SPEAKER_00 0:14

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 airlock, Pan American World Airways. My name is Tom Betty, and I'm the host of this program. Thank you for joining us. This program is sponsored by the generous support of Mr. Adam Aaron, the CEO of AMC Entertainment Holdings, Incorporated. The Pan Am Museum Foundation is a nonprofit organization. Please visit our website for more information at the Panamuseum.org. Again, our website is the Panamuseum.org. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. If you are using Apple Podcasts, please consider leaving a review. It will help others discover this program. 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. In this episode, we continue to celebrate Black History Month and are joined by veteran Pan Am pilots Captain Perry Jones and Ed Moon. Perry was the first African American to be hired by Pan Am in late 1965, and Ed was the third to be hired in early 1967. The second African American hired by Pan Am was Otis Benjamin Young in 1966. O.B., as he was affectionately referred to, was born in 1938 and graduated from Howard University and then served in the United States Air Force. After Pan Am, he flew for Delta Airlines until retirement. Unfortunately, Captain Young passed away in 2021. These gentlemen were legendary trailblazers at the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. All three left a lasting legacy at Pan Am, paved the way for other people of color and beyond, and were part of the change that transformed the commercial aviation community. In 1976, Benjamin Thomas, an Eastern Airlines pilot, organized a meeting that formed the Organization of Black Airline Pilots, now called the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals, to address discrimination in the airline industry. Ed Moon was one of the 38 founders of the organization, and both Perry and Ed served as president and board chair of the organization through the years. Today, the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals, or OBAB for short, is a world-leading nonprofit organization that changes lives by creating a pathway to success through educating youth, communities, and professionals, shaping an aerospace industry as diverse as the people they serve. For more information on OBAB, visit their website at obap.org. There is a link in the episode description. Now on to our interview with Captain Perry Jones and Ed Moon. Marvin Perry Jones was born in rural Virginia in 1934 during the Great Depression. When he was young, his parents moved north to find work, and Perry remained on the family farm with his grandparents. Perry graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in engineering and deferred his military service for a short time to work for the Lockheed Corporation after graduation. In 1962, he began his service in the United States Air Force and later flew the Boeing KC-135 Strato Tanker over Vietnam. Then in late 1965, Perry became the first African American to be hired by Pan American World Airways as a pilot and would later be promoted to captain. After Pan Am, Perry continued to fly with Delta Airlines until retirement. He resides in Glenridge, New Jersey with his wife Ursula. Edward Eugene Moon was born in 1938 and grew up in Miami, Florida. He graduated from Tennessee State University in 1961 with a degree in aviation education. He then joined the United States Air Force and later flew F-100 fighter jets over Vietnam. At the encouragement of Perry and O. B. Young, Ed submitted a job application and was the third African American hired as a pilot by Pan American World Airways in early 1967. After Pan Am, Ed joined United Airlines until his retirement in November of 2001. He resides in Rockville, Maryland with his wife Bonnie Jones Moon, a Pan Am flight attendant who later became a lawyer. Welcome to the program, Captain Perry Jones and Ed Moon.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Okay, it's nice. Nice to be here. Well, it's really a pleasure to be here, Tom. Thank you so very much for inviting us this evening.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Captain Perry, why don't we start with you? Tell us a little bit about your childhood, where you grew up, and also how you got interested in aviation.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Well, I grew up in uh rural Cartersville, Virginia. Uh, you have to understand that this was segregated Cartersville, Virginia back in 1934. And growing up on the farm with my grandparents, my paternal grandparents, was something that uh really set in motion uh how I was going to uh live my life because they taught me how to do things and how to I think they made me set certain things that I wanted to do and stick to that to make sure that I could accomplish that. And I remember the first time I became interested in aviation was I was approximately six years old down in Cartersville, Virginia, and this airplane flew over with the canopy back, and the pilot waved to me, and I waved to the pilot, and that was the beginning of me going into aviation, and I mean I went into it 150 percent. Uh, I ran to my grandfather and I said, Grandpa, that's what I want to do. And my grandfather said, Boy, if you want to do that, if you want to drive that plane, you can. So that set into motion uh with me because I believed everything that my grandfather told me. And when he told me if I wanted to drive that plane, I could. I truly believed that. And so for the rest of my years until I moved from uh Cartersville, Virginia to New Jersey, that was my focus. Working on the farm and building my own little airplane. That it was sort of like uh Don Quixote, you know, with his uh apparition of windmills and everything. And I don't have a picture of that airplane, but I'm sure that it was a sight to be seen. And that was um what I continued to study anything that I thought would make this dream of becoming a pilot a reality. And so I continued that when I came to Mount Clear, New Jersey. And physics, mathematics was everything that I thought of that would get me closer to my dream. And so that was my first 10 years of life down in Cartersville, Virginia, and that was the spark that made me continue into aviation for many, many years.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Ed, how about you? Where did you grow up and how did you get interested in aviation?

SPEAKER_03 9:27

Well, I grew up in Miami, Florida, and uh our house was located under the flight pattern of Opalaca Naval Air Station, and depending on the wind direction and operations at Miami International, sometimes on the departure or arrival route for aircraft coming to Miami. So with the airplanes flying overhead, I said, hey, that looks like what I what I want to do. And besides, I was trying to uh I was also interested in something that would take me out of Miami and open the world. And as it turned out, uh I did both and did it with uh first class with Pam Ann.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Captain Perry, did your grandfather get a chance to see you flying an airplane?

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Uh no, he did not because once I moved away from Virginia at age 10, my grandfather passed away when I was 11 years old. So uh he never got a chance to to see me fly or even matriculate through school. He never saw that.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Did the two of you have any adversity as being interested in aviation and being African-American during the 40s and 50s?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Well, of course, uh we did because uh I recall uh when I was about, I think, 13 years old. That's when the Tuskegee, famed Tuskegee Airmen, were flying in World War II. And I remember a magazine called World Magazine, it was a uh black publication back in the 40s and 50s, and they did all of these articles on the Tuskegee Airmen. And obviously, when the Tuskegee Airmen completed their tour of duty and they wanted to fly commercially, they weren't able to. The only one person from the Tuskegee Airmen era that I know of who got an opportunity to fly commercially was Bob Ashby. He was the only one out of all of the Tuskegee Airmen who got a chance to fly on commercial airliners.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

There is there is one other uh Perry. Uh I'm trying to think of his name, but he was with Seaboard World. And there's a high school named after him in uh Queens, New York. Yeah, and you're correct because it's August Martin.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah, August Martin. He flew for Seaboard World, which was um commercial cargo uh airliner.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

Right. And he and his wife were killed because he was flying release relief flights in uh Biafra when uh the Biafran war was going on. But he it he was a Tuskegee Airman, but he graduated too late to be sent overseas. Yeah, that is true.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Let's talk about the Tuskegee Airmen. A lot of our listeners are younger and they may not know who the Tuskegee Airmen were. Can the two of you give an introduction to some of our listeners that may not be familiar with them?

