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. 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 Pan Ammuseum.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. 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. Earlier this year, Captain Bridges celebrated his 100th birthday, and we're honored for him to join us and tell us his incredible story, which spans a century. And he just might be one of the oldest people ever to be on a podcast. A 37-year veteran of Pan Am, Captain Bridges joined the company in 1943 and retired in 1981. He began as a relief copilot on the Boeing 314 during World War II, and after the war, he flew on a variety of land-based aircraft, including the Douglas DC-3, DC-4, DC-7C, the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, the Boeing 707, and lastly the Boeing 747. He currently lives outside of San Francisco, California. Captain Bridges enjoys spending time with his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. It is a great honor to welcome you to the Pan Am Podcast, sir.

SPEAKER_07 3:09

It's great to be on the podcast. Very, very uh impressive. Good feeling to have people like to uh keep the name of Pan Am going.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

So tell us about how you became interested in aviation.

SPEAKER_07 3:25

My uh interest in planes started when I was oh four or five years old. I used to make small airplanes out of clothespins and pretend to fly them all around. I had a whole squadron, and I was always, always addicted to anything aviation. Why, I don't know. My uh father was a policeman, my mother was uh had trained as a as a nurse. There was no uh indication from them that they would push me onto aviation. I spent my life and most of my life in Alameda, born in San Francisco. Pan Am used to fly right over my house on its approach with the China Clipper and the M130, uh, when they were based in in uh Alameda. And uh I used to swim right alongside the parking area or they parked the M130. Thought that was quite an airplane. Uh there was a place where uh quite a few people swam, which was a uh slough or tributary uh right next to the Pan Am term tarmac. It was easy to go over there but and and look at the airplanes, but nobody ever did. In those days, uh, people respected other properties.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

For our listeners as historic background, Captain Bridges mentioned the China Clipper, a Martin M130 aircraft, which was designed and built specifically for Pan American in 1935. Considered one of the most advanced aircraft of its time, it provided the long-range overwater capability required to cover the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. As a 14-year-old boy, Dave Bridges and countless other Americans listened to the radio broadcast as the historic flight departed San Francisco for the Philippines, with thousands more attending the departure ceremony. To put this into a contemporary context, the flight of the inaugural China Clipper across the Pacific Ocean is akin to the recent private sector flights into space, pioneered by Elon Musk, Sir Richard Branston, and Jeff Bezos. The first flight of the China Clipper captured the world's attention. Crossing the Pacific Ocean was a world event that connected its many cultures and made the world a little smaller. Let's listen to a newscast from November 29th, 1935, as the China Clipper arrives in Manila.

SPEAKER_05 7:10

I want to make you got the music. Are you a gentleman?

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Or are you successful like?

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Captain Bridges, so how did you begin your aviation career? You were hired by Pan Am in 1943. Tell us about how you got started with the airline.

