, the most danger-ous of them all, I waited until we wereclear of the tower and at pattern alti-tude, before I said: "Milo, take thisthing home."

Hughes turned and looked at me asthough I had stabbed him, then heglanced at Milo.

I repeated, "Milo, take this thinghome." There was no question aboutwho was running the airplane pro-gram. Milo got in the pilot ' s seat, Itook the copilot's seat, and we flewhome. Hughes was livid with rage. Ihad given him the ultimate insult for apilot, indicating essentially that hecouldn ' t fly competently.

A small group was waiting at thefactory to hear Hughes's glowing re-port on his flight as pilot of the Con-stellation. That's not what they heard.

Robert Gross was furious with me.What did I mean, insulting ourfirst—and best—customer? It wasdamned poor judgment, he said. Hib-bard didn't tell me so forcefully thatI'd made a mistake, because he alwaysconsidered another person's feelings,but he definitely was unhappy and letme know it. Perhaps most angry of allwas the company's publicity manager,Bert Holloway. He had a press flight

scheduled that would result in nationalattention, headlines in newspapersacross the country and in the aviationpress around the world. Because, ofcourse, the plane would set a speedrecord. Would Hughes follow throughas planned? By then, I didn't care whatanyone else said. I went home andpoured some White Horse and soda.

It was a frigid reception I receivedthe next day at the plant. But when Iexplained what the situation had been,that in my judgment I did. the onlything I could to keep. Hughes from .crashing the plane, and then Hugheslater agreed to spend a couple of dayslearning how to fly the plane as ourpilot would demonstrate, the atmo-spheresphere thawed.

We offered a bonus to our flight- crew to check Hughes out in the planeover the next weekend. Rudy Thoren,our chief flight test engineer, took myplace. I never flew with Hughes again;it was mutually agreeable.

On his next time in the airplane,Hughes changed his attitude consider-ably. He followed instructions care-fully. He was the only pilot I everknew, though, who could land one ofour airplanes at cruising speed! Hemust have made 50 or 60 practice take-offs and landings over the weekend. Infact, he was flying right up to takeofftime for the cross-country flight.

On the flight, as he was approachingDenver, Hughes encountered a bigthunderstorm that had not been pre-dicted. Instead of flying around orover it, and perhaps adding to theflight time, he plowed right through it.Unfortunately, the passengers had notbeen warned of turbulence and severalnot strapped in their seats were in-jured, though not seriously.

A record transcontinental crossingwas set—Los Angeles to Washington,D.C., in an elapsed time of 6 hr 57 min51 sec.

72 AEROSPACE AMERICA/JANUARY 1986

Wings of glory

Harold Neumann has owned this 1941 radial-engineMonocoupe for 18 years, and it has served him well.Recently, the 79-year-old aviator piloted it in a regional

aerobatics competition and took first place. Not bad for aflier who doesn't even practice all that often. (staff photoby Patrick Sullivan)

Aerobatic competitions keep veteran pilot flying high at 79It wasn't necessary to read Harold

Neumann's name on it."I'm always the oldest pilot," said Mr.

Neumann of Leawood, long and trim in ablue jumpsuit, "and it's always the old-est plane."

Fifty years ago this September, Har-old Neumann was the country's No. 1racing pilot.

Fifty years ago, he won the ThompsonTrophy, the main prize of the principalheat of the National Air Races, an eventthat then had a grip on the nationalimagination.

Fifty years ago, he was 29 years old,

By Brian Burnesstaff writer (K.C. Star)

Ottawa, Kan.—At 8 a.m. Saturday,they opened the hangar doors atOttawa Municipal Airport and all

the acrobatic pilots pulled their planesout into the sun.

Several planes had shining fuselagesof cherry red. Many had their owners'names scripted handsomely near thecockpits.

By itself, at the far end of the hangar,sat a white Monocoupe—built in 1941,with the old-fashioned radial engine.

well along the path that would take himwhere he is today—his wins recorded atthe Smithsonian Institution, his storytold in the Time-Life The Epic of Flightbook series (he's in the Barnstormers &Speed Kings volume), his esteem heldhigh in the minds of his fellow membersof the Kansas City chapter of the Inter-national Aerobatic Club.

It would all be enough—even if hehadn't taken first place in the Sportsmancategory in a regional aerobatic compe-tition early this month in Clarinda, Iowa,atage79. ( Cont.)

73

Pilot continued

Harold Neumann as a young pilot, in the days of barnstormers and speed kings, such as Jimmy Doolittle and Roscoe Turner.

Harold Neumann not only beat thecompetition, but some say he also beatthe forgiving standards sometimes al-lowed by judges blinded by prestige.

"We call it the old halo factor," saidHerb Hodge, a pilot and a director in theKansas City chapter of the aerobaticclub.

"Occasionally, you'll get somebodywho is so well liked and whose reputa-tion is so good that he's going to getdecent scores even if he doesn't fly thatwell.

"But what he did up in Clarinda wasflat-out fly the field. There was no haloinvolved."

Saturday was the final day of theKansas City Regional AerobaticChampionship, an event in anticipationof an international aerobatic flying finallater this summer in Fond du Lac, Wis.,and a national meet this September inTexas. About 30 pilots competed in fourcategories and performed precision aer-obatics in a " 1,000 meters square.

It's a spot that Mr. Neumann feelscompelled to champion: its safety rec-ord, its camaraderie, its ritual. On Sat-urday morning, at the far end of thehangar, Mr. Neumann would do thefollowing:

Strap in. There's the parachute, whichweighs about 10 pounds. There's a shoul-der harness. There are seat straps. Inthe summer, he often wears a wet towelaround his neck. He often has to grip theextended stick with both hands. TheMonocoupe cockpit, because of the radi-al engine, has an instrument panel highenough to restrict visibility.

