SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome to the Pan Am Podcast, brought to you by the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York. This podcast and our museum are dedicated to celebrating the legacy of the world's most iconic airline, Pan American World Airways. If you're not familiar with Pan Am, welcome. We are honored to have you here and for you to learn about what we're all about. If you already know of Pan Am, worked for, or flown on the airline, or just love our history, it's good to be with you again. So with that, let's get this episode in the air, so to speak. Welcome aboard your Pan American jet clipper. My name is Tom Betty and I'm the host of this program. Thank you for joining us. The Pan Am Museum Foundation is a nonprofit organization. Our mission statement is to educate, celebrate, and inspire present and future generations by preserving historical and diverse personal stories of Pan American World Airways. Please visit our website for more information at the Panamuseum.org. Again, our website is the Panamuseum.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you are using Apple Podcasts, please consider leaving a review. It will help others discover this program. In this episode, we'll be exploring the 1960s race for the first supersonic passenger aircraft between the United States, the Soviet Union, and a British-French partnership. Then we will be joined by Becky Sprecker, a Pan Am flight attendant and co-author of Flying a Novel, a fictional book about Pan Am crews flying over the Pacific in the 1970s. But first, we'd like to express our sincere thanks to you, our listeners. We launched this podcast in late August, and honestly, we didn't know if anyone would listen. At the time of this recording, the program has been downloaded almost 7,500 times in over 67 countries. The response and the positive comments we've received have been incredible and overwhelming. We really can't thank you enough, and we really appreciate your interest in Pan Am and the work the Pan Am Museum is doing. But in the style of an NPR membership drive, we hope you will consider joining us as a Pan Am Museum member andor making a sustaining monthly financial donation. This will allow us to continue developing Pan Am exhibits and educational programming such as this podcast. Now on to the 1960s race for the first supersonic transport, also known as SSTs. In 1935, a simplified explanation of the theoretical challenges of supersonic flight led to the creation of the term sound barrier, which seemed to imply a physical wall that could not be overcome by man. Twelve years later, the newly formed United States Air Force set out to challenge this theory and prove once and for all that a manned plane could travel faster than sound. On October 14, 1947, they did just that. U.S. Air Force test pilot Captain Chuck Yeager became the first human to break the sound barrier in an experimental Bell X-1 aircraft at 45,000 feet at a speed of Mach 1.05. The X-1 was carried into flight in the bomb bay of a Boeing B-29 Super Fortress aircraft and was released at an altitude of 25,000 feet. The rocket plane, nicknamed Glamorous Glennis, was designed with thin and unswept wings and a streamlined fuselage modeled after a 50 caliber bullet. The groundbreaking achievement of breaking the barrier of sound by Captain Jaeger and his classified Bell X-1 aircraft was a highly guarded government secret and would not be announced to the public until the following year in June 1948. Today the X-1 is on permanent display in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. What did breaking the sound barrier mean for aviation? It meant that humans could travel faster than the speed of sound and could reliably achieve the velocities to escape the Earth's atmosphere. It also helped gain a greater understanding of the physics governing the planet. Research continued on supersonic flight throughout the 1950s. By 1959, the X-15 aircraft would travel five times faster than the speed of sound, paving the way toward human space flight. The majority of research done was for the military and the space race. However, the idea of civilian supersonic airliners was also highly considered throughout the 1950s, and preliminary research and development was conducted. As the decade of the 60s began, the governments and aerospace companies of the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union all thought that the SST was the future of intercontinental transportation, and all four countries wanted to be the first in passenger supersonic flight. Although the theoretical research proved that the technology was indeed possible, the most difficult challenge was the skyrocketing development, design, production, fuel, and maintenance projection costs. It was uncertain and unclear how the aircraft manufacturers or the airlines could make the aircraft an economically feasible investment without massive government subsidies in its production. In the last days of the Eisenhower administration on January 9, 1961, the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA for short, released a report with the assistance of the Department of Defense and NASA. The report concluded that an aircraft that could travel at Mach III, that's 2,000 miles per hour, should be built by American industry with governmental financial support limited to demonstrated needs. Although outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower did not take action to request funds for SST development in his final days in office, the report was left for the incoming Kennedy administration to promptly consider the immediate establishment of an SST program. In his inauguration speech on January 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy declared that by the end of the decade, America will land a man on the moon and will be returned safely to the Earth. But the President also had supersonic transports on his mind. A couple days after taking office, President Kennedy ordered the FAA to prepare a new study of the nation's aviation goals and advanced civilian aircraft developments for the period between 1961 and 1970. This study would later be known as Project Horizon. The report was released a little over a month later and was used as a platform to promote the SST by supporters of the program. The new FAA administrator, Najib Hallaby, argued that failure to enter this market would be, quote, a stunning setback, end quote. The report was met with skepticism by most others in the new administration. Kennedy persisted and directed Vice President Lyndon Johnson to head up Project Horizon. Johnson then sought the advice and counsel of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on the feasibility of the project. McNamara was highly skeptical of the SST and disagreed with Hallaby's predictions. The Defense Secretary also had concerns that the President would ask his department to take the lead in developing a civilian SST, and he had no interest in a civilian project, so he pressed for more studies to be conducted. According to Robert Gant, author of the book Sky Gods, The Fall of Pan Am, quote, Kennedy's problem was largely bureaucratic, how to bring all the warring parties together in a joint commercial effort of this size. Government agencies, by their nature, didn't care whether an airplane used only by commercial airliners ever got built. Nothing of the immensity of the SST program had ever been undertaken by a consortium of private industry and public agencies. Who would pay for it? The manufacturers, Lockheed, Douglas, North American, Boeing, were not able to absorb the huge research and development cost, nor were the airlines that left the government. But Kennedy's own administration was divided over the SST. This back and forth continued well into the next year. And the next year, 1962, was a tumultuous year for the Kennedy White House. Throughout most of 1962, little progress was made on the American SST. In October, the United States and the Soviet Union were on the brink of nuclear war with the Cuban Missile Crisis. And in November 1962, the British and French governments announced a deal that set off a different kind of alarm bell all over Washington and boardrooms of American aircraft manufacturers. Britain and France joined forces and combined research, resources, and talent to jointly build a new airliner, one that would be able to fly at more than twice the speed of sound. This aircraft would be called Concorde, and when completed, would be the most advanced civilian aircraft in the world, showing that European aircraft manufacturers could create the most bleeding-edge designs and level the market competition with American companies. Hallaby wrote Kennedy a letter following the announcement, warning him that if the government did not immediately start an American program, the nation would lose 50,000 jobs, $4 billion in income, and $3 billion in capital as American carriers turned to foreign suppliers. Kennedy, frustrated with his administration's inaction, ordered and demanded the SST program be pushed forward and proper funding allocated immediately. Even so, Pan Am's one trip became increasingly impatient by the slow pace, lack of commitment, mixed messages, and political inaction around the American SST. Critics of the project continued to grow. In the spring of 1963, both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times had come out against the allocation of any more development funds for the American supersonic transport. In Washington, Democrat Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire, a congressional budget bean counter, demanded that any future spending on the SST be cut in half. The Senator and a growing number of his colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, started to view the project as a massive waste of taxpayer dollars. However, the Kennedy administration pressed forward. Boeing, concerned over growing criticism of the high projected cost of the program and wanting to demonstrate they were ready to develop the SST with proper funding, released a promotional film. Let's take a listen.