SPEAKER_07 7:31

I uh graduated from high school in 39, went to San Francisco Junior College, enrolled in some courses there, and about a week after I found out that the government was sponsoring a civilian pilot training program in many colleges around the country. They seemed to know that we were going to need pilots very soon. So they gave uh the colleges contracts. There were three in the Bay Area, San Francisco Junior College, Cal, uh, Berkeley, and I think San Jose State. Anyway, the attendance in the ground school was free. Get yourself to the airport and all the flying was free. So I couldn't uh pass that up, and I uh enrolled and made the flight uh group, which was only twenty people out of about forty. The flying was done at uh an airport called Mills Field in South San Francisco, which later became San Cispal. There was uh one operator that had three instructors and three airplanes, and he took fifteen of the twenty. One uh uh lady that uh owned one company and only herself was the instructor, and I was assigned to her the flight instruction was primary. Learn to fly regular uh maneuvers uh nothing fancy. Uh took a test of the final from an FA inspector and got my private pilot license. Then uh after that the government offered a secondary course, which was all aerobatics, finished that, took the test and got a commercial. Then I went finally got a uh place on a instructor cross-country instruction and finished that and got an instructor's license. Then I taught uh an instructor fresher program, then went to Santa Maria to uh big Hancock College of Aeronautics, which had a big uh big uh contract with the government, about six hundred students in each class. It was called primary. We uh soloed the the uh cadets, got them uh safely to fly, and then gave them the second part of their course was uh all aerobatics. And when they finished that, then they went to uh um secondary flight training, the bigger airplanes. That started to uh reduce because they were getting enough pilots, and one night I was going out to Guard Gate, and uh one of the instructors said, Hey Bridge, you said you wanted to fly an airline. And I said, Yeah, I was thinking about it. They said, Well, there's a guy in the chief's office from Pan Am looking for pilots. So I immediately went back in and uh opened the door, and the guy, Pan Am guy said, How much college you got? And I said, A year and a half. He said, Sorry, we can't use you. We're looking for four-year college men. I asked to stay around and listen, and he said, It wouldn't do you any good. And finally I pestered him as enough, he said, Oh, all right. And he had two guys that had four years of college and one person that had three years. So he gave them a talk and gave them uh application cards, and I asked for one. He says, You don't have enough college, you can't you can't have one. So finally I pestered him enough, and I guess he wanted to leave, and he gave me an application card, and I filled it out. A couple of days later, the two guys with four years got called up to Treasure Island, and they both flunked the physical. One couldn't see, one couldn't hear. The three-year college guy got called up and he passed, and then they called me up. I passed the physical and the uh IQ test and the flight test, so I was in. I had an introductory flight to Honolulu on the 314, and then uh flight uh flight training, a couple of landings and takeoffs and cruising. They made me a relief co-pilot, so I flew the 314 for two years, and I made the last flight of the 314 out of San Francisco to Honolulu and deadheaded back on a DC-4 cargo, then went to flight training for the DC-4, and uh flew many planes. 17 years later, I my seniority was enough that I could make captain on 707. I flew that for 15 years, and then went to 747, flew that for three more years, and my total flying with Pan Am was 37 years.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

37 years of flying, beginning with a flying boat and retiring as a captain of a 747 jumbo jet. What an incredible legacy and career. Can we go back for a moment to the Boeing 314 in the 1940s? Tell us about your flight operations and duties.

SPEAKER_07 13:19

Yeah, I was uh working the mooring lines from the bow on uh departures and arrivals. We we did get uh introductory training, a few flights. I would uh a lot of times take it off the autopilot and fly it steady so the navigator could take better slist shots. Online I never got any landings to take off, but once in a while maintenance would hang a new engine on the airplane and assign a captain and two young uh pilots to go with them, and uh they would fly around the uh Bay Area running in the engine, and when the engine was uh running uh well enough and the engineer would say we got the time on the engine, we could go back. So um in the meantime, the the uh relief copilots got uh oh about five or six landings apiece.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

How did the Boeing 314 flying boat handle when you were flying it compared to some of the other planes you flew?

SPEAKER_07 14:30

314 flew quite well, a little bit slow. Landings and takeoffs were quite easy once you got the hang of it. Climbs were slow, uh of course it wasn't pressurized, and maximum altitude. Costa on Lula was five thousand feet, and coming back was seven thousand feet to get a little bit better advantage of the tailwinds. It was uh very comfortable, like I said, a little bit slow in responding to control movements, but uh slow pressurizing on the on the controls did a lot better than uh full sudden movements of the controls. And uh otherwise it it it it flew uh a little bit on the slow side. Uh the jets were much better. The 707 was uh quite a a uh flying airplane, especially when there was no people or no load in it. Uh PBM uh Martin Mariner um was a little faster response to the controls. We call it a little tighter. Uh the 314 was just a little bit more sluggish. Landings and takeoffs were uh about the same. I I liked the the 314 because it was uh more comfortable. The sound level was down a little bit more than the Martin. Uh Martin had two engines right close to the hull. They made uh considerable more noise than uh the 314.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Can you take us through what a water landing was like on the B-314?