"So I'm kind of at adisadvantage.Mr. Neumann s aid - following hiscom-

ment with a distinct, high-pitchedlaughthat seemed to serve as an exclamationpoint for his huge understatement.

Take off. He said hefound theMonocoupe sitting in an Ohiofield in1967, the year after he retiredfrom

_ commercial airline flying. The relic re-

( Continued)

PILOT HAROLD NEUMANN (Continued)minded him of a smaller Mono-coupe he had flown in the 1930s,and he coaxed it back to KansasCity on the usual wing and aprayer.

"It had gotten some water in-side the wings. And this was inFebruary. It had iced up, but itwas so cold it helped hold ittogether. When I got it home andthawed it out in a hangar, thewood just fell out of it." Helaughed again.

Fly. In the box in which theprecision aerobatic competitionoccurs, Mr. Neumann would per-form several maneuvers. Amongthem were a "split-S," which is ahalf-roll and a half-loop; and anImmelmann, the reverse of that,in which the pilot pulls up in ahalf-loop and then makes a half-roll out.

Mr. Neumann would come in`second—second by 13 points outof a possible 2,500 or so. ("Just aflick of the judges' eye differ-ence," Mr. Hodge would say. "Hisflying was excellent.") Mr. Neu-mann would touch down, taxi in,cut the engine, climb slowly out jand—at age 79—help push in his 1

lane."I'm trying to be careful," he

said. "My blood pressure is thesame as it was when I was 21. Aslong as I don't black out or seestars when I pull 7 G's. That'skey."

The aviation history Mr. Neu-mann represents can only becapsulized here, but the firstplane he bought, in the mid-1920s, was an old Curtiss "Jen-ny," designed by Glenn Curtiss,whose home in Hammondsport,N.Y., was where Mr. Neumannwas inducted into the NationalAviation Hall of Fame in 1971.

The second plane he boughtwas a Travelair that he pickedup in Wichita from the designerWalter Beech. One of his flyinglicenses-he still has it—wassigned by Orville Wright. One ofthe many services he provided inthe 1930s was skywriting.

"Chevrolet—the word—Iwrote mostly in block form," hesaid, "but I got so that I couldwrite it in script. I had to cut itoff in the middle. If I went fromthe 'v' and continued to the itwould all kind of melt together."

The plane in which he won the1935 Thompson Trophy wasnamed "Mister Mulligan," aKansas City-built racer, painted

white. (He painted his 1941 Mo-nocoupe white, and one day helooked at it at just the rightangle. It is still named "Harold'sLittle Mulligan," with the numer-al 40, still his racing numberfrom back in the 1930s, on itssides).

He retired at the top of hisprofession. According to anagreement he made when he washired by Transcontinental andWestern Air, now TWA, the 1936race was his last. The airline wasupgrading from Ford trimotorsto DC-2s, and Mr. Neumann hadgood references.

"Roscoe Turner, JimmyDool-ittle. . . all the people I thoughtit would be worthwhile mention-ing," he said, and then laughed.

He retired from the airline in1966. The International Aerobat-ic Club came together severalyears later. "I've done it all, andI've got a good record," Mr.Neumann said. This year he re-turned to Cleveland, site of the1935 National Air Races, for a50th anniversary symposium ofthe event, and he mildly resenteda newspaper headline that de-scribed him as a "stunt" pilot.""This is the point I want to getacross: We're not a bunch of stuntpilots," he said. "We call itaerobatics.

"There's such a thing as air-show flying. It's low-level flying,trying to please the crowd and dothings that look scary. It's safe,but you try to get them all excit-ed.

"This is not that kind of asport. This is beauty and skill.

"The trouble with me is that Itook this up as a sport. I justwouldn't work too hard at it. Iwas always close to winning, butI was just having fun. Then boysgot on to me about practicingmore, so I did.

"I practiced six days beforeClarinda and I won first place. Inother words, this is what it takes.And I don't like to work thathard. You feel it in your legs,working the rudders and so forth,and the parachute on your back."

Still, the other alternative isnot practicing. It's not an option,he said.

"This is competition with yourfriends. It makes you go out andpractice.

"Otherwise, you get old. Why,you can get lazy and just not doanything."

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

The following personal experience article is from Frank Corwin.

My first trip on the line was from Kansas City-Chicago-New York,La Guardia airport on October 4, 1941. Flight Number 40, StratolinerService, Boeing 307. I flew with Captain Stan Stanton, copilot I haveno name; R. L. Proctor, Ck Flight Engineer.

Memories of trip: This marvelous new machine...four engines...pres-surized cabin (the first in commercial use here in the United States,the first to include a third crew member better known as a FlightEngineer, also in the United States). Between Chicago and New Yorkwe climbed to 15 or 17 thousand feet and pressurization was required.Wrestling with the hand crank to smoothly control and maintain cabinpressure...automatic feature inoperative as usual...never exceeding300 ft/min according to the manual. I don't recall any serious com-plaints, but I was told that all the passengers were chewing gum rapidlyand swallowing hard.

The return flight #45, leaving a little after midnight..."Red EyeSpecial"...stopping in Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Chicago to Kansas Cityand captained by Alton (Ladysman) Parker. On board that night we hadErrol Flynn and several Hollywood gals supposedly sleeping in thosenice berths in the cabin. We were arriving Pittsburg at 3:04 AM (ontime) and I guess we leveled off a little high (that aircraft couldbe tricky on landing) and clomped on the runway, bouncing a couple oftimes. Being the new kid on the block I thought maybe the enginesmight have dropped off the wing, or bent the wings a little. Thiswas a well built Boeing aircraft, and we could find no visible damage.As we were taxiing in, Captain Parker turned to the crew and apologizedto all of us for that landing. I thought that was quite considerate ofhim, being an airline captain. I am sure if anybody was sleeping inthe berths they woke up rather suddenly.