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Well, um, the Tuskegee Airmen, of course, many of them had graduated from not only high school but from the university, and they wanted to fly, they wanted to be a part of World War II. However, at that time, the US military didn't want to have black pilots flying because they thought that, well, the blacks can't fly airplanes the way they should be able to fly in combat. So it was sort of put on hold. And then I guess President Roosevelt was the president at that time, and he sent his wife Eleanor down to Tuskegee, where these Tuskegee Airmen were training. And uh, of course, when she went down there, in fact, Chief Anderson, who was the chief flight instructor for the Tuskegee Airmen, he took her up for a ride and showed her around the facility. And she was impressed. She said, these pilots can fly. And so she went back to President Roosevelt, and I think he didn't have a choice but to set into motion to get the Tuskegee Airmen to be a part of the Army Air Corps.

SPEAKER_03 14:23

And it's the interesting thing about the Tuskegee Airmen is that they were pretty quiet about it. In fact, I went to Tennessee State, and at one point, the professor of air science there in ROTC was Colonel Ball. Unfortunately, he didn't uh really tell us too many stories about the Tuskegee Airmen. But, you know, he was there, and subsequently to uh getting on with the airlines myself, we've had several occasions where the Tuskegee Airmen and the Organization of Black Airline Pilots had co or joint conventions where we got to meet and talk with quite a few of them, but they were pretty quiet about their accomplishments. You know, you you would think they would go around and say, Yeah, I was a Tuskegee airman, but no, that's not the case.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

I was fortunate enough to have close relationships with uh many of them, and they were all fantastic gentlemen. One was uh president of um a community college in New York. Uh many of them uh went into business and they were very successful in the business end, all terrific individuals.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

They were outstanding uh gents, like I said, that they weren't brigadacious at all. They they were just good, solid people. However, one of the things, because of the mission during the war, and that of they were primarily designated to escort bombers as opposed to going out on fighter sweeps or or uh hunting and and destroyed type missions. But at any rate, one of them became an ace, that is, shooting down five enemy aircraft. And it was long after the war that he was credited with being an ace. Even the kill that uh was in question, the other person who they said played a part in it, had been saying all along that no, that was his kill. That was Lee Archer, right? Who was designated the ace. And uh also, you know, with the Tuskegee Airmen, they had incidents where they were barred from the local officer, the base officers club. They wanted to have the uh Tuskegee Airmen go off to a separate club, and the Tuskegee Airmen said no, and they ended up with court-martial with one of the Tuskegee Airmen having a conviction until uh who was it that pardoned him? I want to say it was President Clinton, yeah. But he had carried it this guilty uh conviction all through his life.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

It's terrible, very terrible. That is true. Let's get back to uh your stories. So, Ed, is there someone in your life that inspired you? Captain Perry tells this wonderful story about his grandfather. Was there someone in in your early life that inspired you to pursue a career in aviation?

SPEAKER_03 18:00

Yes, and and no. When I say that, I mean, yes, there was someone who encouraged me because we had a family friend, uh a guy by the name of Haida Davies, and um he was really interested in flying and he subscribed to many flying magazines. He had started into lessons but ran out of money because it flying lessons are pretty expensive. But at any rate, he would give me his aviation magazines when he was finished. And that's the reason I said no was because my uh parents were saying, you know, no, you you don't want to go after that uh star in the sky because you you better do something more solid, like you know, doctor or teacher. And so I mean, look at look at Haider. Haider was driving a beer distributors truck, and you know, she said, well, you know, that's where flying can get you. So so yes, I had encouragement, but then no, I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

And both of you served in the military. Do we want to go into those stories?

SPEAKER_03 19:22

Well, we met in the military, Perry and I.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 19:26

Perry was a couple of classes or so behind me in pilot training, but that's because he I went into the Air Force directly into pilot training, and he had a little detour through NAV school. That's an interesting story too, Perry. Oh, please tell us.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Yeah, that was the thing. After I graduated from high school, I ended up going to the University of Pittsburgh. And at the university, I joined the Air Force ROTC, Reserve Officers Training Corps. And of course, when I graduated with my degree in mechanical and aeronautical engineering, I thought I was just going to go to polytraining. Well, there was a procedure back in those years where for blacks, they had this thing about sickle cell anemia. If anyone has heard about that, where some of the blood cells, rather than being round, they become flattened. And that was one of the things that would keep you out of polytrain. Well, I was tested for that. Fortunately, I did not have sickle cell. And as a result, I graduated from the university and went to work with Lockheed Aircraft Corporation out in Burbank, California as a design engineer. And I worked on the Electra, a four-engine turboprop. I worked on the German Air Force wanted the F-104s. So we worked with the German engineers because they wanted to build the airplane in Germany. So worked with them for a while. And then the military had this thing, they were going to come out with a B-70 bomber, supersonic bomber. This is back in the late 50s. And at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, it was a diverse corporation because they had what was called the Skunk Works out in the desert east of Los Angeles. And this is where the U 2 was designed. And when I worked at Lockheed, I knew nothing about the U2 because it was so secret. And then after working with Lockheed for a while, the military said, Well, it's time for you to come into the Air Force. So they gave me an assignment down to Lakeland Air. Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, for what they call pre-flight training, which goes for about six weeks or so. And from that, we were going to be assigned to a poll training course. So there were about I think it was 240 students in this pre-flight class. And then just about a week before we were supposed to graduate and get our assignments for poly training, they came into the room and announced that they the SAC, the Strategic Air Command, needed navigators. And they asked for volunteers to go to navigation school. Well, come on, no one is going to raise their hand to become a navigator when you wanted to become a pilot. So they had no hands raised. So then they finally said, Well, what we're going to do, we're going to have to pick names out of the hat. Now, out of 240 young men in this class, they picked 30 names out of the hat. Of course, we had only 10 black pilots out of the 240. Nine of us who were black were in that group of 30 who were going to go to navigation training.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

So that was a very, I think it was a fair way of doing it, huh? Picking in the hat, and nine of the 10 prospective pilots ended up in navigation training. So I went to James Connolly Air Force Base in Waco, Texas to start navigation training. Well, I thought to myself, this is just a bump in the road. So I'll go ahead and become a navigator and eventually I'll end up in poly training. Well, what happened about six months later? The one pilot in the class who was left to go to polytraining, they found a way to wash him out of poly training. So he ended up being a navigator. And I ended up uh uh going back, I shouldn't say going back, going back to California because I got an assignment as a navigator with the military air transport service, MATS. And I ended up uh being a navigator on the OC 124, that it flew at 200 miles an hour, and it took us 10 hours from Travis Air Force Base in California to get to Hawaii, and that was quite an experience. And then they changed airplanes and ended up becoming a navigator on the C-135, which was nothing more than a Boeing 707. And so that's where I started my career in the Air Force as a navigator out at Travis Air Force Base in California.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Ed, what's your story? Did you go to college before you went into the Air Force?