SPEAKER_04 12:53

By using this plane, foreign airlines might capture revenue now enjoyed by U.S. operators. This could accelerate an already unfavorable direction of gold flow. And yet, if U.S. airlines try to retain this market by buying more concoys, the U.S. Treasury could sustain an even greater gold flow cost. Let's take a look at the concoy. It is an aluminum airplane designed to cruise at 1,450 miles per hour. It can carry about 130 passengers on a 3,800-mile flight. Although entering service later, the U.S. entry built of titanium will be faster and more productive for the world's airline. An airplane that could have a $17 billion favorable impact on international gold flow with the minimum expected sales of 500 U.S. SST. In the field of international commerce, $17 billion would purchase 2,300 ships for our merchant marine. One U.S. SST sold abroad would offset the import of 20,000 small foreign cars in international balance of payment.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Seven months after the Concord announcement, the president was preparing his speech for the next day to announce the new National Supersonic Transport Program with $100 million for fiscal year 1964. But President Kennedy was shocked to read an announcement that afternoon. Less than 24 hours until his speech, Pan Am CEO and Chairman Juan Tripp had placed an order for six new Concorde supersonic jet transports. This called the White House completely flat-footed as they thought they had an understanding with Tripp and assured him the hundred million dollars for the American SST project was just the beginning, and the President was fully committed that the United States would be successful. The President was furious with Jupp and Pan Am. Like his predecessor, Kennedy used a taping system in the Oval Office to record important conversations in case he needed them for any reason afterward. We're going to play three telephone calls from the President regarding Ju Tripp's surprise announcement on June 4, 1963. These recordings are courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. The first clip you'll hear is between President Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson. The recording starts shortly after the telephone conversation began. Let's have a listen.

SPEAKER_05 15:44

I know, but I mean, like I want to get your report last weekend. Did Kit ever know that we were about to go ahead on this thing?

SPEAKER_06 15:51

I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 16:47

We can look at it for a couple of months. We did this thing last weekend. I don't understand why trip feels we have to go ahead and just do something about it.

SPEAKER_06 17:37

Um great time. I don't know when you have to make much behind some more station. Right, okay, fine.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

The next call was with FAA administrator Najib Hallaby, who was actually in Tripp's office at the Pan Am Building in New York.

SPEAKER_05 18:37

Sorry, it's about two hours about home. Well, that doesn't mean he has to do it. Didn't he know we were about to put it out here?

SPEAKER_03 18:43

Yes, he did.

SPEAKER_05 18:44

Well, this is this deliberate? I can't tell. Well, you can tell him he's given me the best argument for not having one airline represent the United States that I've ever heard. And I'm gonna spend the next time I'm here really giving a screwing to Pan American because that gives it that sticks it right to us. How can we possibly go ahead now with our program to which we're gonna spend an awful lot of money, which was very important to the United States, which affected the balance of payments and hundreds of millions of dollars? And I'm gonna put all this out and then go ahead with about 24 hours before we're about to make our announcement. Yes. Didn't you have an understanding with him that he would waive? Yes, sir. Well, now will you give him this message from me and make it very clear that I think he ought to retract that and he ought to wait now and see what the United States is going to do, or otherwise it's going to be very clear that Pan Am is contributing in a significant way to the United States being in a secondary position in the air and also to our balance of payment problem. And I'll we'll give him all the trouble he wants because there isn't going to be anything that's going to make me more excited than doing that. All right, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Robert Gantz provides more context in his book on what message, either unintentional or intentional, Pan Am conveyed. Here's an excerpt. Quote: A move by Pan Am to order a foreign supersonic transport would be taken by the rest of the world as an indication that the American aviation industry acted without any direction or policy guidance from its own government. It would give the appearance that the president could not make a decision to build an American SST, and Pan Am therefore had to go overseas. End quote. Certainly not a good look for the president, who was preparing to run for re-election in 1964. The third call President Kennedy had was with Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon.

SPEAKER_05 20:36

Hello. Yes, Mr. President. Did you see what uh Warne trip did? No, I did not. He put out an announcement this afternoon that he's going to buy six planes from the British and the French. How could he do that when he knew we were about to go ahead? Oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 20:50

You said that apparently to Halliby. I haven't talked to him recently, that he was under pressure from the British and French governments.

SPEAKER_05 20:56

Well, what kind of pressure? Because a goddamn plane isn't going to be ready in six years, and here the United States government's about to go into a major program. And where does that leave us? I mean, didn't we have any understanding with him that he wouldn't go ahead while we were trying to come up with our proposal?

SPEAKER_03 21:10

I don't think there was any. Uh Did anybody tell him that didn't say I think Halliby did tell him. Do you have any talk with him? I only had that one that I sent a memorandum to. It was over about a week ago, and I haven't talked with him since then.

SPEAKER_05 21:24

So I think you ought to call him up, Doug, and say that we're goddamn sure about this. He knew the United States. By God, I had it in my speech for tomorrow. So we're about to announce the program. I mean, everybody worked this weekend. I only got the Vice President's report on Friday or Saturday. And we I talked to McNamara on Sunday. They worked yesterday. We're putting it in a speech for tomorrow, and for him to go ahead on Tuesday afternoon, which involves hundreds of millions of dollars of balance of payments, which is going to sabotage a program to put the United States up in the lead in the seventies. It's very difficult for us to go ahead if he's buying. I think he ought to retract that thing until he sees what sort of an offer we've got.

SPEAKER_03 21:57

Oh, he isn't gonna buy these places.

SPEAKER_05 21:58

Well, now wait a minute. Here's the AP stores. Pan American World Airways announced today it has offered six new Concord supersonic jet transports. I mean Chris, he's buying them.

SPEAKER_03 22:09

I saw the contract and uh I think he ought to put out a statement that he's not buying. Well, except you see that isn't the way the announcement reads. I read the contract that you showed to me a week ago, and he has to be. Why don't they put it the right to pull out for a million and a half dollars?

SPEAKER_05 22:27

Well, they better put out a statement because otherwise for me to go now ahead and announce our program is going to look awfully foolish. He ought to make an announcement, you know, that they've made no decision on buying the planes, they merely purchased an option. Why they felt they had to purchase an option, I don't know at this point. I mean, Christ, if we're gonna go ahead, the French and the British aren't in such a strong position. I mean, he d he he threw a million and a half bucks down the drain because when we do our thing, uh then what the hell does he need an option? They're gonna be around, everybody's gonna be around competing to sell them.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 22:56

Now, but the only thing is he's made it very difficult for us now to go ahead and announce our program if it looks like uh uh and the fact is he knew this was coming up. Halliby told him two or three times. He's given me the best argument for not having one air on and making it Pan M that I've ever heard.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

Yeah, I don't know why he did it.

SPEAKER_05 23:11

He's so indifferent to what the United States government is doing. I think Doug you ought to call some stickers. I want him to eat that today because otherwise we can't possibly go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 23:19

Why don't I call Halliby and Flash?