SPEAKER_07 16:26

The first part of the water landing would is just about the same as the land landing. At a low altitude, 20 feet or so, you uh pull the power back, use a little bit of back pressure to stall the air, bring it slow down the airplane, and you can you can set it if the water is calm, uh you can uh set it down very smoothly. Um if there are waves, I haven't landed in in or experienced landing in large waves, but uh you get a series of bumps if you start going through a wave on the step. Um if you uh leave the power off and it will slowly sink down with uh uh a deeper water level, and uh that would be taxi speed. I was never uh privileged to be in the Atlantic, uh my flying was done in the Pacific. Um yeah, it was uh usually very, very smooth and go even going s South Pacific in the PBM. We landed in most of the places out in the ocean, tied up to a barge, refueled, and uh took off, and the ocean was always uh quite uh quite calm.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Before you mentioned celestial navigation. Tell us about how flight crews navigated by the stars. Was nighttime better for flying?

SPEAKER_07 18:02

Nighttime, of course, was more accurate because the navigator could choose stars at correct angles, get a line of position on each one, and plot it on a navigation chart and uh passenger flights, yeah, on a 314. They had a uh non-pilot navigator who used to uh navigate the uh ocean going ships and uh used the same system of observing the a angle of different stars and planets. At nighttime, of course, like I say, it was m more accurate, you had more choice of stars in the daylight. All you had was the sun, sometimes the moon, and sometimes Venus, if it showed. And that usually didn't give you enough accurate um lines for position. Uh they also used drift sights. Uh they had a uh uh instrument that they clipped in the bottom cover on on the inboard section of the wing, and they could look down on the ocean. If there were white caps, they could measure the drift. Or if there was calm ocean, they would throw a just a regular bomb, it had a nose and fins on it, and in the daytime it would m make smoke. If nighttime they couldn't get any stars, they'd throw a f a flare bomb out, which would make a flare and they'd they'd take a drift on that. But uh the nighttime was done mainly because it was more accurate f for uh navigation.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Can you tell us a little bit about how the plane kept in communication over the Pacific Ocean?

SPEAKER_07 19:52

For radio communication was CW or carrier wave uh broadcast, uh, and we had to have professional radio uh men that uh sent uh everything in in Morse code. Dots and dashes. As far as instrument navigation in bad weather after the 314 on DC-4s and and then um they had a radio system of uh a transmitter putting out A's and N's and where they met in the air you got a steady tone, and that formed a a uh what they called the beam or a leg that you came in and and landed on. Um that was a bit uh difficult to learn and uh it worked fairly well. Then uh after that we got the instrument landing system, which uh gave uh vertical and crossbar on the instrument and was much easier to fly. But uh in the early days, as I say, we only had the uh carrier wave CW, what they called ADF. We had a uh instrument that had a needle that pointed to the you tune to a frequency of a radio station, and it would point to the radio station on a dial, and you could follow that, track it to a station, and and sort of let down, but you for a long time you didn't have any way of of coming in on a certain track.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Do you have any memories you'd like to share about some of the older pilots you flew with in the boat days? Many of them were World War I pilots and started their civilian careers flying planes delivering mail.

SPEAKER_07 21:56

Many of the old timers a bit apprehensive. Uh some of them were uh quite grumpy and and uh difficult to get along with. Um the younger fellows were were fine. Um I uh never uh felt like playing around. I was very serious about uh my flying and uh I uh did uh fairly well when I could. Uh I did get some compliments from some of the old grumps and uh a few of the more young uh captains were uh very nice and uh was very pleasant to get along with them. One point of interest was a captain that I flew with, name was Tilton, Captain Jack Tilton, real old timer, very, very, very nice person, called everybody Son. And uh he would come into the dining room of the Moana Hotel, and uh two great big tables just inside the entrance for Pan Am. And he would sit down with an engineer or a first officer or somebody, and he would say, Son, would you read me the menu? He was so nice, and everybody kind of took care of Captain Jack. So one time back in San Francisco, I was scheduled for a maintenance flight where they'd hung a new engine on, and uh reported, and Captain Jack was uh captain, and a friend of mine was uh the other co-pilot. So we met at dispatch and walked out toward the 314, and Captain Jack said, Son, what would you like to do? And we both said, landings and takeoffs. And he says, Very good, son. So uh we got on board, and my friend got in the right seat first, and I handled a bow on departure. And uh we taxied out, and Captain Jack said, Son, I'll do the first one. And uh so he took off, flew around the pattern, came back in and made a pretty good landing. As we were cruising on the step, he said to my friend, son, you've got it. So uh my friend made uh a few takeoffs and landings. And on one landing, Captain Jack said, Son, let me have it. There's a log out in front. And I'm standing behind him between the seats, and I rear up on my toes and I look way down over the nose. I don't see anything. And my friend raises up a new seat, he doesn't see anything. And Captain Jack, in the meantime, had increased the throttles and rolled that big 314 up on the right C-wing, just as a floating telephone pole went by on the left side. And he closed the throttles nicely and said very calmly, Okay, son, you've got it. And the hair in the back of my neck stood straight out. That old guy could see better than we could. Son, would you please read me the menu?