SPEAKER_03 25:17

Yeah, I did. Uh actually, I had not planned to go to college. My plan was to graduate high school and go into the aviation cadet program, where you joined the Air Force, then you would go to Officer Canada School, and from there you would go into pilot training. But as I just as I was graduating high school, they changed the requirement so that you had to have at least two years of college. So I said, okay, so I'll go to college for two years. And as it turned out, I had a scholarship to uh Hampton Institute in Virginia. So my parents said, well, if you want to go to college, that's where you're going, because we're going to have three kids in college, and that's where the money is. So I said, okay, well, but that's not getting me where I want to go. So I went to Hampton a year, and then I said, look, no, we're wasting our money because it's not taking me where I want to be. And so by that time, they had changed the requirement again to a college degree was required. So now I was hooked into finishing college. So then I transferred from Hampton to Tennessee State, and primarily because Hampton had an Army ROTC and I wanted an Air Force, and also because you could take flying as a college course at Tennessee State. So that's where I went to school, and then I graduated as a uh distinguished military graduate, which means I had the same type of commission as the guys who graduate the Air Force Academy or the Army. In other words, you're professional uh soldier. So I I graduated and then went to pilot training from there. And I went to Webb Air Force Base, and as I mentioned, uh Perry came there a little bit later, and uh I didn't have anything quite like uh his navigator experience. However, in my class and the two classes behind me, there were three blacks in each class, and of course, we're talking males, this is before females, and in each class, one black guy graduated, and I happened to be the black guy in my class because that was uh that had a little bit of uh experience too, and that is that in undergraduate pilot training, you flew the T37, and then in graduate or or primary, I guess it's called basic flight uh training, we flew the T-38. But I was the first guy in my class to solo in the T-37. I understand later that there was some discussion as to whether I was gonna be allowed to um be the first guy in the class to solo, but it went through my instructor, a guy named Carlside and Rohide stuck out for me. And um then when I got into uh T-38, I had an instructor who, when it came time for the solo ride, he says, I don't think you're ready. And you can get a ride or two after that, and pretty soon you get on a slippy, slippy slope where you're being washed out. So after uh the flight where he said I wasn't ready, and I felt I was, I went in and talked to the ops officer and said, you know, hey, uh I don't see any reason why I shouldn't be allowed to solo. And he said, Well, uh, what do you want to do about it? I said, Well, I want to fly with somebody else. And he said, Okay, how about me? I said, I don't care who it is, just I want to fly with somebody different. So he he flew with me and he says, Yeah, you're cleared to go. So I was cleared the solo in the T38.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Do you feel that you were treated differently because you were African American?

SPEAKER_03 30:00

Um, when well let me put something, let me put something in perspective, Tom. I grew up in Miami and graduated high school in 56. The high school I graduated from was Northwestern Senior High. And Northwestern Senior High was one of the most up-to-date modern schools in the country. But the reason it was there was because in 1954, the Supreme Court had ruled on uh Brown versus Board of Education, desegregating the schools. So the idea was to give the blacks a premier school so they won't want to go to the white schools in the area. And so I graduated there, I went to Hampton, Tennessee State, all HBCUs. So I was basically I I basically lived under a segregated system until I was 22. And in fact, the uh the first time I was in class or any schooling situation with white people was when I went to uh pilot training. So you might say that made me sensitive to uh to racial differences and discrepancies. I I mentioned that Perry and I met in uh in the Air Force, and that's because uh when I came back from Vietnam, I was trying to figure out a way to not go back. And so I started volunteering for everything. And one of the things I volunteered for was a Thunderbirds, aerial demonstration team for the Air Force. There was a delay in uh in decide making that decision, but earlier on I had gone on a screening tour with them, which it was in Santa Maria, California. Well, uh my transportation out there was to take a uh uh F-100 to what they call Iran, inspect and repair as necessary. Uh, I did that, and then I ran into a friend of mine from pilot training, and he said, Guess who's here? So I said, Who's that? He said, Perry Jones. So I said, What's he doing here? He said, Oh, he's flying for Penn Am. So I said, Well, I gotta go talk to this guy to find out how he stopped flying with Penn Am. Uh and uh I'm still I still have about a year or so to go. So, at any rate, he says, Well, I'll see if I can find him. So he called him up, and sure enough, Perry was there. So I had heard about black guys flying as pilot for commercial airlines, but what I had heard was Marlon Green. And Marlon Green was a guy who was ex-F Air Force vet who had to go to the Supreme Court to get his job at Continental. And so that was the only thing I knew about the blacks and commercial aviation. So when I heard that Perry was already flying with Pan Am, I said, oh, I gotta go and talk with him and find out what's it about. And so I did, and he says, Well, if your airplane's not ready tomorrow morning, I'll take you down to San Francisco and introduce you to the people at Pan Am. So I said, okay. As I mentioned, it with my background, uh segregated background, I didn't talk to anybody but Pan Am. And the reason I didn't was because I didn't necessarily think that Pan Am people were any less prejudiced or discriminatory than anybody else. But what I did think was they were exposed enough to know how to handle it and deal with it. For instance, you know, you you know that you don't use the N-word when you're going through customs in Nigeria. So, you know, somebody who's based in Miami might feel comfortable using it, you know, or in the the places that they fly, like in Savannah or whoever. But uh I thought that uh things would be a little easier at Pan Am. And from talking with uh people, uh other black guys with other carriers, it worked out.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

We had a diversity event uh at the Pan Am Museum, and one of our pre-meetings, you told me a story about Eastern Airlines that I would like for you to talk about. Eastern Airlines was headed by a gentleman by the name of Eddie Rickenbacher, who was a World War I ace favorite son of Columbus, Ohio.