SPEAKER_05 23:21

Well, I got Hallaby. Halliby's in his office. But I think you ought to just say that we think that this is a deliberate thing to be dust when we're about to announce the program. It ensures they hundreds of millions of balance of payment loss, and it ensures that there's no sense of the United States government going ahead with a program that would give us the lead in the 70s, and that this uh looks to the president as a deliberate act, and I'm really gonna we're gonna spend our time screwing Pan Am. So why don't you give him some of that? See if you can get him to pull that back.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

He's made very clear that he is uh this is not a balanced payment loss when he talked to me, but I'll see if I can get him to make that clear publicly.

SPEAKER_05 23:51

Well, he can how can why how why isn't a balanced payment loss? He says he's not gonna buy the place. Well, then what is the announcement? You better get that announcement. Wait a minute, which number is it? It's UPI 122. Now maybe they better get out another announcement then clarify before the end of the day, or otherwise I don't see where we're gonna be.

SPEAKER_03 24:06

Yeah, because uh I think you saw the memo, right?

SPEAKER_05 24:08

Yeah, but I'd make it pretty unpleasant with him. I'd make it make it look like everybody over here thinks he gave us a derivative screwing.

SPEAKER_03 24:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:14

Okay. All right, fine.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

All right, fine. The Kennedy administration was perplexed that given TRIP's longstanding strong relationships with the American aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing and Douglas, who might be building their own SSTs, and Panam being an American company and the unofficial flagship carrier of the United States, why would Tripp now be buying a foreign aircraft developed by foreign countries and built by foreign workers? The White House viewed Tripp's move as a deep political wound for the president. The New York Times interviewed Halliby later that day, and he tried to soften and deflect the negativity around Pan Am's surprise announcement. Here's what he said describing the airline's Concord order as, quote, protective order designed to protect its position with regards to the national British and French carriers on the Atlantic routes. We welcome the pledge in the last sentence of the Pan American statement to purchase a fleet of United States supersonic aircraft at the earliest opportunity. End quote. Tripp's argument was that the administration was going too slow, and by placing the order, it would jumpstart the American program, and if that program proved to be unsuccessful, Pan Am would have a backup plan with the Concord. Needless to say, the strategy completely backfired in the end, and the political and public relations damage could not be undone. The next day, on June 5, 1963, the President decided to go through with his announcement at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Here's a clip.

SPEAKER_09 25:56

I'm announcing today that the United States will commit itself to an important new program in civilian aviation. It is my judgment that this government should immediately commence a new program in partnership with private industry to develop at the earliest practical date the prototype of a commercially successful supersonic transport superior to that being built in any other country of the world.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

The National Supersonic Transport Program was essentially a design competition with potentially billions of dollars at stake. Requests for proposals were sent out to three American companies, Lockheed, North American, and Boeing. The competition was fierce. The FAA estimated that there would be a market for 500 SSTs by 1990. Lockheed's design, with a Delta wing, designated CL-823, resembled the Concorde but larger. North American's design, designated NAC-60, was based on the B-70 Valkyrie aircraft and also had a Delta wing. The Boeing 2707 design had a blended wing route that spanned almost all of the cabin area. In October of 1963, because of Pan Am's order four months previously, TWA placed its own order for four Concorde. This further inflamed the Kennedy White House. Even Charles Lindbergh, a Pan Am consultant at the time, came out publicly against the project, saying that it, quote, doesn't make any sense. His argument was that the plane needed to be very narrow in order to achieve supersonic speeds, and airlines could not make money with the very small passenger loads with such a design at such a high operating and fuel cost. Another factor that was becoming a critical issue with the SST was environmental worries. Sound and air pollution concerns started to mount, and public and political support started to severely wane. Many laws were enacted to ensure SSTs were mostly limited to overwater routes due to the disruptive sonic booms they create. After six years of research and development, Boeing beat out Lockheed and North American in the design competition and was awarded the government contract in 1967. Pan American was the first U.S. airline to place an order for the Boeing 2027, ordering 15 of these supersonic planes. The airline had already placed an order for six Concords in 1963 and added another two orders later. By the end of 1968, Pan American World Airways had a total of 23 SSTs on order between Boeing and Concorde. However, fierce critics of the program continued to grow for the next four years across political parties. Sensing that the tide was turning against the project, Boeing went into full brazen political relations mode to try and bolster political interest and support. Here's a short promotional film from Boeing, hosted by Bob Considine, promoting their project.

SPEAKER_14 29:37

This is the view from 60,000 feet at more than twice the speed of today's jet airliners. It's what we'd see up there flying in a supersonic transport. We will be soon, you know. The question is: will it be an American SST? Will it be made in the USA? The British and French already have an SST. They call it the Concorde. And the Russians have one. Theirs, the TU-144, flew first. I'm Bob Considine. I've got a personal interest in the SST, and I'd like to tell you about it. Ten years ago, we were just moving into the jet transport air with the Boeing 707. Some people were against it at the time. I was on the first Transcontinental 707 flight from Seattle to Baltimore. I covered that historic event. I wrote about it then, and I'll write about the American SST when it goes into service. Some people are against that today. They may be overlooking quite a story. Many stories, really. For example, there's the construction story. Behind doors like these is where they'll build the American supersonic transport. So let's have a little straight talk about you and me and the SST. First of all, we Americans are good at building airplanes and the engines that power them. Because of our experience and ability, four out of five commercial planes flying in scheduled service around the world right now were built here in the USA. Our leadership in commercial aviation means a lot. To you, to me, to the whole country. That's one thing at stake with the SST. For understand this clearly, supersonic transports are going to be in service whether or not the United States builds them. The airlines of the world will buy and operate them. They must just stay with the competition. If they buy an American model, the money stays in the family, so to speak. If they buy a foreign model, the money goes abroad, and so does leadership in aviation. We'd work hard for that leadership.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Some of us feel we ought to make the effort to keep it. Boeing continued an aggressive public relations campaign and political pressure strategy to protect the program and their interests. But by 1971, a growing number of lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, were done with the government footing the bill for the SST program. It appeared that the majority of Congress had seen enough. Here's a clip from CBS News with Walter Cronkite from March 19th, 1971.

SPEAKER_08 32:40

Moving quickly in the wake of House rejection, the Senate Appropriations Committee has set up still another congressional battle over the supersonic transport. By vote of 17 to 5 today, the committee approved continued funding of the SST and sent the issue to a floor battle scheduled for next Wednesday. Both supporters and opponents of the controversial claim say the Senate showdown will be close, and even if the supporters win, the issue would have to go back to the House, which by narrow margin voted yesterday to cut off SST funds. The end of the SST, being built by Boeing, would further aggravate one of the worst unemployment situations in the nation. From Seattle, Richard Threlkeld reports.

SPEAKER_11 33:21

The only SST that Boeing has put together at this point is an airplane that will never fly, an aluminum test mock-up. And now that there's a good chance the real SST will never get off the ground, the skilled workers here on the assembly line are beginning to worry about their own future.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Well, you wonder whether the gates are going to be closed or not when you come in in the morning. What's going to happen now if this plane uh is not funded to people like you? Well, uh, a lot of us will be downgraded some more and shifted around, and others will be going out the door.