SPEAKER_00 25:43

For some of our newer listeners who aren't familiar with Pan Am history, during World War II, the airline was an important part of the war effort, from training pilots to delivering supplies, airport management, transportation of key VIPs, secret missions, and so on. Civilian Pan Am flight crews were given military designations and served as Army and Navy reservists. Captain Bridges was one of them, a Navy reservist flying for Pan Am between 1943 and 1945. We are going to play a quick clip from a film produced by Pan Am shortly after World War II concluded in 1945 called Clippers at War. The film was dedicated to the 200 Pan Amployees that gave their lives in the attack on December 7, 1941, and throughout the war. Let's take a listen.

SPEAKER_09 26:36

History will record how Pan American with his vital air routes across the seas was with our armed forces the first to feel the Japs blow. Under the stars and stripes and the emblem of Pan American World Airways, the United States had at its command in Pan American, the only worldwide air transport system in existence. This globe-circling network of airlines had been pioneered through 15 years of historic progress. Airlines to serve America's peacetime trade. When war struck, these routes became the lifelines between the arsenal of democracy and battle stations and allies across the Seven Seas. Overnight, this work of air routes, these men and women and the flying trooper ships of their bases from San Juan to Singapore, from the Aleutians to Australia, were converted into lifelines of America's battle for freedom. When it can be told in full, this will be one of the truly great stories of the war. The story of the struggle to keep open those routes around the three Americas, across the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the South Sea, over the South Atlantic into the jungles and deserts of Africa to Egypt and India. Beyond the Arctic Circle in Alaska. It's the story of men working until they dropped in their tracks to keep the ships in the air. To speed our fighting men and their leaders, our statesmen and supplies to fly come. When hostilities began, 25,000 men and women of Pan American's peacetime family plunged at once into war.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Sir, did you see any combat or experience any incidents while flying the Pacific during World War II?