SPEAKER_03 35:36

As I mentioned, we had had a couple of affairs with the Tuskegee Airmen, and sometime, you know, over a drink of you start telling stories. And that was one of the stories that I heard, two of them that were impressive. So I'll give you the first one you didn't ask about first. Okay, and that is that I had gone on a trip and we were in the hotel lobby. It happened to be uh Rio de Janeiro, and I saw this black guy in a business suit looking at me, and finally uh he came over and said, Who do you fly for? And I said, Pan Am. He said, That's good. And I said, Oh, I think it's all right. He said, Yeah. He said, I'm a Tuskegee Airman. And after we came home from the war, a group of us went out to Pan Am's headquarters um in Long Island to apply for pilot positions. And so they told us when we were there that uh they were sorry, but today was Wednesday, and they weren't doing pilot interviews on that day. But if they would come back on Monday, then they could be they could get an interview, and so they went back on Monday, and Penn M had moved his headquarters from Long Island to Miami. So that was that was one uh story that that I came. And then the one about Eddie Rickenbacker was that some of the guys that basically knew of him and he had ideas of who they were because he was familiar with the uh Tuskegee Raman too, uh said, you know, hey Eddie, why don't you uh give us give us a job? And and he says, Oh, I will if you will refund me the revenue loss every time a passenger gets off because we got a black pilot. And so they didn't uh take him up on that.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

So thinking about that story that you heard and putting it into context, uh both of you, looking back at your success of this prestigious career in aviation, how does that make you feel?

SPEAKER_01 38:13

Well, there were a lot of hurdles that were thrown in our way to aspire to become uh pilots with the airlines, that is for sure. However, I think that anytime you're looking for something and you want to achieve it, you will sort of uh push these episodes in the background because I'm not gonna let anyone just because of what they have said deter me from achieving my goal. And that's the way I looked at things, and I always look at things this way. Even now I look at that. I'm not gonna let anyone deter me from achieving what I want to achieve. I think that's very, very important. And I think that for young people, they have to get that attitude that I have a dream and I'm going to achieve my green my dream, regardless of what hurdles are thrown in front of me. And I think that's the attitude that most people who are successful in life, they have that type of attitude.

SPEAKER_03 39:25

Yeah, I think that everybody has something in their life that's a hurdle. We just had uh additional hurdles.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Yeah. Before we talk about how you got into Pan American, Captain Perry, what I want to know is what was a young Ed Moon like in the Air Force?

SPEAKER_03 39:52

Hey, this this is gonna be broadcast, Perry.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Oh yeah. Well, when I did get an opportunity to go to ballot training, I was so happy when I saw Ed in a couple of classes ahead of me because I said, Boy, this is going to be the guy that I'm gonna be watching. If he makes it, I know I'm going to make it, you see. And that was the attitude that I had because Ed was a couple of classes ahead of me, and he was setting an example that if he got through, I know I was gonna get through. And that's the that's the way it was. Ed was one of these guys who had this little red uh Austin Healy convertible, convertible down there in Big Spring, Texas, Webb Air Force base in Big Spring. And I thought he was the guy, boy. What guy going through pollen training has a little red Austin Healy convertible? And he was the man, so I was teeing on him. I said, Boy, if Ed's gonna make it well, he's gonna set a good example.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

I said, It's a piece of cake, and he made it a good example, and it was a piece of cake. And did you know when you met that you would be lifelong friends?

SPEAKER_01 41:12

No, I didn't know that. Uh not really, because because in the military you go separate ways, you get a certain assignment. Like um it, he got an assignment to flying F-100s, I got an assignment for flying uh KC-135s, uh, which was a tanker. And so we didn't know. And many of the friends that I made prior to pilot training, they went to Vietnam and some of them didn't come home. So being a military guy, you always think of less enjoy it while we're enjoying it now because we don't know what's down the road.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

Good point. Very good point.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

From my perspective, I didn't make very friends that easily because I had too many classmates that were killed. So I got I got very proficient at because this was after pilot training, but a large percent of my pilot training class were killed. So you don't get too close to people because if you lose, you know, if they uh buy the farm or whatever, then uh it doesn't hurt quite as much.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Captain Perry, can you walk us through how you were hired uh at Pan American, the first African American gentleman pilot hired at Pan American World Airways?

SPEAKER_01 42:49

Well, I had served a tour in Vietnam from February of 1965 until October of 65. And then when I was returned to Travis Air Force Base, I said, What am I going to do now? Um I was pushed not by my wife at the time not to continue in the military because she was alone from February of 65 until October of 65, and she didn't think that was the way for us to raise two boys that we had. And so I put in an application to get out of the military, and I got out on the 30th of November, 65. And I said, okay, I want to fly commercially. So I got in my car, I drove from Travis Air Force Base for two hours down to San Francisco International Airport. And first of all, not knowing where these offices were, I um ended up speaking to this young, good-looking girl who used to work for TWA as a hostess, uh, guiding the passengers to the right agent for their flight. And she said, well, there all of the airlines are right around here. First of all, you come to Pan Am, then you go to TWA, then you can go to American, and United is on the other side of the field. So, of course, I went to the first one with Pan Am. And I had known something about Pan Am as far as they were flying internationally. They were flying the 707, similar to the airplane that I flew in the military. And I went into the office, and this little whitehead lady, very attractive lady, she asked me, Could I help you? And I said, Well, I would like to uh be hired as a pilot with Pan Am. And then she said, Are you a pilot? And I said, Yes. She said, Well, if you wait here, I'll have a little paper for you to sign and everything. So she came down, back down, gave me the paper. I answered a couple of questions, signed it. And she said, Well, uh, you can go up and see the chief pilot now. And I went up and talked with the chief pilot. And he said, Well, when can you start working? And I said, Well, I I've just gotten out of the military and I want to take a little uh little break, a little vacation. He said, Well, you know the importance of seniority here. He said, if you take a break and we hire a hundred pilots in the meantime, you have lost 100 points in seniority. And so I said, Okay. He said, I can give you a job on starting on the 6th of December, which was almost a week uh from the time that I applied. And he says, We don't have the stay nine tests right now. He says, but United is doing the stay nine tests on Saturday. He says, I would suggest that you go over there and take the test, which is about an 8R test for everything. And I went with United, took the test, and United wanted to hire me. And I said, Well, what would I be flying? They said, Well, you might be flying the DC 6 out of uh Chicago, Illinois. Well, that was a no-brainer. Why am I gonna fly DC 6 out of Chicago when I can fly 707 out of San Francisco around the world? And I didn't really consider United anyway. And that's how I got the job at uh Penn Am.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

And did you realize at the time that you were making history?

SPEAKER_01 47:08

No, I didn't think of that.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

Not at all. Do you think that the chief pilot, when he offered you the job, pretty much on the spot, right? Yes. Uh, do you think that he understood that he was making history?

SPEAKER_01 47:23

I I don't know because I don't know what the mindset of Pan Am was at that time. I know that the airlines all knew what had happened with the Supreme Court ruling. So I'm sure he was aware that there would be no discrimination uh in the airline or transportation industry. But I think Pan Am I always thought of them as having a real open mind about things. And I think uh at that time the airlines were expanding, and all of the airlines needed polls. And I think that this was an opportunity for Pan Am. They knew I was a military pilot, and a lot of the people wanted to hire military pilots. And I think they offered me the job that they needed a pilot, and uh I was the guy. You'd have to ask some of the hierarchy at Pan Am what that was. I don't think that it was because I was black that they were wanted to be the first to have a black pollen. I don't think that was the case. Maybe it was, but I don't think that.