SPEAKER_13 33:59

Well, I imagine with the seniority that I have here, I'd probably get laid off because I don't have that much seniority for the company. What would you do then about finding another job? I don't know. I just have to scout around, I guess. I don't know what I'd do. At my age, I don't know whether I could find a job or not.

SPEAKER_11 34:17

There's good reason for concern now about the future of Boeing, too. The company has laid off more than half its workforce in the past three years, and there are more cutbacks to come. The 747 is not selling nearly as well as Boeing would like. It will take another year and a lot of luck before this plane will even begin to show a profit. And when Boeing gets the sniffles, Seattle catches cold. Unemployment here is approaching depression era levels of 14%. Seattle is such a one-industry town that every time Boeing fires one worker, two others lose their jobs in related industries. The demise of the SST would force layoffs of 6,000 more of Boeing's most skilled technicians, and Chief Engineer John Swehart is angry about it.

SPEAKER_15 35:04

Well, actually, the tragedy of this uh vote yesterday was that we have a team of men that we've assembled over a 12-year period that has advanced the technology of the United States in airframe design. And this vote means that this team is going to be disbanded so that the United States is going to lose 12 years of the best aeronautical development we've ever done.

SPEAKER_11 35:30

In pressing on with the SST in the face of strong economic and environmental arguments, the U.S. aircraft industry may have gambled away the future of supersonic transport altogether. Boeing admits it can't afford to build the SST on its own, and right now neither can the airlines. Such are the incredible cost factors in a project this size that even if Congress does back out of the SST program, it's still going to cost the government a lot of money. More than a hundred million dollars in penalty costs. Richard Threlkeld, CBS News, Seattle.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

Six days later, on March 25, 1971, over the strong objections of President Richard M. Nixon, the U.S. Congress officially pulled the plug on funding the American supersonic transport, the Boeing 2707, and the project was canceled with over a billion dollars spent over three presidential administrations. No American SST prototype ever took flight. What finally derailed the program with Congress was the growth of widespread public opposition based on the information that taxpayers' money was being wasted building an economic bridge to nowhere, and if the aircraft ever did take flight, it would become a serious public nuisance and threat to the environment. In 1973, both Pan Am and TWA canceled their Concorde orders in favor of wide-body and more cost-efficient subsonic aircraft such as the Boeing 747, the Lockheed L-1011, and McDonnell Douglas DC-10. The Russian TU-144 supersonic airliner took flight with passenger service in 1975 and was retired less than three years later in 1978 due to design problems and a series of accidents. The Concorde took flight in 1976. In its celebrated history, only two airlines would operate the aircraft, British Airways and Air France. In the end, the race for the SST was won by the British and French, and the era ended with the 2003 retirement of the Concorde. Even though the aircraft had a celebrated 27-year history, Concorde was unable to make money, but certainly had a prestige factor. SSTs may be a part of history today, however, supersonic aircraft might be making a comeback. Recently, United Airlines placed an order for 15 overture supersonic airliners from American aerospace company Boom Supersonic, based in Denver, Colorado, with an option of buying an additional 35. The order is pursuant to the company meeting United's safety, operating, and sustainability requirements. In addition, these future supersonic designs will have to mitigate and limit the Sonic Boom disruptions. Perhaps a new age of supersonic transport is upon us. Now on to our interview. She currently lives in South Carolina with her husband, writes feature articles for the World Wings publication, Jet Wings, and is a contributor to The Clipper, the publication of the Pan Am Historical Foundation. She was also a co-author, together with fellow flight attendant Paula Helfrich, of Flying a Novel, a story about Pan Am crews flying the Pacific in the 1970s. You can find a link in the episode description to purchase this book. Welcome to the Pan Am podcast, Becky.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Thank you, Tom. It's good to be here.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

So what is it about Pan Am that still captures the public's imagination of adventure?

SPEAKER_01 39:54

I think it depends on whom you're talking to. I think the people who remember the World War II days remember that Pan American had a supply and ferry route that helped the Allies fight the war. And uh then in later times, uh during the madmen era, I think uh the jets were new and there was a lot of glamour associated with it. Um the uniforms of the stewardesses were very smart. Uh, they wore hats and gloves. So I think that that sort of captured everyone's imagination. I think the logo, I think the name of the airline sort of has this uh sound of global panache and sophistication. But I think that most of all, um, people around the world regarded Pan American as a symbol of the United States and our dominance in the world at the time, and that we were a trusted partner in things, and if they needed to for something to get done, that Pan Am could get it done. And so I think we were very, very well respected. To the point where I think the flight attendants will identify with this, you could be in a bazaar in India and write a check for something, and they would take your personal check if you showed your Pan American ID.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

That's great, that's incredible. So you co-wrote a book, a fictional book based on, I'm assuming, real people, which we'll get to shortly, uh called Flying a Novel. Tell us about how you met your co-writer, the late Paula Helfrich.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

Well, Paula and I met when uh we were signing in for a flight one night in Honolulu. Everything out of Honolulu left, you know, late in the evening. It was about 10:30. And here was this person, you know, you sign in with your name and your employee number and your languages, and she got a name like Paula Helfrich, and she spoke Burmese and French. And I thought, who with a name like Paula Hilfrich speaks speaks Burmese? I've got to meet this person. And so later on that night, after we had fed everybody and they were all asleep, we sat on the jumpsy and I and I got to know her, and I realized she was one of the most fascinating individuals I had ever met. Um, her father had represented American companies in Burma in the 50s. So she grew up going to local schools there uh until junior high, and then they sent her off to the Catholic Hill schools in Darjeeling, India, uh, for the rest. And that's when she took her first Pan American flight. We flew together numerous times out of Honolulu, but and we're great friends. But uh then when I quit in 1977, I didn't see too much of her, but about 15 years ago, we got back in touch when three of our beloved Pan American friends were dying of breast cancer, and we were all on those internet emails that go out, and we got back in touch at that point.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

So, this is when you decided to start writing a novel together?

SPEAKER_01 42:57

We did. We thought, well, you know, time's a waste, and we've got our health, and these three people that we loved did not have this opportunity, and uh, we were also very unhappy with the way that the media had portrayed flight crews over the years. So we wanted to try to tell a story that would give them the respect that they deserved, and additionally, we also wanted to interweave moments when um all of these things were going on of just the sheer beauty and wonder of flying on an airplane or watching an airplane land in close range. It how magnificent it was to go up in the cockpit and see a blood red South Pacific sunrise. You know, there was just nothing like that. Now we got right to work. We figured, you know, we're not getting any younger, and we sketched out a plot that was kind of a gone with the wind of the airlines, in the sense that it's an epic story that takes. Place on a global scale against the backdrop of the history of the era.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

I really enjoyed your novel. It was very captivating. And I kept looking at the title, Flying a Novel, and I just was in awe of the simplicity of it. So when did you decide on the name? How did you choose that name?