SPEAKER_07 28:13

Uh never fired upon, never saw any real enemy action. Um we did leave Honolulu close to the end of the war for San Francisco. The radio operator started taking a message, finally handed it up to the captain. It uh mentioned of a disaster happening at a point that was right between San Francisco and Honolulu, just midway. So the captain told the navigator to plot a course for that spot. We got to it the next morning. I was in the in the uh captain's seat when the captain came in topside and I started to get out for him, and he said, No, stay in. And he kicked the first officer out and uh then he directed me to start a let down. I let down to a thousand feet, and the navigator said, We're coming up to it, and now's the time, we should see something. So three or four people up in the front looked out. Shortly one person said, There it is, and we looked over a little bit to the left, and there was a lifeboat. We flew over the lifeboat and it had six guys in it. The captain said, Get the emergency equipment bag and fill it full of blankets, water, and food, and put the emergency radio transmitter on in there too. They dumped it out the baggage uh space in the aft wing just outside of the of the hull. You could take a car the cargo catch off, they dropped the bag out when uh I flew over back over the boat, and the captain gave them a signal to drop it, and they dropped the bag out. And uh I made another couple of passes over the lifeboat, and uh the last pass we could see the guys pulling the bag out of the water. So uh the uh engineer said that's all the fuel we can use. And the captain said, okay, climb back up to altitude, which is 7,000 feet, head for home. And this is after we got to the climb, uh, got to the altitude, uh the radio man said they got the emergency radio transmitter going, and he heard the code. When we got to San Francisco, a whole bunch of uh Navy captains uh and uh officers met us, kept us on board, and told us to be quiet and don't say anything about it. Much later, after the war, articles came out where it all happened where a Japanese submarine came up and torpedoed a freighter that was carrying cargo and gasoline. It killed about 10 people, and I think around 60 some odd survived, and they were floating around all night on a makeshift raft and lifeboats, and a Japanese submarine had surfaced, and uh they could hear the guys talking on the top of the sub. Uh, and one of them had a machine gun, and he he uh sprayed some bullets out in the darkness and didn't hit anybody, and then they submerged and left. So that was uh one little uh thriller that we had. One night on a windy night departing San Francisco, uh we banged into a buoy, broke a hole in the bottom of the of the Boeing, I found found a hole and and uh reported to the captain, and we went back and had it fixed. Took us about four hours waiting time, and made the whole trip almost 22 hours to Honolulu. And then one other night, same type of departure, the the wind was blowing very, very hard. We left the uh dock and the wind blew us around, weather vain us in the cabin didn't get the engine up, uh, number four engine up in time. We got broadside to the wind and it tipped us over to the left, put our left wing in the water. I was in in the uh scuttle underneath the instrument panel, coming topside when it started, and uh pretty soon I was hanging on by my I teeth. The airplane started vibrating and banging. The number one propeller was smashing the water. They shut down number one engine and uh got steeper, and number two engine started banging the water, and they shut that down, and everything seemed to be quiet, and I slithered back into the bow and walking on the left side of the hull and the uh floor deck of the bow, I uh struggled up to the front of the bow compartment, and I took the hatch off and peeked out, and the whole left wing and number one engine were completely submerged, and number two engine was half submerged. And it looked like we weren't moving, looked like our wing was stuck in the mud in the bottom of the lagoon. So I advised the captain that uh looked like we were stuck, and they cut the uh number three and number four engines. Coast Guard came out and took everybody off, and we went home. The next day I went back out to the airport and found that uh the wing spar had been broken and the airplane never flew again.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

We're going to take a quick break with a Pan Am commercial from 1969. Welcome back to our interview with Pan Am Captain Dave Bridges. Can you describe the interior passenger compartments of the Boeing three fourteen? How was the food? Was it a comfortable ride for passengers? What was it like?

SPEAKER_07 35:26

It was all um a pulsed inside. Uh you saw no no direct uh framing framing or hull uh sides. It had uh John's on the lower deck and it had uh uh the uh ovens and and the uh all the dining stuff built in on the sides. It had uh a stairway that uh was very close-quartered. You went up very narrow steps which turned with each step. You faced outboard when you started the first step on the lower deck, and as you stepped up you kept turning to the uh right, and you got up topside and you were facing inboard. Uh that was a little bit uh different. But other than that, it was uh all upholstered. Uh the back wall of the flight deck was the main wing spar, and it was all covered up. Uh the crew lounge was uh below decks in uh the forward compartment, which was just behind the bow compartment. Only way into the bow compartment was through underneath the instrument panel and down through a porthole. So the rest area itself was was the first section behind the bow, and it was very comfortable. Uh we'd have to go down the stairs and get to it. We didn't have to mix with the passengers. We ate up on the flight deck and we ate in the crew compartment, which was uh forward compartment just behind the bow. Um we ate on trays. Even uh the passengers were a lot of Navy personnel. They ate very well. Everything was prepared on board by the uh chef and served on even even the Navy was served uh white linen and silverware and China dishes. The turbulence uh uh was not too bad at uh five and seven thousand feet, um as long as everybody stayed away from the clouds. Uh most of the turbulence was caused by uh the big uh clouds and and uh sometimes there were storm fronts that we would have to go around. Sometimes you couldn't get away from you'd have to come through a little bit. But uh in general the turbulence was uh very, very light.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

What happened to that plane you left behind in Hawaii and the other B-314 flying boats after the war?