SPEAKER_00 48:32

So you walk into this office, yes, you you get the job pretty much on the spot.

SPEAKER_01 48:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

Did you think of your grandfather? Of course.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

I constantly think of my grandfather because uh I owe everything to him. He was my hero, he still is my hero, and I think he's been looking down on me for many years, following me along to make sure that I'm doing the right thing and doing the things that he taught me.

SPEAKER_03 49:05

I have an add-on, Tom. Sure. Um, you were talking about uh getting with Pan Am. When I was in uh Vietnam, one day a Pan Am guy came up into the uh tower, and he said he was examining the facilities because Pan Am was going to start flying RR flights into Saigon. And uh so we used to like to go up to the uh control tower and then use the binoculars to look down at the flight attendants or the stewardesses when we got off the airplane.

SPEAKER_00 49:43

Oh, now the truth comes out on the Planium Podcasts.

SPEAKER_03 49:48

But anyway, uh this guy started asking me questions, and I was answering him, asking him questions, and uh, you know, he was saying, you know, well, if you uh if you see if if you think you uh about getting out of the military and you want to work for an airline, come and see us. So I thought, yeah, okay, I don't know who this dude is, and uh I don't know what his motive is. So I said, yeah, okay. So um about a week or two later, I got a call from the Pan Am Station Manager at the squadron, and he said, Hey, Captain So-and-so sent a uh application bag for you. So I said, Yeah, okay, thanks. And I never went and picked it up because again, I was a fighter pilot. Why did I want to go fly those trucks? So and so, so uh when I finally did join Pan Am, and they had an orientation day where the senior uh executives of the company would come in to welcome you on board, and in walks the same guy that had I'd been talking to in the tower, and he was Sam Miller, the senior vice president of flight operations. So I I told that story once to uh one of the old Clipper skippers, and he said, Oh, he says, that's good. He said, because Sam had been trying for quite a while to get a black pilot hired here. In fact, he had um a black pilot lined up to be hired, and there became a contest between the company and ALPA, the penetrat the pilot union. ALPA was saying that we can't uh accept him unless you hire him. And since Pan Am was a closed shop, they couldn't hire him unless he could join the union. So they went back and forth until finally the guy lost interest and uh went elsewhere.

SPEAKER_00 52:10

So, Captain Perry, you joined Pan Am December of 1965, correct? That's correct, December the 6th. December the 6th, yes. And and Ed Started in January 67. Tell us a little bit about how you reconnected with Perry and how you joined Pan Am.

SPEAKER_03 52:29

As I mentioned, he was already with Pan Am and he took me down to introduce me to the people in in uh San Francisco, Pan Am people, and uh Pan Am said, where do you want to be based? I said, Well, I'm in Clovis, New Mexico. So where do you where where are the choices? They said, Miami, New York, or San Francisco. I said, Did you hear that I was in Clovis, New Mexico? So anywhere you want to send me is fine. They said, no, you got to give us a choice. I said, okay, you don't understand Clovis. But anyway, okay, I'll take San Francisco. And then they gave me, they sent me a telegram saying you're hired in New York.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

And you were the third African-American pilot hired. Right.

SPEAKER_03 53:23

In fact, uh, when Perry took me down to San Francisco to uh talk to the Pan Am people there, we also went by OB's house. Because OB had was already with Pan Am. So um that was I that gave me another opportunity to talk to a black guy who's with a commercial airline.

SPEAKER_00 53:50

And OB was the second African American hired as a pilot at Pan Am. And unfortunately, he's no longer with us, but I would be remiss not to ask about him and have the two of you uh tell our listeners a little bit about him.

SPEAKER_03 54:10

Well, OB was a uh ex-military pilot. He was a graduate of Howard University and here in DC. And uh he was uh flying 130s. He spent quite a bit of time in uh Everau, France. And I don't know the details of his getting out and going to the airline, but during the time, during that time in the Air Force, uh, well, I'd say in the military, almost all of the talk was getting out and going with the airlines. You know, everybody in his squadron, I'm sure, was talking about it. Uh, I don't know whether they got quiet or not when he was around, but but uh he still had to face that unknown.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

Obi, when he hired on in 66, you know, the question always was, dependent upon the fine time that you have, Pan Am would ask, what would you like to be? Would you like to be a copilot navigator, or would you like to be a copilot flight engineer? And so, of course, uh they would preface this by saying a copilot navigator would get a chance to fly the airplane every so often, but the copilot flight engineer wouldn't get a chance to fly the airplane, he would be setting back as a system controller. Well, when they asked me that question, I said, Well, how much does the co-pilot navigator make? And they told me $425 per month. And then I said, Well, how much does the copilot flight engineer make? And they said, $1,099 a month. Well, that was a no-brainer. I wanted to be a co-pilot flight engineer. No way, I didn't care about landing the airplane at that time. I wanted to make the most money that I could. And Obi chose to be a co-pilot navigator. And he continued uh being a co-pilot navigator. He got the chance to land the 707, etc. And then when Penn bought the 747, Obi bid to fly the 7407. I was staying as a flight engineer because I was making more money. So Obi was the first black pilot, I think, who flew the 747. And he flew it out of San Francisco. So that's a little history about Obi. Obi was a great guy, uh, a good friend, and he left us too too early, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 57:10

And to show you how small the world was at that time, Obi's wife and my ex-wife were uh, I won't say they were acquaintances. Yeah, they were acquaintances in Mississippi. Oh, interesting. Yeah, they knew each other back in high school.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

Let's talk about some of the challenges that you faced. So you both of you joined Pant Am in the mid-60s. A lot was going on in 1965, 1966, and 1967 with the civil rights movement, the Civil Rights Act, lots of political turmoil. Can you share some of the experiences and the challenges that you experienced during that time?