SPEAKER_01 44:22

Well, first of all, it was the term we use for our profession. When someone asked me what I did for a living, I'd say, Well, I'm flying for Pan Am. And we also decided that flying was a metaphor for just about everything, from you know, from living to dying to leaving as in flying off somewhere, and in euphoria, maybe, you know, like you're flying high. But um, flying was also a metaphor for change. And uh, you think about it, every time an aircraft's wheels leave the runway, lives are going to change one way or another. And we were young people uh growing up in this world of change, both on the airplane and off.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

So, like I said before, it's a fictional novel, but it's based on real people. I'm assuming that the character of Zoe Longfeld was Paula, and I'm also assuming that Sally Wilder was you. Am I correct in that assumption?

SPEAKER_01 45:24

I don't know why you would think that, considering I have this southern drawl that's a mile long. Um, well, actually, let me just say this. Um, we chose fiction because the trips and the characters could be manipulated around historic events. And as your listeners well know, Pan American was always flying around the edges of history, if not straight into it on occasion. We also decided that a character who was an exotic expat and a character from small town America would provide a good contrast and help illuminate these extremely strong and devoted friendships that developed in spite of the fact that our crews, you know, came from very different backgrounds. Now, while while this is what Paula and I represented, the rest of the story is very much fiction. Um, we didn't want to, we weren't out to do a kiss and tell, we weren't trying to hurt anybody or any of that. You know, we wanted to um illuminate what this profession was really like. And every writing class you take will tell you to write what you know. And so I think just just using our backgrounds was about as as far as it went. Now, in truth, there were some things that we wrote about we were actually there for. Um, Paula was one of the pursers on Operation Baby Lift, and she was, we did write about that, but our plot is is complete fiction.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

You said that you and Paula were influenced by world history in the 1970s and how the crews experienced it while flying their trips. Can you give us an example?

SPEAKER_01 47:06

Well, uh yeah, I thought I've got a little uh um paragraph I thought I would read from one of the chapters. We wanted our our characters to laugh and cry and sweat and and be real. Um, so many of the depictions of air crews, everybody is just so spit and polished and never a drop of sweat on the brow. And um, they've just been so silly. Um, a great deal of the time we were really, really tired. Um, we've been awake for almost 24 hours, if not more. And in some cases, like the excerpt I'm about to read, we were faced with some really sobering uh historic events. Um, if it's okay with you, Tom, I thought I would uh read a little excerpt from a chapter called The Last Flight Out of Saigon. Is that okay?

SPEAKER_00 47:58

I'd love it.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

Well, many of your listeners heard Al Topping describe the harrowing last weeks on the ground as the North Vietnamese advanced on Saigon. And this is how we wrote about it from a flight attendant's perspective as the uh Clipper Unity began its takeoff role. After what seemed like an eternity on the taxiway, the aircraft paused before commencing its takeoff roll. Faster, faster. Zoe felt a chill run up and down her spine as the sweat cooled and hardened on her skin, the air cool and clammy and smelling of morning. Her eyes were glued to the window, as were those of every passenger, as the green spaces and red roofs of their homeland went racing by. Almost immediately upon rotation, the captain banked hard to the right, heading away from Saigon and out towards the South China Sea. The air vents were working double time to cool the cabin, and the whine of the engines, the creak of metal, and vibration of the hydraulics drowned out any other sound. Then the landing gear thumped into place, and the subsequent silence on board was eerie, enveloping. There were no shouts, applause, or sighs of relief, just the soft, sorrowful sounds of weeping for a country lost, the pent-up fears from weeks of anxiety, the months of agonizing decision making whether to go or stay, and the terrible choices of which family members to bring and whom to leave behind, all as a nation broke and as citizens bent to the burden of loss and shame, the ultimate toll of war to victor and vanquished alike. I'd say that is about as far from coffee, tea, or me as you can get.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

That's very true. Some of our listeners not may not know what you're referring to. Can you uh elaborate uh what coffee tea or me is?

SPEAKER_01 50:12

It was a book written by men about flight attendants, and we all hated it. And and I will not even dignify it by uh discussing the plot or the lack thereof, but um just suffice it to say that um you know this profession uh you know we were marketed to men. I mean, we were hired some what for our looks and they put us on the scales, and you know, we were supposed to be attractive and all of that. But the interesting twist is that we were the most independent of women, um, even in the 60s before the women's movement really took hold. These gals were flying all over the world, they got a 90% discount on any airfare and could just throw a dart on a map and just go there. So they had to be able to take care of themselves and um know how to get around and be comfortable in the world. So they were extremely independent. And the last thing that we were was this little dippy do idiot head um, you know, person that's depicted in this book.

SPEAKER_00 51:29

You bring up a good point. In in your book, there's a passage that I want to share and get your reaction about the the bond and the family of Pan Am flight attendants, flight crews, and and really the the greater Pan Am community. Um so let me just read this really quick and get your reaction. These women had all been brought together by a company that hired self-motivated and adventurous people, many of whom were quite eccentric. They came from far-flung places and trained together to work with friends or strangers, their flexibility providing the common ground that bound them to one another.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

That's exactly right. And once we um completed our training, then we went out into the world and started flying the line. And sometimes we would run into these people from our training classes, sometimes we wouldn't. But the main thing was that we became part of a family and we were bound together through our love of aviation, uh, the love of our company, and really the love of the world, because we enjoyed uh going there and celebrating it and understanding what had gone on there and learning new things. We all shared that in common. And I'd just like to add one thing, Tom, um, to the coffee, tea, or me discussion. Um, you know, the it was doubly offensive to us because the Pan American was America's flagship carrier. We were ambassadors to the world. Um we were very conservatively dressed, we wore hats and gloves. You you you couldn't be, you couldn't wear hot pants and go-go boots and land in a place like Karachi or some traditional conservative society. Not only would it offend that country terribly, but that would be dangerous for these girls. So um we we were we were well aware that we were representing the United States of America when we were abroad and and we looked like it, and it was a very sophisticated look. And it was part of the being a part of the Pan Am family, was knowing that we were ambassadors to the world.

SPEAKER_00 53:50

So flight attendants took their job very seriously, but there was also opportunity uh when you weren't on duty to um have some fun and some crew parties. Can you tell us a little bit about some of the crew parties?

SPEAKER_01 54:08

Well, uh sometimes it's not repeatable here, even on a podcast, but uh let me just say this for those who don't know uh a crew party usually happened uh on a longer trip, but I'm sure there were exceptions. They were mostly held in hotel rooms, although they could have been out by a pool or on a patio if the place was warm or whatever. Um, someone on the crew would volunteer to host, and we would either go out and buy beer or bring the leftover opened bottles of wine from first class. And we had a very ingenious method of rolling up these paper towels and stuffing them in the wine bottles and then putting a slipper sock over the top so customs wouldn't find it. Uh, we'd make roast beef sandwiches from the leftover roast and first class and the cheeses and whatever fruit we could sneak in. And we would bring that to the crew party. And sometimes the captain would actually be the instigator of these things and calling the purser uh before they started descent and saying, Well, you know, who's giving the crew party? And there were a couple of reasons for that. Um, because A, if you were going to a very remote place, you needed to think of some stuff to do, and you wanted to find out who played tennis and bridge and you know, whatever. But also on a long trip like a Delhi trip or something like that, um, they wanted the uh crews to know each other because they had to be on the lookout for each other. It was a long time to be away, and you know, they might need each other for something. So that was part of the reason for it. But um, it's also because you wanted to offset the jet lag and how awful you felt. You might as well have a couple of drinks and have a party. These were very outgoing people, needless to say. But the technique was there was or there was a process. You propped your door open and people just wandered in whenever they felt like it, and then um they would wander out again when they got tired. These uh the bad part was that if you agreed to host, that you know they could go on for quite a long time, and if you were tired, you had to wait for everybody to leave. That was the downside of that. But there were some legendary places uh for these crew parties. Um, Robertsfield in Liberia was one, and uh Darwin was another, and Bali, there were there were lots of fun parties. But as I look back on it, I think that the wildness of the crew party seemed to be uh inversely proportional to like the glamour and the sophistication of where we were. So if you were in a a city like Paris or Rome or something, there was so much to see and do that everybody was off shopping and going to the museums, and there were great restaurants to meet for dinner. But if you were on Guam for for five days, there wasn't a whole lot going on and you had to get creative.