MOST INTERESTING TRIP: From 1941 until almost 1977 there were a lotof unusual and exciting flights and it would be very difficult tochoose the most interesting and exciting...probably a dozen or soaltogether. After Pearl Harbor all flights were on International.

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COMMENTS: With the exception of the 1930's, I believe the years Iwas involved in commercial aviation were probably the best years forflight crews. Years of tremendous change and development. We wentfrom the four engine Boeing Stratoliner (commercial version of theB-17) still using a tail wheel. Normal Gross Weight 43,000 pounds.Thirty three passengers, pilot, copilot, flight engineer, two cabinattendants (hostesses). Designed for flying "On top", rarely gettingto 20,000', cruising 150-160 MPH. Then came the C-54 in 1942 with atricycle gear, no pressurization, grossing 60-65 thousand pounds,170-180 MPH. In 1945 came the first 049 Connie. Now we are up to75,000 pounds flying 20-25,000 feet, 280 MPH. The Connie continuedto improve for the next ten to twelve years and reached a top of150,000 pounds gross and speeds up to 325 MPH. The jet age arrived inthe late fifties and along came the Boeing 707 series. Weights startedat 300,000 pounds and speeds in the 600 MPH range, altitudes of 30-40thousand feet. Everything since the C54 or DC-4 was of the pressur-ized type. In the late 60's along came the grand daddy of them all,the Boeing 747. Now we were carrying over 300,000 pounds of fuel,grossing well above 700,000 pounds.

Never in the early years did any of us imagine flying in an aircraftthe size and speed of the 747. The changes over the years were spec-tacular. All my career was on four engine aircraft. They startedwith a plane carrying 33 passengers and a crew of five to planes carry-ing 400 passengers with a crew of 17. The basic cockpit crew had notchanged in all those years - three crew members.

I enjoyed my years as Flight Engineer and in addition to that myfourteen years as International Relief Officer. I wouldn't have missedit all for anything!

* * * * * * * * * * * *

From the Florida Bill Townsend:

My first flight was from KC to CG on March 3, 1940. I flew with CaptainBob Larson. The last half of the flight was on instruments, with lowapproach at Midway. Of course, I was nervous, and my first encounterwith airline jargon was not quite satisfactory. After one or twomistakes or misunderstandings, as my tension grew, Bob said "Just relax,we'll do okay." He handled radio and we made a nice comfortable ap-proach and landing. I always tried to remember his "Just relax" inlater years, when I had a similar situation with a new pilot...and inmany other things. Thanks, Bob.

My most interesting, unusual or exciting flight was on a trip fromAttu, Alaska, to Kodiak in late 1943.

My most exciting flight as a Navy pilot would be an example of Murphy'slaw taking over. Weather forecast out of Attu to Kodiak was not CAVU,but nothing to get concerned about. But, as many know, the Alaska

77

chain weather is never like you expect. Some 100 miles out of Kodiak,a front slipped in with low ceiling and freezing drizzle. The oldR4D was doing very well, anywhere from 20 to 50 feet off the water, tokeep out of the seaspray and below cloud freezing level. My radiooperator said Kodiak wind East 45-65 Kts. Landing at Kodiak then wasalways West or North and South - so, to avoid making a blind turn andstay clear of a mountain on the West end, I elected to land cross-wind.Ha - no way! There's no place to go - this is it! So, a count downblind turn and land East - whew! We must have made it, I'm still here.The copilot was a brand new AA pilot from down South - he didn't believesuch weather existed. (After his release from the military, he neverwent back to airline flying). Six black mess boys on our flight hadturned gray; when we finally got towed into the hangar, they kissed thedeck. As the lucky pilot, I must have had an odd look, because theNavy service agent said, "You look like you could use a drink", andthe copilot and I downed a fifth of Johnny Walker between us, and neverbatted an eye - the adrenaline was really flowing!

At the same time, when we finally got voice contact with the tower,we learned a PAA contract R4D just ahead of us went into the drink, butluckily, all ended up just cold and wet, as he had landed close toshore. That aircraft was recovered, rebuilt and flown to the statessome time later.

As for me, the end result of that flight was prematurely gray or whitehair - turned from brown to white in about two weeks - not just a fewhairs, but many, many - and now there's not even much white left.

Combat pilots and/or front line crews, etc. must have had many excit-ing flights, but to a little ole transport jockey, that was enoughexcitement for me.

And then again, I had two engines out on same side on an R5D (to you,Army, a C54) on takeoff at Adak, with a full load of GI's returningto Seattle, which gives you a thrill, It's just a little worse thanthe old 707 water wagon, with full ruder and all the power you canget. All I could think of was that 32 water, and no sea rescueavailable at that time.

Now my biggest thrill is to shoot my 12 handicap now and then.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE from Ernest Hulme: "First trip was from KWIL toFFOL, 1-16-48 with Captain Walt Morehead. First trip on the line andit was to Paris. I was thrilled. Walt has always held a special placein my memories because of this flight and the way he treated me as agreen copilot".

* * * * * * * * * * * *

78

Jim Gilmore tells of this personal experience: "SFO to MDW, August28, 1957. On the 1049-G we were flying, we lost our first engine(number 1) just west of Rock Springs, Wyoming at 19,000 feet. Shortlyafter Rock Springs, Number 2 caught fire. Because the weather at RKSwas 100 foot ceiling, we went to Laramie, all the time drifting downto 11,000 feet on instruments. Broke out of the clouds 50 miles northof Laramie and landed without damage or incident.

"F/0 was Dewey Powell, F/E Bruce Johnson."