SPEAKER_07 38:26

The one we broke the spar on was towed over finally to Alameda Nel Naval Air Station, and the uh last one that uh I flew over to Honolulu came back and was parked for a little while, oh, a week or so, and the Navy took that over to Alameda, and both of them stood over there for quite a long time. The company used to send two engineers over once a week to run up all eight engines and keep them engine keep them in good condition because the uh good one was for sale. But eventually I think they scrapped the one with a broken spar and sold the good one to somebody who eventually scrapped it. But that was quite a while sitting at Alameda.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

You've flown all kinds of aircraft in your life, from flying boats to jets. Do you have a personal favorite?

SPEAKER_07 39:27

Strange to say, my best choice was a DC-3. Uh I uh I liked that airplane very much. When I was younger and worked at the San Francisco Bay Air Drone, which was airport in Alameda, uh there was a DC-2 owned by Standard Oil in the last hangar, and every once in a while they'd roll that thing out. And uh I thought, oh, that was a beautiful looking airplane, and uh uh I just kind of liked it. Like to fly it when I was uh assigned a DC three for ATR training. That's the same as the two, only just a little fatter fuselage. It fit well. It brought memories back of the DC two, and and uh I just liked the way it flew, and and like I said, I I f I felt more part of it than I did any of the bigger airplanes.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

For our listeners, Captain Bridges is six foot four inches tall. Of all the aircraft you've flown in your career, there's one that you didn't fly. Tell us about the Lockheed Constellation, also known as the Connie.

SPEAKER_07 40:49

The Connie that I had a test flight in, with the seat all the way down, all the way back, and the rudder pedals all the way forward, I still couldn't get the yoke back over my knees. The uh pilot in charge suggested at flight training that uh I don't fly the Connie because of that.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

In 1949, Boeing built a new aircraft for Pan Am, the Boeing 377 Stratacruiser. The design was based on the military B-29 Super Fortress, had two passenger decks, with a lower cocktail lounge, and could carry more than 100 passengers. Let's take a quick listen to a clip from a 1950 Pan Am promotional film.

SPEAKER_10 41:33

After five million hours of design, development, and testing, Boeing was ready to put the new clipper into production. Before long, her handsome figure eight cross-section began to dominate the assembly plant in Seattle, and she was soon to dominate the sky. Here they were welding together a triumph of engineering and mechanics, and something more. A plane that would provide the ultimate in comfort and safety in passenger service. That combination stemmed from close, painstaking cooperation between the manufacturer and the airline, Boeing and Pan American. Their collaboration would continue in the future. But the biggest part of their work together on the new plan was coming to an end. Now the double decker was ready to carry passengers for Pan American World Airways. The first to order, and the first to fly this great luxury liner of the air.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Captain Bridges, you flew the Stratocruiser for many years. What did you think of this aircraft?

SPEAKER_07 42:44

I'm sorry, but I didn't think much of it. It was uh made out of two B-29s, and uh of course it wasn't Boeing's fault, but uh the engines they used were uh I I called them atrocious. Uh they took four seven-cylinder engines and stacked them behind one behind the other, and made a crankcase to hold them all, so it made 28 cylinders and 56 spark plugs, and many of the cylinders in the back rows didn't get good cooling, and we had all sorts of valve trouble and uh had to shut down engines quite often. And then, of course, the propellers that they uh decided to use because they were more efficient and bigger blades absorb more of the horsepower, um they didn't work out well at all and caused a few uh disasters. Um I thought the interior was done well, that uh lounge that they had. Below decks uh just ahead of the rear baggage compartment. That was a nice idea and very comfortable. Um the sound level in the Strato Cruiser was uh low, uh quite comfortable. And uh passenger uh convenience uh seemed to be pretty good. Uh I think everybody uh thought well of it. Uh just generally I I really didn't care for the Stratocruiser.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

The next plane you flew was the DC-7, correct?

SPEAKER_07 44:42

Yeah, DC 7C uh from the Stratocruiser. I liked the 7C. It was like a just a big version of the DC-4. And uh was a very good airplane.

SPEAKER_00 44:58

So what did you think of jets, specifically the Boeing 747, going from flying boats? How can you describe that transition?