SPEAKER_01 57:58

When I hired on in December the 6th, 1965, with Pan American World Airways, that was the actually the beginning of the civil rights here in this country. Before I was hired uh with Pan Am, there were some Black pilots who had been hired with commercial airlines. And when I say commercial airlines, we had Perry Young, who was an instructor uh for the Tuskegee Airmen down in Tuskegee, Alabama, back in the 40s. And Perry was able, after going to Haiti and flying commercially down in Haiti, he was able to get a job with New York Airways. A New York, it was a helicopter service. So Perry served several years flying helicopters with the uh New York Airways. And then there was also August Martin, who was a Tuskegee Airman, and he got a job with Seaborne World, Seaborne World Airways, and they were flying back and forth to Biafra to supply them with necessary food and medicines. So then we had a little pause because uh there were several other pilots who wanted to fly commercially with uh US Airlines flying passengers, and this started back in 1963 when Marlon Green applied to uh be a pilot with Continental Airlines. And Continental Airlines looked at his resume, he did not have any racial um tone on to let um continental know what race he was, and so continental basically hired him when he did go in to get the job in, I think it was in Denver, Colorado, and they as soon as he walked in, they noticed that he was black, and at that time, no commercial airline, passenger airline had hired a black. So I have to give credit to Marlin because he took his fight all the way up to the US Supreme Court. That was in 1963, and a decision wasn't made until like 1964 by the US Supreme Court that said that there will be no racial discrimination in hiring in the transportation industry in this country, and so Marlin ended up getting the job at Continental Airlines. However, prior to Marlin getting the job, Dave Harris was hired with the American Airlines back in 1964. And Marlin was just a few weeks or months behind Dave. But all of us who worked were fortunate enough to work with commercial airliners in this country, we are indebted to what Marlon Green did. So now I got the opportunity to hire with Pan Am in 1965. And of course, I owe my gratitude to Marlon Green. But now after all of this was happening, I got the job with Pan Am. And then the airlines to follow what the Supreme Court said, they had to hire minorities. And the minorities included women at that time, and so a lot of the airlines started hiring women rather than to hire African Americans to be in their competencies. So this is what was going on at that time, back in the 60s, and so Ed can uh tell you some other things because Ed was fortunate enough, or unfortunately, if you want to say that, uh, flying into South Africa. And he can continue to tell you what happened to him when they were flying down to Johannesburg from New York. So Ed, pick it up on that, please.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:44

Well, I was not a regular on the South African trip, but I did have one uh or two trips that were of note. Uh, one was when we went down, it was before the abolishment of apartheid. And we had to stay at the holiday inn at the airport. And I I might mention to step back a little bit. One of my reports for an earlier trip, and when I say earlier, I mean like the months or years, when I got into the crew area, there was a flight attendant who was just bawling her eyes out, a black flight attendant. So I asked her what was wrong, and it turns out that she had been on reserve and she was called out for this trip, and she was fairly new, and this would have been an Africa trip, and she wanted to visit Africa, but when she reported for the trip, because the trip included uh Layova and Johannesburg, they told her that she could not go on the trip, and it was like a six or seven-day trip altogether. So she had just made this mad dash from Manhattan to Kennedy and then was denied a seven-day trip. And however, as I mentioned, fast forwarding to uh my trip there, uh, I was sitting in the dining room uh having breakfast, and I could see alternate heads popping up at the little window in the door to the kitchen where people were looking, you know, taking turns peeking out to see this black eating in the uh the restaurant of the hotel. And I was doing a walk around, a pre-flight inspection, and I saw something that was uh amiss. So I called it to the mechanics' attention, and the mechanics in Johannesburg were all white. They were Pan Am guys, so they were they were good guys, and but I couldn't resist it when they had to take down the uh a couple of panels to really find out where the leak of whatever it was was coming from. I went had I ran up the stairs and got a cup of coffee and was standing, and I'm not a coffee drinker, but I was standing there sipping the coffee while the white guys were working on the airplane, and the baggage loaders uh who were all black were looking at all I could do was hide a smile. So it it was not done in with any malintent. Because as I mentioned, the uh the uh mechanics were basically Pan Am people. And um but it was just the the overall view that I think that the uh baggage loaders found amusing.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:19

Sure. Well, let's talk about that for a second. I'm sure those baggage handlers looked at you with great respect and looked at you in awe, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:29

Yeah, I I I would say so.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:32

How does that make you feel?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:33

Well, it made me feel uh pretty good, and it it it just reinforces the personal thing of you you you it's not you you're not just doing good for you, other people are looking at you and depending on you. But coming from, I guess you could say, uh fighter background, I won't say an aggressive background, but uh one that made you realize that you needed to do the max you could do wherever you were doing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:09

Captain Perry, when you were traveling around the world and you would see other people of color looking up to you uh almost as a role model, how did that make you feel?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:23

Oh, it made me feel extremely uh good and proud of the fact that these people were looking up at me, but yet they could have a vision that it could be them. And that I think was the most important thing because I flew with Pan Am out of San Francisco until 1972, and then there was an opening for politics in Berlin, Germany, because after the war, of course, Berlin was a divided city, and in fact, Berlin was like an island in East Germany because Germany was divided between East and West, and Berlin was in the eastern part of Germany, and we only had three flight corridors that went to Berlin, one from Frankfurt, one from Hanover, and the other one from Hamburg, Germany. And so as a result, I was the only black pilot over there, and even when uh the German passengers would uh get on the airplane, some of them probably had not seen a black pilot flying an airplane before. So that made me feel proud, and I was proud to do the best job that I could. And the flying in Berlin was exceptional because the weather was usually pretty cloudy, and you couldn't even sometimes you would land the airplane, you couldn't see the runway, but you would fly by instruments, and they had fantastic air traffic controllers over there because the air traffic controllers that we flew under were usually Americans because uh the US military controlled that part of Berlin, especially in aviation. But we never bust we never busted minimums, though, right? Never busted minimums, no, not at all. Now I'm in Berlin from in 1972, and so then I heard some rumblings about well, since black polls, we had less than 100 black polls flying for all of the airlines uh in this country. Way less than 100. And so Ed and several other pilots, I think there were 30-some pollets, they had a meeting in San Francisco uh back in, I think it was in 1976, Ed.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:00

Yeah, it was 76, and it was in a phone booth in Chicago.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:05

Yeah. Okay, so I'm gonna let Ed take that portion because he was one of the original um black pilots who formed the organization of black airline pilots so that we could increase black pilots in the aviation business here in the United States. So, Ed, why don't you take it from there? Since you were one of the original.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:30

Yeah, uh a guy named Ben Thomas, who was a pilot with Eastern Airlines, put out a call to as many black pilots as he was aware of and um said, you know, hey, we ought to get together to see what kind of change and difference we can make. And so we did. There were about, as Perry said, about 33 pilots there in the initial meeting. The organization is still going now. We it at the time we uh were work working in it, it was the organization of black airline pilots, but it is now the organization of black aerospace professionals, but it's still functioning. But what we did was we managed to get, aside from increasing our membership and getting other pilots involved, we talked with the airlines and managed to get them to donate some training in the form of like type ratings that we could give to promising uh airline pilots, both uh military and civilian. And Perry mentioned that when the uh the anti-discrimination uh ruling came out that uh it applied to both men and women, and that is basically true. When the decision came out, and you had it applied to black males and black females as well as white females, but because uh white females had more history with aviation, many of their dads had been airline pilots and with their own planes, they could fly them. Bottom line is that today there are twice as many female, uh basically white female pilots than there are black uh pilots, both male and female. But uh that didn't this disturb us. We were uh we were open to anybody. And in fact, we at one time had open membership, and there were as many non-black uh, there were more non-blacks uh applicants than uh black applicants. As I mentioned, Perry and I served tours as president of the organization and uh also as board chair. And we managed to get, I don't have any specific numbers, but we managed to get quite a few pilots hired with uh commercial carriers because we established relationships with the training departments and the uh operations sections of the various airlines.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:40