* * * * * * * * * *

Don Dorman's account of his first trip on the line follows: " March 2,1952. My first trip on the line after final check out by Jim Obertinoin Chicago, where I was assigned, was supposed to be 88-153-CHI-LGA-CHI, round trip 17 hours away. Captain Warren Malvick and F/O BobWidholm. CHI-LGA 2:45, no problem. Was told our return trip was can-celled account weather. Supposed to return the following day on 153.Went to movie in Jackson Heights and went to bed in the old crew roomin hangar late that evening. After a couple of hours sleep, we wereawakened and told that we were to re-originate Flight 97 as 1097 inPHL and would need to ferry plane there. Left LGA 0445, arrivedPHL 0540. Left PHL Flight 1097 0805 heading for CHI ...Take it fromthere??? Chicago was flat on arrival, so headed for MKC. Weatherthere was no better and about that time engines started to ice up alittle. I had been told about icing but had never had the problem upto that time. I'd get one straightened out and another would act up.I was expecting to have some reaction from the front seats, but Warrenand Bob just sat there and said nothing. Meanwhile I was sweating itout and hoping I was doing what I was supposed to do to keep thingsrunning. (Later I mentioned this trip to Warren and he said, "I knewit was your first trip and figured you were nervous enough without mesaying anything, so I just watched you out of the corner of my eye.")We finally ended up in ABQ after 8:15, then deadheaded to LAX. Aftera day and a half in LAX we operated Flight 90 back to CHI, routine.We left CHI March 2 at 0800 and got back there at 2210 on the 5th,87 hours away and 19:10 credit (flight time). Being my first flight,I was sure glad to have had the pilots I did, and I thought, 'Boy,this is going to be some job if there are many trips like this.'Needless to say, I ran out of clothes and MONEY by the time I got backto CHI."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

A. U. Stahl's most exciting trip is as follows: "Half way across theAtlantic in an 049 Constellation, we picked up the worst load of ice.The ice was so heavy that it broke off our antenna and we lost all radiocommunication. It got so heavy with ice that we had to declare anemergency and descend to two thousand feet over the ocean. We were overan hour late arriving Gander. The dispatcher was so worried that hewas about to send a search party to look for us."

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79

Clarence E. Kulp tells about his first trip and his most exciting trip:"First trip MKC-LGA, 3-15-40. I flew with Harold Neumann. Haroldshowed me how to Land short over the old grain elevator. Remember it?

"Southeast landing at STL was always a challenge.

"My most exciting flight was on a trip from KC to NY on 4-8-42, mysemi-final check to Captain with Captain Poquette (I think) on a DC-2.We blew an engine over Terre Haute. I said, 'Captain, what do youwant me to do?' He said, 'I am a first trip copilot, why are youasking me?' So we went to Indy on one. There was smoke and a littlefire when it blew. I think everyone was awake."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Fred Morse has an interesting question at the end of his account ofhis most interesting and unusual flight.

"My most interesting and unusual flight was from JFK to JFK via London,LAX, Hawaii, Guam, Tapei, Naha, Hong Kong, Bombay, Tel Aviv, Rome inJuly 1968.

"I believe I am the most junior pilot to fly as captain around theworld, other than possibly check pilots. I suppose I could techni-cally be called one as I was back on the line from the JFK TrainingCenter in July and August that year, but anyway, Ross Weaver calledin sick and that's how I got it.

"I had fun in London, played golf in Honolulu, $5.00 for 18 holes andelectric cart, shopping in Hong Kong, cobras and mongoose(s)? inBombay. Bethlehem and Jerusalem on the Tel Aviv layover, St. Peter'setc., in Rome. (12 day trip). I wonder if anyone, check pilot ornot, can beat a Dec. 29, 1952 seniority date for flying 707 Captainaround the world?"

* * * * ** * * * * * *

H. W. "Rudy" Truesdale has the next story about his first flight, andalso his most interesting. He writes: "My first trip on the linewas from MKC to CMH on July 27, 1935 with Captain Wendell Petersonand return on 28th with Otis Bryan.

"Five days of ground school on how to punch tickets, serve meals, keeplog sheets and pump gear and flaps. One session in aircraft on ground,then out as co-pilot / hostess. No ACM trip."My most interesting flight was on a trip from MKC to Newark in August1935. I flew three round trips with Alton Parker and we visitedCommander Bennett in his office in New York City. Parker and Bennetthad been on Byrd's North Pole expedition; Bennett on the first SouthPole expedition and Parker on the second one. Listening to the talesthose two told was most interesting.

80

"Until we had hostesses on the flights, the copilot could be onseveral flights without seeing much of the terrain."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Warren George says he made his first trip on the line in a Martin 404with Captain Earl Sharpe on March 20, 1957. "Night flight from BOS-ALB-BGM-AVP-IPT-PIT, required de-icing at all stations. Though I hadconsiderable experience, I thought at the time that an airline Captainwho can handle all this and try to train a new copilot at the same timeis one sharp pilot. Gave me a great incentive as did all the BOScaptains at that time".

Warren writes of his most interesting, unusual and exciting flight:"Hijacked flight 134/24 August 1970, 727 equipment. Crew F/0 GerryStreeval, F/E Harry Usher, F/A's Karen DeBolt, Brenda Berry and PaulaGardner.