SPEAKER_00 57:12

So when the Pan Am crews showed up at like hotels, restaurants, uh retail stores, how how were you treated? Did they open you with welcome arms?

SPEAKER_01 57:23

Well, they loved us because um we were um, you know, we were the staff on our airplanes. You know, we were serving people meals and cocktails and all of that. And uh we knew what it was like to be the staff. So whenever we went out to dinner, we tipped very generously. We were nice to the people that worked in the shops. They wanted us to tell all of our friends about their products, and so they always gave us a Pan Am discount. As I said before, they took our checks, and this was a lot of times it was in the days before credit cards. So uh, yes, we were very highly regarded.

SPEAKER_00 58:06

We're gonna take a quick break with a Pan Am commercial from 1979.

SPEAKER_12 58:17

Because we fly people who move the world, and people who watch the world, people who make the world work, and people who make the world smile, we've got a good idea what the world wants from an airline. So we have our full service economy class, offering every passenger complete service no matter how inexpensive their tickets. We have a class, giving full-fair passengers even more service, including free drinks and our durs, plus an empty seat beside them whenever possible. And in first class support of 747 SPs, we're introducing a luxurious new table for two dining and unique reclining sleeper seats, the most comfortable chairs in the air. Now we've got three great ways to fly the world.

SPEAKER_00 59:11

Welcome back to our interview with Becky Sprecker. Let's get back to your book for a moment. So I have co-wrote five local history books here in Columbus, Ohio. And I can tell you that uh working with an author is a great thing. Sometimes it's a challenge, but I can't even imagine writing a fictional novel with a co-author. Can you tell us about the working relationship that you had with Paula?

SPEAKER_01 59:42

Well, we wrote the book in typical Pan Am fashion. It was a collaboration from far-flung parts of the globe. Uh, when we got started in 2007, I think it was, I was living here in South Carolina and Paula, Paula was living on the big island of Hawaii. Two years into it, she announced that she was going back home. And since her family was from Winnetka, Illinois, I thought, oh my goodness, she's moving back to Winnetka. And I was kind of incredulous about that. And she said, no, absolutely not. I'm going home to Rangoon and I'm going to teach English to monks and children. I should have been surprised, but of course I wasn't. After all, this was Paula, someone who had once said to me, you know, I've always heard the expression from here to Timbuktu. So I'm going there, which she did, riding aboard the pack camel in the weekly salt caravan from Bamako. So she up and goes off to Rangoon and arrives there as the saffron revolution was going on and when the monks were demonstrating in the streets. And Aung San Su Chi, who had been a childhood schoolmate of hers, was still under house arrest. So not only was it at a very interesting time in Burma, but you know, their servers weren't exactly in great shape, and they would go down and we would lose our work when we were sending chapters back and forth for each other to edit. But um, you know, if we were 12 hours apart in time, uh everything would get goofed up. It was absolutely crazy, but you know, we got it done. It took us four years, but we did it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

Tell us about how music, uh, especially the music of the day of this book influenced you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

Well, um I had been a music major for a year in college, and I I've always been well aware of how music accesses the emotions more quickly and intensely than any other art form. I mean, if you all think about it, all you have to do is hear a few bars of I left my heart in San Francisco, and you are right there in the city on a cable car remembering some wonderful meal you've just had and the wine you drank and the whole thing. Um, I played it over and over again when I was writing because it helped me, it helped put me back in those days emotionally, and I could feel what the characters were feeling. And the songs also inspired me. Um we had wonderful music in that era.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:33

Can you name some of the songs you you uh listen to while writing this book?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:40

Well, I think uh there, yeah, there there were several, you know, different different genres of music. Uh I there are some big wave surfing scenes on the north shore of Oahu. And having lived out there, I was well aware of how dramatic that was and how powerful it was. And I kept hearing the music of Carlos Santana and Oye Komova was the uh was the that pulsing song with that relentless masculine beat that I kept hearing as these surfers were like risking their lives in these 25-foot waves. Um, there was another sequence that uh we were writing about, and this was um a really emotional chapter. It was on Operation Baby Lift, where Saigon is filling up with children, and these babies are being adopted in the United States and other parts of the world, and it's a very emotional time, very beat, you know, because they were saving lives. But uh I think that the the music of Earth, Wind, and Fires, that's the way of the world, um, really spoke to me because it uh it put me in touch with the emotion of investing in children, of airlifting them higher and higher out of out of danger into some sort of golden place where they would be safe. Those are in the lyrics. And indeed, the Vietnamese adoptees became known as the golden children. Um there were two Pan Am 747s involved in this effort to rescue orphans from Saigon, and Paula was a purser on the flight, um, along with Tori Werner. I think I mentioned that earlier. These crews were flying as volunteers and they were rerouted uh from their scheduled pattern out of Hong Kong. That's I think um an example of how quickly life could change when you were flying, especially when history is literally knocking at the door. And uh I would say the one final example was when uh one of our characters winds up on a movie set in the Philippines. And there were actually, I think I I was actually on this uh movie set, uh it was the movie set of Apocalypse Now, um, that was being filmed, and several Pan Am crew members were there. Um I learned a lot. I'd never been on a movie set before, and I haven't been on one since, but that one was a Lulu. Um I could clearly see how this was a this was very difficult material for the actors because Apocalypse was one of the first movies about the American soldiers' experience in Vietnam. And it just seemed to me that these artists were attempting to shoulder the soldiers' burdens, if you will. Here, you know, let us carry your load. Um, you know, we'll tell your story for you so that people will understand what you went through and we can honor your service. And give you the respect that you deserve. And I think the song that was very much in my mind, and it was released during those times, was um Neil Diamond's cover of He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother. I'd just like to remind your listeners that this wasn't Pan Am's only involvement in the Vietnam conflict, the Operation Baby Lift and the last flight out of Saigon. We flew RR charters in and out of Vietnam initially for just a dollar a year. And there are a lot of flight attendants that will talk about that time as one of the most difficult yet rewarding parts of their flying careers. Some of them even corresponded with the soldiers, both during their tours of duty and after they after they came home. And those of us who flew the 842 out of Saigon in the winter and the spring of 1973 often had troops aboard who were coming home after the Paris Peace Accords were signed. I have to say that while the flight attendants may have had varying opinions about the Vietnam War, I don't think there's a one of us who didn't understand how difficult this was for these soldiers and how nervous they were about what they'd find when they got back. I mean, it was just written all over their faces. But as we've said before, uh, at least when they got on Pan Am, they felt like they were home, that they were back in the United States and out of harm's way. They could say hello to a pretty girl and drink the water and speak English. And uh so we tried to give them a warm welcome and make them feel comfortable, even though most of them were very quiet.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:52