So, Tom, I think uh this showed uh the part that Ed and I played in this, even though we were not out uh waving banners or anything like that, but we were doing it by building relationships with the various airlines in the country. And we were going out seeking promising young blacks and whites because some of the uh summer camps, we used to hold summer camps usually for two weeks, for aspiring students to come and we would take them up flying. And for two weeks, that really piqued their interest in flying. And so, as Ed said, there were as many young, I would say there were more young white uh aspiring polished than there were black in some of our summer camps that we had. But to me, that was a great thing because our main purpose was to pique the interest of young students who wanted to have an aviation career.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:48

It reminds me of um Nelle Nichols, who played Lieutenant O'Hora on Star Trek. Yes, she recently passed away, so she was on the first season of Star Trek in 1966. That's true, and she wanted to leave the show, and she got a visit from someone, and that someone was Dr. Martin Luther King, and said, You can't leave the show. And she said, Well, why not? And he said, Because you represent something, you're not only a woman of color, but you're a woman officer on this starship. And I I feel like the same thing for the two of you in pan uniforms, traveling around the world, traveling through airports, hotels. You represented something yourselves.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:47

I can agree with that. Um because it would it would not be uncommon to get I always say a stare, not necessarily hostile, but just what that time of stare.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:05

I remember um I was flying uh trips from Detroit to London and back. Uh and usually uh when I went into the terminal, I would see this young man, young black uh man, and he would come up to me and ask me certain questions. And uh he was asking me how it was to fly the airplanes and all of that. And I tried to encourage him, I said, What were you doing? And he was working basically as a janitor at the airport in Detroit. And I said, Look, uh we have an organization of black airline police, and if you're really interested in becoming a pilot and you have to be seriously interested, we will try to get you a scholarship where you can affect your flying skills, and perhaps one day you will be able to fly for an airline. Well, it took him just to run about seven years, but he ended up getting all of his certificates, and he did become an airline pilot. So this is what I think that all of us can do, not only polls, but anyone, we can latch on to a lot of these young people before they lose their way. And I believe that any young person who is truly interested in becoming whatever it is, whether it's a polit, whether it's a doctor, whether it's a garbage truck driver. But if you want to do that, you can do it, and you can do it to the best of your ability. And I think that's the way life should be. Everyone is given a gift when they are born, and it's up to you to determine what this gift is that the man above has given to each and every one of us. And then you just once you find out what that gift is, and sometimes people never find out, but a lot of us do find out what it is, and all you have to do is work hard, and you will end up achieving your goal. And I really believe that's the way life is, but you have to work at it in order to get both of you, gentlemen.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:44

I don't know if you realize this, you have left a lasting legacy at a pivotal point in American history. I mean, think about that for a moment. Well, how does that make you feel? What do you what's going through your minds?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:03

I think it's an obligation that we all had. You know, what is the saying to those who much is given, much is expected. And I I look back on my life, and I have been given a tremendous amount of things. Uh, at first, it was the most important thing. My grandfather gave me so much wisdom that he had. And then I owe a lot to the teachers that guided me through high school and through the university, and so I've come across a lot of people who have helped me, helped me tremendously. And so, since I have achieved certain things of being a polit, getting an education, I feel that I have an obligation to give what I can to other people, and that's my feeling.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:58

It has always been my feeling that I'm obligated because I would like to go down and say Perry was a man who thought and gave a lot of himself to the benefit of others, and uh, I I think that uh we are particularly gifted in knowing what we want to do. My wife is a former flight attendant, turn attorney, but she knew from uh Jump Street that she wanted to be a flight attendant. And I knew from uh Jump Street that I wanted to be a pilot. So it would never, I never had to go through the period of uncertainty of should I do this or that. Either it took me to flying or it didn't. And then that was the deciding factor. So for the young people today that don't really know what it is they want to do, I I can only say I'm sorry, I wish I could help you out, but that's a call that you have to make.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:14

I have the good fortune to talk to to many pilots on this program. And I always ask pilots the same question that I'm gonna ask the two of you. And I get a wide range of answers. Some pilots love the 707, some pilots love the L1011, uh, some pilots love the 747. So I'm going to ask this question. Let's start with Captain Perry. What is your all-time favorite aircraft that you have flown?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:48

With Pan Am.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:49

In general, really.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:51

I have to say the L1011, because the L1011 was an advanced design type of airplane. And I was fortunate enough to, and plus, it was designed by Laking. That might have something to do about do with it. But I enjoyed flying the L1011. It was a fun airplane to fly. It really could, we flew from Tokyo nonstop to New York on it, and Penn Am had the Lton 11-500. So that was the most advanced uh 1011 they had. And close to the Lton 11, I'd have to say, probably the 727 was a fantastic airplane. And thirdly, I would say the 747, the 747 made you look like a fabulous pollen every time because it had 18 wheels down there. So when you came down to the ground to touch down, that ground effect just made it come in just like a cushion. And you could roll there playing on the ground. But the 747 would fly too long for me. It would take 14 and a half hours to go from New York to Tokyo or so. But 1011 was my favorite, I think, to fly. How about you, Ed?

SPEAKER_03 1:23:21

Uh well, since you opened it up, I'd have to go military. And I would say the T-38 was uh probably the favorite. Of course, I didn't know what all to do with it at the time I was flying it. But uh after that would be the F-100. Now, what I would always like to have flown would be the P-51, the F-104, and the F-16. Now uh you can add on now the 22, F-22. Uh among transports, I would say the, and I didn't fly this at Pan Am, I flew this at United, the 777. The only problem with it is that it does so much stuff for you, it makes you lazy. And unfortunately, I think that's where most of the airplanes are going today. Uh, and that is that you don't really hand fly the airplane. You you're always dealing or or directing it, for instance, Perry mentioned the 727. That's the last airplane you fly. After that, you manage them.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:45

Yeah, that's that's a very good point because uh, you know, nowadays you only touch the yoke when you're at takeoff or landing, and everything else is just flipping some switches.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:57

Pretty much. And it's not it's not bad-mouthing technology because uh actually the technology can land more consistently, better landings than any pilot, more consistently, you know. I mean, there'd be times where either would outdo the other, but in terms of number or frequencies, the technology would win, which is why they there's a requirement now that uh and I say now, but it's been it for a while, and that is that when the weather gets below a certain uh minimum, you're required to make an auto approach auto-landic.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:44