"Had a man in Army uniform who claimed to be an explosives expert whowanted to go to Cuba and threatened to blow us up if we didn't takehim. We required fuel which was put on at PIT. While on the ground,we tried to talk him out of his trip and/or release the passengers,with no luck on either count. We took off for Havana and had to flythrough a front across southern Georgia. Lots of St. Elmo's fire,etc. By this time the PAX knew we had a bomb threat and I was con-cerned that we would get a static discharge in that front which mightcause the PAX to think the thing had gone off. This could have ruinedan otherwise routine trip to Havana. Block in to Block out two hoursand ten minutes. We had fueled through! By that time, 1970, it wasquite routine to go to Cuba, and the rest of the flight,HAV-MIA-PHL,went smoothly. We had left our disgruntled G.I. in Havana. We arrivedPHL about five a.m., which must be a record from the longest flightfrom ORD-PHL. Some fifteen hours as I recall,

"The crew were great. Everyone, cabin and cockpit did their jobscalmly and efficiently. The F/A's had to be very tired but we hadhappy PAX when we landed in PHL. One of the greatest rewards of acareer in aviation is working with the crews and people involvedin the profession."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Joseph R. McDonald writes: "My first flight was on March 15, 1956with Captain John Pyle and F/0 Charles Baker. We were flying aircraft#712, a 749-A between STL and MKC in severe weather conditions. Allfour engines were surging, we had heavy turbulence. Captain Pyleturned around to ask

ifI had gone to Alternate A yet. I said, 'No,

I was told you only do that in an emergency'. Captain Pyle came abouta foot out of his seat and yelled 'What the hell do you think this is?'We laughed about the incident years later at his retirement party inNew York in 1974."

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81

The Williams Twins

82

Bob Zimmerman gives an account of an interesting flight with CaptainL. M. Williams: "Equipment L1049-A, one of first non-stops, altitude19,000 feet.

"After reaching cruise, L. M. would fall into a quiet state and aboutall you heard from him was an occasional gurgle from his pipe. As youremember, those were the days of pressure pattern flying when you flewairways to xxx, then pointed the nose toward New York, hooking up withthe airways again as late as ABE. You reported your progress as "abeamof" whatever was handy. The night progressed beautifully - the F/E andI exchanged lies and about four hours out, the facts caught up withthe greenhorn. Our next XPT was abeam Kokomo - a non directional lowpowered facility. Ceasing the B.S. and attempting a running fix....no Kokomo! Perhaps it was off the air? After fooling around, allow-ing pride to intervene for an inordinate length of time, I finallysaid, 'Captain, could you help me locate Kokomo? Our XPT is past due.'

"L. M. reached up and fussed with the grinder, finally turned andlooked down at the undercast. There was a hole about the size of abushel basket. L. M. came up out of his seat about as tall as a manof his size could: 'Jesus Christ! Cleveland! Get me a clearance!'

The elapsed time Block to Block was 6:35 - one of the records of thetime and a true jetstream flight."

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Bill Dickey tells about a memorable flight: "We were delivering aSaudi Arabian B-720-B by way of IDL and Rome. I flew the overwaterportion (my first Atlantic crossing). The 720 was not equipped withDoppler but it was so fast that our D.R. was right on the nose atour arrival point.

"I must admit, though, that I didn't do it alone. The crew consistedof Captains Tom Graybill, Jerry Boxberger, E. L. Olson, Lee Jekel andothers..

"Thanks for the memories."

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John E. Harlin's first trip on the line was from Columbus to Newarkin 1933 with Andy Andrews, Harry Campbell, Welsh and Herford. Copiloton Tri-motor; first lunch serving.

"Most interesting, unusual or exciting? A trip from Harrisburg toNewark with Andy Andrews flying around the smokestacks trying to findNewark in a Tri-motor Ford under practically zero conditions."

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83

Dick Doyle tells about the following personal experience: "Havingbeen a copilot reserve (thirty hours in three months), I got a callfrom Goldie advising that I was to go on a trip as copilot with JackFrye on his Lockheed 12. Why me?"

"Next up," says Goldie. "Get here early so we can brief you".

"How long will I be gone? I got the three or four days routine. Ileft 8-4-43 and was back in Kansas City 8-21-43. Spent three days onFry's ranch in Cottonwood, Arizona. However, I was put up in a motelin Cottonwood. On 8-6-43 went to Boulder City for six days. Fryewent to West Coast for nine days. Spent my time in Boulder helpingcrew service the San Francisco trip and the two through trips. Alsospent a few days in Vegas. Do you remember what Vegas was like fortyyears ago? My Gawd!! The natives, for something to do, would meetthe trains to see the 'movie stars'. Back to Cottonwood 8-12-43,Kansas City 8-21-43. A real short three or four days, Goldie said!"

"Many words have been written about Jack Frye. Never have, nor willI ever meet and know such a fine gentleman. A man who never forgotthose whom he met. We would meet on the streets of Kansas City andhe could find a few minutes to stop and chat. What a rememberance!....It's not the flying we miss but the people we worked with, if youwant to call it work".

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Frank Jones asks "Most interesting or exciting? Gosh, Al, I can'tremember that far back. It could have been the time I had threeengines fail over the Atlantic six miles east of the weather ship (ice).The airspeeds were all frozen. (Yep, we had pitot heat on). As youcan see, nothing really exciting happened. If it had, I wouldn't bewriting this. Or the time I had Number 4 engine fire warning as wecrossed the South dike at MKC in a Super-G loaded to the gills forLAX, wending our way, dodging chimneys in the stockyard trying to getenough altitude to turn. The engineer was yelling that all engineswere overtemping into the red. Anyway, after following the Kaw river,we finally got enough altitude to circle the field and land. Thecopilot said he could see into the windows of the Town House hotel aswe went by. I don't know about that, I was too busy just trying tokeep the SOB flying. The only problem was that I was met by Sam Bassof the FAA when I taxied to the ramp. Never heard anymore about it,though.

Or was it the time we went sliding down the runway at CHI at about aforty-five degree angle in a driving rain? We were told after welanded that we landed in a forty-five mile crosswind. I know that itwas pretty strong and we were the last plane to land on that runwaythat night"

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84

John B. Schulte reports: "My first trip was Martin Flight 121 fromLGA to STL with Captain George Gay and Hostess Patty Zelenka.