How did you get started doing Panam presentations?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:57

Well, my local library here in Beaufort, South Carolina was putting on a program called Books Sandwiched In, where they invited local authors to come in and discuss their books or certain people to present another book. And um, it's a very small town here, so I was surprised when 200 people showed up, including a gal, a former flight attendant, who had on her uniform. She drove up from Hilton Head. It was just remarkable. Uh from there, I began to give a Pan Am history class for the OSHA Lifelong Learning Learning Institute's programs at various universities around the region. Now, you know, I want to stress, you don't get paid for these things. You have to do it because you love it, because you love this big, fat, wonderful 60-central. I can totally relate to that. You get hooked on it. I'd get in the car and I'd drive up to Duke or the University of Georgia or the University of Virginia and Charlottesville and give the class and then come home. It was always, always a hit, uh, particularly with all of the visuals available from the Pan Am Historical Foundation. I didn't really do it to sell books either, because Ollie had regulations against that. Um, the main reason I did it was because it was so much fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the books about the company and its uh its different eras, because there are so many of them. And after that, um I was asked to give a class at a Pan Am reunion in New York, and then came the Savannah World Wings Convention, um, a reunion in Ireland and one in Berlin. And at every one of these places, it was so wonderful because people brought their grown children who were absolutely in awe of learning about what their parents had been a part of.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:49

And at one point, you had the help of Juan and Betty Tripp's youngest child, Ed, correct?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:56

That's right. And um, I think we uh started this at the uh Ireland reunion in Limerick. It was kind of a tag team format. Um, I was giving the history class and I would set up a particular situation, such as when one trip was in London during the war and had a meeting with Winston Churchill about supplying Montgomery's troops in North Africa. And then Ed would come in and tell us what he had learned about that meeting from his dad while they were sitting around the family dining table when he was growing up. And it gave the presentation a wonderful personal dimension, which was entirely appropriate considering we were talking to Pan Am family. Um, I'd also like to point out that after this reunion, Ed and his wife Bobby ran across a shoebox of letters written by his parents to each other in 1926 and 27 while they were dating, and Juan was trying to get Pan Am off the ground. When we went to the Berlin reunion, he and Bobby read excerpts of the letters with Ed reading his father's and Bobby reading his mother's. And it was just a wonderful experience. And everyone was so glad that they had been the first to hear this history. And we also learned how incredibly hard it was to get an airline like Pan Am off the ground.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:21

That's an incredible story. I mean, I could just imagine, you know, Ed finding this box of letters. It's it's just pure gold. Uh so tell us a little bit about writing for the Clipper and Jet Wings.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:37

Yes. Now, the first thing I wrote was for the Clipper. Um, it was a piece about when the Pan Am Historical Foundation went to Cuba in 2015. And the editor, uh Ruth Marin, contacted me about doing this. And um I thought, okay, well, I'll just interview Ed while we're on the trip because he and Bobby were the hosts for the 28 of us who went on this trip, it's a 10-day trip to Cuba. I was not prepared for how excited I would be about getting so close to Pan Am history. Um, when the group visited the old airport at Comague, we sat in the original Pan Am departure area, and the Cubana Airlines spokesperson was chatting away in Spanish about the history of the airport and all the famous people that had flown in. And then Ed, who's the most unassuming person, uh, raised his hand and uh he got up and talked about how his parents had flown into that very airport along with Charles and Ann Lindbergh. Um, they were on their way to set up routes in the Greater Caribbean and South America. And as our guides was translating what Ed was saying to the Kubana spokesman, you could see his eyes getting bigger and bigger as he began to realize who Ed was. And this big smile broke out on his face, and Ed went up to shake his hand to this great applause. And of course, we all photobombed the whole scene. And then we went out onto the tarmac just to take in the feel of this of this place, remembering these airplanes and the early days that had flown in. And of course, it was where the Soviet MiGs had been based during the Cold War, but it was quite remarkable. And a second incident took place when we arrived at the Terry Theater in Cienfuegos. Now, Tomas Terry was Juan Tripp's stepgrandfather, and we don't have time to go into that incredible story today. You should get Ed to tell you that one. Yes. It's absolutely fascinating and colorful, and you can't make this stuff up. But it is how Juan Terry Tripp got his name. Um, it is a lovely old opera house, and I wish somebody with a zillion dollars could come in and restore it. But the most amazing thing was that Ed's cousins were at the door to greet him. I mean, this was such a historic kind of it was like a homecoming. That's incredible for Pan Am. Every place we went, Pan Am had touched that place, and it was like a homecoming, and I was just bursting with things to write about it. And I I that's when I did that article, and it went on from there to writing articles for jet wings when Nancy McAllister asked me to uh to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:42

So with with everything that has transpired, your Pan Am career and now diving into the history of Pan Am working with Ed Tripp, what has it all meant to you?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:57

I have to say, for me personally, it's it's my debt of gratitude, really. I think if you ask every single Pan Am flight attendant, whether they flew for two years or 20, they would tell you the same thing that working for this company was life-changing. There's just no way to describe what traveling the world in the company of other like-minded individuals from all over everywhere does for you. And once you have been to a place, even if it was the dirtiest, rattiest place in the back of beyond, it is in your heart. And when you read or see on television that they've had an earthquake or a flood or a coup or some other catastrophe, you know, you care whether you had a good time there or not. And, you know, I think that's a good thing, Tom. I mean, I think it makes you a better person. Because in a time when countries seem to be turning inward, uh I think it's critical that we have citizens who have a broad-minded view of life on our planet. I mean, after all, it was Juan Tripp who said that global tourism was a more powerful agent for peace than nuclear weapons. You know, because it's when we visited each other's countries and eaten each other's food and learned about each other's history and shopping the shops, that we realized that, you know, we're really one world. And there's we more that that unites us and divides us, as the saying goes.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:28

Couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. And that's one of the reasons why we're doing this podcast. Uh, so tell us about these legendary reunions that occur with Pan Am employees.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:42

Well, we've been talking today about Pan Am's incredible sense of family, and uh these crews did form these amazing bonds, partly because the length of some of the trips, partly because some of the interesting places we flew. Um, but mostly I think it was the excitement about traveling and learning, and we were all very outgoing and really adventurous. I think that some of the most intrepid people on the planet in those days were Pan Am flight attendants and flight crews. I mean, you know, we love sharing these memories with each other and reconnecting with long-lost friends that we hadn't seen in a long time. So all of these pop-up reunions, the Whirlwings annual conventions and events like the Pan Am Museum's uh annual Gala give us a way to do that. I mean, what other company can you think of that still has reunions and plans trips together 30 years after it went out of business? It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:44