Yeah, and in fact, um I have just thought of something. When you asked about an airplane to fly, one of the Tuskegee Airmen, John uh Whitehead, was up at McClellan Air Force Base up in Sacramento, and he was a test pilot. Uh, all the airplanes coming back from Vietnam in the war, they had to be flight tested after maintenance. And John called me one day and he says, Hey, I because I had asked him, I said, John, if you get an F-104, a two-seater 104, I would like to take a ride with you. And he called me this day and said, Hey, I have a 104 B model. And he says, Come and fly, be here in like 45 minutes. I went there, we had a fantastic time. Now, the 104, I didn't get a chance to fly it that much, but another Lockheed aircraft. Now the 104 was so smooth, and it was Ed said the T-38. Yes, the T-38, a fantastic airplane. Um, I enjoyed the T-38, but the 104 is another airplane to me. So I wish I had gotten a chance to fly it more, but uh what I did, it's the airplane.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:15

How about favorite places uh that you visited? Both of you have been around the world more times than you can count. What are some of the favorite places that you visited?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:28

One place I enjoyed very much was going to Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya, because we had a four-day layover in Nairobi. And that gave me an opportunity to really see a part of Africa that I didn't see before. Because when I was in school, I was taught that Africa had animals and cannibals. That's that's the way they taught about. Africa.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:02

But during these four-day layovers, I used to take my wife with me on the trip. And we visited once I got to Kenya, we went on safaris. And then one time we decided that we were going to go up from Mombasa up to Belindi, up to the northern part of Kenya, and on to the island of Lamu, up towards Samalia. And Tom, when I got to Belindi, I hired an African guide, and he took us to a little place called Getty, G-E-D-I, the ruins of Getty. And we're talking about the 11th century. And when I got to see the ruins of Getty, and they had all of this ceramic, and they had indoor plumbing back in the 11th century. And I was so impressed with what I saw that I couldn't hold back the tears because I had been taught about animals and cannibals in Africa. And then to see the ruins of this village where they had indoor plumbing back in the 11th century, I couldn't hold back the tears. And so I would say that Kenya was probably opened my eyes to more about Africa than I've ever been taught about Africa in school.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:42

Wow, that's a great story.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:44

Well, mine is not as educational, but my favorite city, I guess, would be uh Rio. I knew you'd say. Yeah, you didn't seem to do too bad there yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:04

Well, Pantheon Podcast, everything comes out. Right. So, Mr. Moon, why do you like Rio?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:12

I like the the liveliness of the people, the music, the uh I even like the language, even though I don't speak it, but it has a um melodic uh tone to it. And uh I I like it much better than going to uh Europe because uh there the people look more like me. I I fit in easier in B in Brazil than I do in uh Paris or uh London.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:48

Interesting. And I heard the food's great too in real life.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:52

Oh, it is that it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:55

Let's start with you, Captain Perry, uh, as we're closing our interview, thinking about your grandfather, thinking about the Tuskegee Airmen that you were fortunate enough to know. What message do you have for young people about following their dreams, overcoming adversity, and life in general?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:19

Well, I think probably for young people, as you have to be accountable for whatever you do in life. Uh you have to, we don't choose our families, we just grow into a family. It's how you're taught by that family that is going to pay dividends for you in life, or it can work against you. It depends upon how you're raised by your family. And I was fortunate enough to be raised by a family that taught me right from wrong, taught me to be accountable for whatever I do to just the old Ten Commandments like you treat people the way you would like them to treat you. You don't have to lie to anyone, you can tell the truth. And if you're going to say something about a person, you can say good things and hold your hold your tongue if you have something negative. There's no reason to say negative things about people. And the most important thing is uh let your dreams come true, and the dreams will come true if you just have the initiative to work hard to make those dreams come true. They're not handed to you, you have to work for them, and that's the most important thing I think for young people because oftentimes when I speak to young people, I said if you work hard for the first 25 years of your life, you will be set for life, but you have to be determined to work hard to achieve what you want to achieve. That's my message for the young people. Ed, how about you?

SPEAKER_03 1:33:18

I think Perry had some good points. Uh, I would just add don't tell yourself no, let somebody else say no. And then I'm kind of reminded of uh the Kardashian's mother, she says she taught her girls that if if uh somebody says no, she's talking to the wrong person. So find somebody who can say yes, because you have to be able to say yes before you can say yes. So find somebody who is uh who can say yes and keep charging. Whatever it is that you want to do, uh don't wait for it to be handed to you. Go after it.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:17

Anything else you'd like to add to this program?

SPEAKER_03 1:34:21

Well, the only thing I would add is that uh technology is uh is creeping up on us, and when I say creeping up, um you know they have drones now that can take off from carriers and land on carriers, they have drones that could fly from the US to Australia. So my question is how much longer will the airline pilot be a viable profession?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:02

That's a scary thought, actually.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:04

Well, it is, but you know, people say, well, people want drivers. Well, that's what they said about the trains at the airports. But if you notice, most airports that have trains are driverless. But it's like that that story about the first nonstop uh coast-to-coast flight uh that was automated. And the recording starts with uh welcome aboard flight one, two, three from Dulles to San Francisco. Uh, you this is a history-making flight uh because we have no pilots in the cockpit. Uh we ask you to sit back and relax because nothing can go wrong. Can't go wrong, can go wrong. Can't go wrong.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:59

That's good. That's good. How about you, Captain Perry? Now, what was the question? Whatever the answer you want to give. Um, any closing thoughts um for our audience?

SPEAKER_01 1:36:18

Well, I think that um what we're trying to do here is just to give you a little bit of the history as we know it as far as aviation is concerned. And if you have the desire to get into the aviation world, opportunities are there, but when the door opens, you have to be ready to walk through the door because it's not going to stay open too long, because some other door will be opening down the road, so just be ready.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:58

So Ed already did a mock announcement, and uh Captain John Marshall was on this program a few times actually, and uh I asked for him to do a mock announcement as uh captain of a 747. So, Captain Perry, I'm gonna ask you to do the same, except we are flying an L1011. So if you can do an announcement to your Pan Am passengers.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:31

Yes, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is Captain Jones speaking. I'd like to welcome you aboard this beautiful L1011 destined for Tokyo, Japan. The time en route today from New York to Tokyo will be 13 hours and 10 minutes. The weather is good en route. However, there will be times up over Alaska that will get some moderate turbulence. So we have a fantastic flight team, flight attendants serving you today. So we wish you a very happy flight, and I will be back when I have my break to greet you personally. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:17

There you have it. All right, gentlemen. Well, I cannot thank you enough. It's always an honor to talk to both of you. Um, you're some of my favorite Pan Amers, and uh I just want to thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:31

Well, thank you for inviting us.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:33

Yes, Tom. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:42

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, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. 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. As flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world, thank you for flying, Pan América.