I was anxious to meet George Gay, as I had studied about him in NavalHistory class. Through Hostess Zelenka I met my wife. I rememberthinking "No G-suit, no flight suit, no crash helmet and no torsoharness. I'm in my shirt sleeves being served by some cute gal. Whata way to go!"

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There will be more personal experiences in the next issue. Meanwhilethose of you who haven't contributed, please share your experience.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

HERMAN

"I don't know how you canstand to eat those things."

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85

RECURRENT TRAINING QUESTIONNAIRE (40 YEARS AGO)

Or-things you haven't thought about until now........for obvious reasons.

By Earl Lindsly

1. Prior to the introduction of hi-tech info (V's, EPR's, T.O. dataCard, etc.,) what sure fire method of determining rotation pointon take-off at MKC was employed?

2. What was the best course of action at MKC on T.O. in regard todike, Rudy Patrick, Armour stacks, etc?

3. On what transports had DC-3 type navigational equipment beenpreviously tested and proven?

4. What was primary function of auto ADF needle said to be whentuned to a station behind the aircraft?

5. Regarding question #4, was instrument accurate?

6. Name the sumptuous overnight crew facilities at the followingairports:

a. Columbus, Ohio (Upstairs hangar suite)b. Pittsburgh, PA (Co-ed quarters, complete with cots)

7. Why wasn't b above closed by Fire Marshal for safety and sani-tation reasons?

8. What was the most expedient way for a copilot to ensure an abruptchange to some other career?

a. Freeze up the DE-3 heaterb. Incur Paul Frederickson's displeasure prior to his having

had his orange juice and coffee in the morning.

9. What was alleged to be the prime use of the "C" cargo compartment?

10. Describe primary skin color of passengers on DC-4 Sky Coachbetween AMA and ABQ.

11. The loose collection of asphalt atop the slag heap referred toas Allegheny County Airport (PT) was laughingly referred to asa runway. Can you quote the most frequently used runway conditionreport for it?

Answers are on the next page.

86

ANSWERS TO RECURRENT EXAM

1_ Watch copilots eyeballs. When they dilate, rotate.

2. Miss 'em.

3. The Pinta, the Nina, and the Santa Maria.

4. Virgin indicator.

5. Seldom, as indicated by derisive responses from hostesses.

6. a. Patterson Plaza

b. Eagle's Nest

7. Firemen were afraid to get close enough to it to condemn it.

8. Either

9. Sin Bin. Induction center for worthy candidates for admissioninto the Mile High Club.

10. Tucumcari Green.

11. "Both ends of the runway are closed to the middle.But there's 500 feet there that's fit as a fiddle."

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87

THE TARPAGRAPEVINE

JULY 1986

Well, it's about that time again when your GRAPEVINEEditor has to come up with some interesting bits aboutour TARPA members. With the passing of "dues time", thecorrespondence from members has slackened off a bit, butour hard working Secretary still finds material to sendme. It's good to hear from all of you, so please keep upthe correspondence to Joe or myself so we can share it withour TARPA members.

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I spent $10.00 this week to subscribe to the retiredUnited pilots newsletter which is published monthly andconsists mainly of letters from their members. I'm notparticularly excited about the activities of the Unitedgroup, although many were friends and neighbors over theyears, but it gives me an opportunity to see how othergroups keep in touch. They differ from TARPA in that theypay no dues, just a $10.00 postage fee and it is renewableon their birthdays. Consequently they have a continuousflow of letters throughout the year. There is merit intheir procedure and something TARPA might consider.

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Although the GRAPEVINE is primarily to report the activitiesof TARPA members, i.e., cockpit crews, I am submitting inthis issue some information about a person who perhaps hasdone more for the entire retirement group than any othersingle individual. He has worked with and for the pilot

group as long as he has been with TWA and longafter his retirement. Although I have known PARKYPARKINSON for many years, more professionally thanpersonally, it wasn't until the last Roundup, onwhich I reported last issue, that I came to realizehow much of himself he has put into the retirementmovement, and what a fabulous store of informationhe has about the past of TWA. He has sent mecopies of old timetables, letters from some of theoriginal pilots, newspaper and magazine articlesabout historic events involving TWA and many otherinteresting items which I hope to use in futurepublications. Perhaps the following letter which

THE GRAPEVINE 88

I received from a fellow TARPAN who wishes to remain anonymous bestdescribes PARKY and his work. I received this letter too late toinclude in the March TOPICS. I quote:

"One (item submitted) is about that life-long friend of TWA pilots,PARKY PARKINSON - the "outside guy" whom they all respect and ap-preciate for his tireless and enthusiastic willingness to promoteand support anything that has to do with keeping TWA and TWA'speople together. In retirement, he has devoted practically all ofhis time to "the cause", but in the years that he worked for TWAhe was even more gung-ho,

"So several members of the somewhat loosely-formed Kansas Citycontingent of the Hot Air Balloon and Wicker Basket InternationalAirlines (no employees, no planes, no balloons, no strikes!) gottogether at the Yaadboid restaurant at Municipal Airport last fallto honor PARKY for his many extracurricular activities for TWA andfor all of us retirees.

"PARKY started as a mechanic with TAT in 1929 at Wynoka, Oklahoma.In the years that followed he worked as a meteorologist and dis-patcher and in a variety of assignments through the airline'sstations at Glendale, Kingman, Winslow, Clovis, Albuquerque, St.Louis, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Amarillo and Kansas City. Along theway, he married Merta Mary and they became the parents of fivedaughters. She passed away in 1984.

"PARKY has been active in many civic clubs and was founder of theTWA Employees Club and TWA Credit Union (1940). He is a pastpresident of the TWA SENIORS CLUB and has managed the annual SeniorsClub Roundup in Arizona for 24 years. He has collected and main-tains a tremendous amount of TWA historical material and is afrequent contributor of nostalgic memorabilia to TARPA TOPICS.