Yeah, I can't think of one. I really can't. So there are many Pan Ammers out there with their stories that need to be told. And what advice or what uh direction or call to action do you have for former Pan Am employees who are considering writing or recording their personal stories?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:08

Well, I would say get to it right away. You know, we're not getting any younger and time's a wasting. Um, and furthermore, you need to go through all your memorabilia and determine uh whether or not it should go down to the Pan Am Archives at the Rector Library in Miami or the Pan Am Museum Foundation or your local museum. None of us are getting any younger, as I said before, and we don't want the stories from our airline to be lost because there will never be anything like Pan Am again. You know, uh to illustrate that point in time, there's a little story we just did for jet wings in a column called Galley Talk, which is little snippets of things that happened to us when we were flying. Um back in the, I would say, late 60s, a flight attendant, an English girl named Maggie De Havillon Hall, was based in LA and she was flying a Tahiti trip. And when she reported for briefing in Papiete, she learned that the famous actor Marlon Brando was going to be on board. Now, Mr. Brando had filmed Mutiny on the Bounty in Tahiti and married his Tahitian actress that played his love interest. So he traveled frequently back and forth on Pan Am to Los Angeles. So Maggie was the purser in front, and there were only three other passengers, including uh Mr. Brando. And she sent the other flight attendant to the back to help out and was preparing to do eggs to order when suddenly Mr. Brando appears in the galley and he offered to help scramble the eggs.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:48

Wow, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:49

And of course, he says, I know how to do that. Well, the other passengers absolutely loved it, they couldn't believe it. And after the service, he asked her to uh sit down and join him having a cigarette. So here we have this really cute picture of Mr. Brando reaching over to light Maggie's cigarette after he had given her a shelle that he had been wearing, which she still has today, I might add. Now, there's, you know, this is just such a little snippet of a story, but it's very revealing because so much about it will never happen again. I mean, first of all, movie stars and famous people and highly placed corporate executives don't fly commercial anymore. They are flying on their own private aircraft. And secondly, there's no smoking allowed on board, and most people have quit anyway. So this was a snapshot of a fascinating moment in time that is never gonna come again. And we want to preserve this history because if we don't tell our stories, then that leaves it to someone else to tell it for us, and we don't want that to happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:01

So you mentioned World Wings International. Can you tell us a little bit about this organization?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:08

World Wings International is a um a 501c3 philanthropic organization made up of Pan Am flight attendants all over the world. And they um have conventions every year. This year we're getting ready to go on a cruise of the Caribbean, which I'm very much looking forward to. And they uh support uh médecine sans frontier, which is the um Doctors Without Borders, and they do auctions and make donations to that charity, and we get to learn all about what that organization is up to. Now, their publication is called Jet Wings, and since I really like writing as a team, I have a co-writer named Diane Stern Grow, who lives in Houston, and together we write uh a feature article for each issue about some era of the flight attendant's history, and we go into a lot of depth on that and we talk to a lot of people about it. We also uh have this galley talk sidebar, which gives us the snippets of funny things that happened on board, and uh, like the girl who spent an evening with Paul McCartney at Treetops in Africa, had dinner with him and didn't even know who he was. This was in 1964. But she said, Hey, I was in my 20s and I thought this was teeny bobber stuff. I didn't realize how famous he was. But you know, things that we want to be preserved for history because the issues of jet wings do go to um the Richter, to the archives at the Richter Library in Miami. So um it's a great joy to be involved with all of them. And of course, it's uh at this time of my life, it's an honor to help educate people on our company's history and to get their stories on the record.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:11

Do you have any stories on celebrities or any favorite memories when you were a Pan Am flight attendant?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:21

I have a favorite one that was actually in flying, it actually happened. Uh Paula did it, but it's my favorite story if you want me to tell it.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:31

Please do.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:32

The story I think that's my favorite, and it did wind up in flying, and it is true. Um, and no Apa was Paula did this, and nobody else, she wasn't afraid of anything, and she knew everybody. So uh she came in from a flight one night. Oh, it must have been 5:30, 6 o'clock in the morning, and the ground crews were just getting off work and she had a whole bunch of friends, and they all decided to go uh out to drink beer. There was this location out near the end of the runway, near the outer marker, where they'd all hang out there and sit on the hoods of their cars and drink beer and watch the planes come in. And so they somebody had cut a hole in the chain link fence. Now, of course, this was back in the days when Honolulu was kind of an outpost. You could never do something like this today. It would just be without the security procedures, would just never permit it. But at any rate, what they did was they they cut a hole in the fence and they went out onto the runway and to the outer marker, which is these steel rebars with these blue arrows, a succession of blue arrows that help the pilots line up as they're out over Pearl Harbor when they're coming in. And so many flights from the South Pacific and Asia are coming in at uh 6:30, 7 o'clock in the morning, very, very early. So it's still dark, and she goes out there with all of her friends, and they've got these cargo tie-down straps, and they they kind of lash themselves to the steel rebars because when these planes go overhead, the whirling vortices of air off of the wings, you know, generates this backdraft that can uh blow you around. So they they lash themselves to the um to the to the steel rebars after having had a few beers and would uh would watch these airplanes come in on final approach in land. I don't know, they probably the wheels are probably 10 feet over their heads before they touch down on the runway. It was absolute insanity. Only Paula had the had the spirit, you know, to go out and do that. So when we put that into flying, one of our characters was doing this, and she pauses for a moment in the midst of her stark terror at this thing that is coming straight at her. It looks like it's gonna land right on top of her. But when a 747 is landing, it is the most graceful and elegant of airplanes. Um, there they don't call it the Queen of the Skies for nothing. It's just floating in and the nose is up, and it is so incredibly graceful. And she stops for a minute and is in awe of the act of flying, that it is such a miracle of engineering and a marvel of physics that this thing could actually happen, and that she is so thrilled that she's part of it all. And in the next minute, she goes back to screaming because it's about to land on top of her. It does not, by the way, it lands safely on the runway and she's in ecstasy afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:46

That's great. Well, I would like to thank you for all the work you're doing for Pan Am History, and I would like to thank you for your time on coming on our podcast. And we hope to have you on again soon. And uh, we can't thank you enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:00

Well, thank you so much, Tom. And it was just a joy to be with you, and I'm so glad that you're so excited about Pan Am History and a new generation of folks is understanding how great this story is. So keep flying high, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:14

You too. Take care.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:15

Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:23

Pan Am was a pioneer in air travel and still stands as one of the most iconic and innovative airlines in aviation history. That legacy lives on at the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York, where you can explore the rich history of the aircraft and individuals at the heart of the company known as the world's most experienced airline. For more information about the Pan Am Museum, check out our website at www.thepan Amuseum.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. As was once a tagline in one of our commercials, we would greatly appreciate your support to help the Pan Am Museum continue making the going great. You can also support the museum by shopping on our online store for all things Pan Am accessories, apparel, jewelry, books, models, and posters. We want to hear from you. If you have a question for us or want to share your story, our email address is podcast at the Pan Ammuseum.org. And with that, we're going to close out this episode with a Pan Am song called For Once in a Lifetime, I Want to Be Free by the Letterman recorded at the Pan Am Building in New York City in 1970. As flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world, thank you for flying, Pan Ambassador.