"Attending the Kansas City luncheon gathering were the following:Carter Burgess (as honorary guest and speaker), Otis Bryan, BertCooper, Art Eggiman, Jim Fennell, Howard Hansen, Al Jordan, JackLe Claire, Bill Neff, Harold Neumann, John Roche, Gail Storck,Busch Voigts, Norm Parmet, Les Woods, Walt Gunn, Les Couch, WayneTague, Earl Smith, Ray Dunn and Orville Olson."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Incidentally, PARKY celebrated his 78th birthday a few months backand he sent me a poem a friend sent to him.

"The enjoyment of sex, although greatIs in later years said to abate.This well may be soBut how would I know?I'm only seventy eight".

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THE GRAPEVINE89

Following is a letter from JOE HUTCHINS: "Just finished readingTARPA TOPICS so I thought I'd drop you a line while the subjectwas on my mind.

"It's about all the fellows who have airplanes and may be startinga flying club or fly-ins, as you said. It sounds like a great ideato swap lies about different places to go. I personally am intoantique airplanes. I enjoy going places in my airplane, which isa 1938 Cessna Airmaster. I am also rebuilding a 1946 Stinson 108.Herb Ottewill and I are Hangar Mates, with me doing the inspectionson his J-3 Cub. We have a pretty nice group of old airplanes atour grass field here on Long Island. I guess this is enough ram-bling. Please excuse the mistakes. (Old Age? Nah!)

"P.S. Keep us the good work on TARPA".

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W. A. (BILL) MURPHEY sent in his dues and in a note said he won'tbe able to make the conflab this year, but sent his best to all.

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Last edition of the TOPICS reported the death of Captain HARLEYBRUBAKER. His wife, JANE, sent a nice note to Joe thanking TARPAfor the gift to the TWA retired Pilots Foundation in his name. Shesaid "Harley would be pleased".

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ROBERT A. (MAC) McREYNOLDS writes from Boulder, Colorado, "I madethat three quarters of a century last year. Here's your $20.00anyway. Best regards, MAC."

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PHIL HOLLAR sent me a nice note last month. He said, "Dick, justa quickie to let you know that there is life after retirement. Amquite active as a Reserve Orange County, California Deputy Sheriffand also working for the Department part time, as a Weapons Instruct-or. Legion of Honor (Adjutant) keeps me busy in parades andofficial functions of the Shrine. The only thing I miss is thosethree and four day layovers in Europe to rest up. See you in St.LOUIE!!!"

You all know PHIL as TARPA's Alcoholic Counselling Committee Chair-man.

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THE GRAPEVINE

90

JERRY ZERBONE writes: "I got no end of pleasure when I receivedthe March issue of the TARPA TOPICS to see my picture a couple oftimes and to have read the nice account you wrote about me. I wantto thank you very much and do enjoy news about all of the TWA peopleyou write about.

"Since I was at Wickenburg in November of '85 I've been back to workon another consulting contract with Rolls that was supposed to befor only two months - December '85 to January '86, but which lasteduntil the seventh of April.

"Keep up the good work - Regards".

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One of the items that is supposed to be carried in the GRAPEVINEis the notice of the passing of any relatives or non-members whomay be well known to TARPA members. Again I ask your assistancein furnishing either Joe McCombs or myself with this informationshould you learn of the passing of relatives or a widow of one ofour group, whether or not a member of TARPA.

We have learned of the passing of Honorary member Lorraine Chandlersome time in late March. She was the widow of Captain Ed Chandlerwho passed away in 1968. Also, DICK BECK advises of the passingof Irene Preeg on March 7th. She was the widow of Captain FelixPreeg, who passed away in 1977.

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From an article titled THE ORIGIN OF AIR WARFARE comes the follow-ing bit of trivia: "Have you ever wondered which nation was thefirst to employ aircraft in a combat situation; which nation wasthe first to develop and drop a bomb specifically designed for airoperations; which nation was the first to be hit by hostile groundfire; and which nation conducted the first aerial combat photography?"All of these events and many other "firsts" in air warfare occurredseveral years before WWI during the Italian-Turkish conflict inLIBYA in 1911-1912, and were attributed to the Italians. The firstactual bomb drop was made on Noember 1, 1911, and consisted of ahand dropped bomb weighing about four and one half pounds, andabout the size of an orange. The aircraft used was either a Bleriot,Nieuport, Farman or Etrich, all of which were powered with 50 HPengines. A far cry from the F-111's used almost 75 years later bythe United States.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

BILL BLAKEMORE writes to Joe that he and Mason are quite active andbusy with some real estate on the East Coast.

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THE GRAPEVINE

91

We reported last issue on DICK BECK and his weight loss program.He reports he's down another 12 pounds with his diet of water and"rabbit food". Says "he got caught in a high wind last week andwas pinned against the garage door for ten minutes". Now, Richard!

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Joe received a very nice letter from ALTHEA SIEBENALER, widow ofDON SIEBENALER, thanking him and TARPA for the contribution to theRetirement Fund in Don's name. and says she is "pleased and proudto accept your Honorary Membership in TARPA."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

From JIM NOREM: "We've gone to live in the woods! Raising somebreeding beef cattle and looking for a ranch hand so we can takeoff. Lovely country here." Jim is now living in Roseburg, Oregon.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

LARRY WELCH says "I really look forward to receiving TARPA TOPICS.Brings back a lot of memories".

* * * * * * * * * * *

Another old airplane rebuilder is SPUD CONNICK up in Dennisport,Massachusetts. Says he is "helping a pal of mine build a realFokker Tri-plane. No fool like an old fool. Best to all."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

CHARLIE TUTTLE flew his last flight on December 29th and officiallyretired January 1. Says he hasn't seen a single sunrise since anddoesn't miss it at all. He's looking forward to seeing many TARPANSin the future. Hope you'll enjoy the retirement like most of us do,Charlie.

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HANK SEYMOUR may be among the first to pay his 1987 dues becauseof a slight foul up in his own bookkeeping. Says he is being keptbusy with his Eagle II biplane which he reports is a blast foraerobatics. Hank looks like another candidate for a Fly In.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I quote a letter from ARTHUR (DICK) SCHMIDT: "Thank God for TARPA.It's the only way many of us retired boys can keep in touch withour pilot friends.

"Missed the last meeting, but hope to make it this year. Keepbusy working at the church and Salvation Army as a volunteer, play

THE GRAPEVINE 92

golf and some tennis. Dorothy likes to drive, so we take numeroustrips. Reached age 71 and still miss flying for TWA. They weregreat years. Most of all I miss all the fellows.

"Hope to see everyone this year."

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A recent new member of TARPA is C, O. (OSCAR) TATE, who joined uslast January as an Eagle. Oscar was with TWA from 1942 until 1948,when he left to return to resume the management of Greebrier Airportin White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and the presidency of Green-brier Airlines, an air charter company. He retired last Augustfrom management of the airport and was credited with 45 years ofservice to that facility. He learned of the existence of TARPAfrom EDDIE WELLS, with whom he has kept in touch these many years.Below are photos of Oscar and crew taken at Lagens in the Azoreson May 4, 1945. Earle Sharpe was F/O, Jack Landis, F/E, Norm Good-rich Navigator, Dick Guillan, Pilot/Nay. trainee and Bill Pepmiller,R/O.

Left to right: Jack Landis, Dick Guillan, Earle Sharpe, Norm

Goodrich and Oscar Tate

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THE GRAPEVINE

93

Left to right: Bill Pepmiller, Jack Landis, Earle

Sharpe, Norm Goodrich and Dick Guillan

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DON McKENZIE sent in the following interesting account of histime in the Air Corps: "Air Corps (old brown uniform). Receivedtelegram, December 8 - (one day after Pearl Harbor) - then spentfull four years of World War II almost entirely as instructor ofpilots and bombadiers at Kirkland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, NM.Items of interest are that both of my bombadier instructors aredeceased - one from cancer, the other from a plane crash. Also ofinterest is that I was the only pilot on the base who was assignedhis own airplane......I approached the C.O. and made my point thatmy special assignment required special precision and I should havemy own airplane....he agreed and informed me that four new air-planes had just arrived...told me to pick one out and put on anumber that I liked...Q100...that was mine."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

L. J. SMITH reports from down in Welaka, Florida that he is stillnot recovered from his lung cancer operation of a couple of yearsago which was followed by five weeks of radiation treatment. Thisplus the stress of caring for his wife, Duarita, who succumbed tomultiple sclerosis, after a seven year battle, back in September of1984, has left him a "very sick person". He says, though, that"it is good to know a few of you older guys think of guys like meand are willing to take on the responsibilities, the managementof TARPA. Give my best to all concerned."

I'm sure L. J. would appreciate hearing from fellow TARPANS. Parti-cularly from us "older guys: who flew with him as copilot, withwhom he shared time so generously.

THE GRAPEVINE 94

From the desk of CHRISTOPHER J. CLARK comes a more cheerful note:"Hi, Joe: Thanks for taking the important Secretary job to helpkeep the organization going. It sure is a great thing. Bestregards for a good 1986."

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As most of us are aware, HARRY CAMPBELL, passed away on February22 of this year. Evelyn, Harry's devoted wife of 54 years, wrotea very nice letter to our Secretary, thanking him for the "kindmessage of sympathy and for the privileges you (TARPA) have offered."She also stated they would have enjoyed coming to the St. Louisconvention, as St. Louis brought back fond memories for them both,as it was Harry's first base with TAT, where he attended WashingtonUniversity Law School and where they spent their honeymoon.

Evelyn is compiling a book of anecdotes about Harry. Friendsshould send their recollections to Evelyn Campbell, 229 Orchid,Corona Del Mar, California 92625.

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GINNIE SEBOLT sent in an UPDATE form for husband CHARLIE. Saysthere aren't many TWA people in the area around Estill Springs,Tennessee, so they really look forward to reading about the hap-penings of their friends in the TARPA news. Fishing and woodwork-ing are Charlie's hobbies, but she "keeps him too busy for clubs,except golf clubs."

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HORACE (NICK) NICHOLS sent in an UPDATE form to our Secretary andapologized for being late with it. But he can be forgiven, as onFebruary 10 he underwent by-pass surgery. To quote Nick, "Theydid six grafts so I should be in good shape once I recover.....while they will not let me drive (as of 3/10/86) as yet I am walk-ing several miles per day." He hopes to return to Montana bymid-May and lay a fly line across a stream or lake soon thereafterwith STONE. Says he won't make the convention because of his wife'sallergy.

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OLGA HEATH, widow of AL HEATH, who passed away on February 18 ofthis year, was made an honorary member of TARPA and wrote thankingour Secretary for his letter of condolences and for the TARPA mem-bership card.

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The following cartoon is an example of how our Secretary is workingfor all of us these days. (Sent to me by Joe.)

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It's nice to receive words of praise and encouragement from ourmembers. LEE LASWELL expressed his appreciation and thanks tothose who keep TARPA going. Also WARREN GEORGE, who says, "Ithink TARPA is a great thing and I intend to keep up my member-ship in a more timely fashion in the future." That's the wayour Secretary wishes everyone would feel.

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TH....TH.....TH.....THAT'S ALL, FOLKS!

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THE GRAPEVINE

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