SPEAKER_07 45:07

Holy smokes, that's a big job. Uh yeah, it also brought uh longer flights and uh more uh people on board. It uh it was uh an amazing airplane because of how it did everything so well and efficient and uh hardly any trouble with it at all. It was quite a pleasure. I liked them very much. I thought that was pretty darn good way of fly. Uh they were fast, they went high, and uh it was a good feeling airplane, easy to fly, and I liked them very much.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Looking back, did you like flying boats or land planes better?

SPEAKER_07 46:02

I liked the land planes better. It was uh less involved with uh maneuvering uh slow speed. Uh boats are very cumbersome taxiing, and the land planes were much easier. And of course, uh I knew a little bit about maintenance and uh understood saltwater corrosion, which we didn't have much trouble on the land planes.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Your 37-year career with Pan Am was mainly in the Pacific. Did you have any favorite destinations?

SPEAKER_07 46:38

Fiji, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney, Auckland. I was I was uh a lot more comfortable in those places than some of the others.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

You also flew missions to Vietnam. Do you have any stories from that time that uh you'd like to share with us?

SPEAKER_07 47:01

One night in Jenang came in and left our cargo load. I taxed out to uh turn on to the uh runway. There were tracers, big uh heavy uh artillery going back and forth in the area at the far end on on the claymat area that we would have to go through. And I told a messenger, the first officer, I said, Hey, look at that. Boy, he looked and he says, Holy mackerel. And we we watched the tracers for a little bit. I said, uh, well, let's ask for takeoff and see what happens. The first officer called for takeoff, and the instant that the tower cleared us to takeoff, the tracers stopped. And so we took off, and uh, there was always uh a uh a word of try to climb out as quick as you can, don't fly over the takeoff path at low altitude. So uh I tuck off and did a real steep climb and leveled out, going back the other way and looked back, and the traces are still going again. So that that was a little bit uh spooky. But other than that, no, I uh don't remember ever getting shot. There was uh a uh statement going around for a while that uh airplanes that uh only flew in and out of New York had more bullet holes in them than the ones out of Vietnam. I used to fly into Cameron Bay all the time and on the 707. So one day I flew in, landed, taxed up to cargo, and the uh cargo dispatcher came out and we talked over the papers and the load, and the dispatcher says, Oh, by the way, your son's in dispatch. You want to see him? My uh oldest son was uh stationed over in Nam for over a year. All we just write letters, and we did see him once he was on uh retire uh rest in Honolulu. But uh I used to fly over all the time and look down and wonder where he was, what he was doing. And the dispatcher says, Your son's in the office, you want to see him? I said, sure, send him out. So he came out in the Jeep and uh we uh talked for some little bit. Finally, I had to leave. Uh I didn't like it. It made me quite sad to start up the engines and wave goodbye to him and standing on the ground. He had to spend more time in NAM.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

Thank you very much for sharing that personal story, and we certainly thank your son for his service. What made you proud to be a Pan Am captain? What did you think of the high standards and expectations the company had of its employees?

SPEAKER_07 50:28

Uh just that the uh niceness and the uh well organized system that uh Pan Am always had. I uh I kind of like that style. It uh goes along with my nature. It was a real ego builder. It just made me feel good inside that uh people would uh be looking up to me and uh I appreciated uh the responsibility of uh being a captain and a leader. Uh I liked it very much. All the procedures and standards that uh I was subject to, I thought were uh done very well. Done in a in a in a very acceptable fashion. Uh some of the other airlines uh were uh very hard-nosed in s in some of the things that they maintained should be done. But uh Pan Am was uh I I think uh quite uh quite nice and uh very, very well done. Pan Am maintenance all over in every every uh station that I ever went through. Um I I always thought they were very good, very determined, very sincere in uh doing the job. Um I I I uh that they were they were good.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

It's been 30 years since Pan American World Airways ceased operations in December of 1991, and you dedicated 37 years of your life to the company. Can you share some of your thoughts about the company going out of business?

SPEAKER_07 52:35

Oh well, it was uh quite depressing. I uh have never been a political person, so I wasn't aware of uh political factions that uh perhaps uh forced Pan Am into that situation. Um I didn't care for some of the other airlines and their hard um advertising and their uh seemingly much more hard ways of operation. Uh Pan Am was always uh very kind and very gentle, and uh I appreciated that uh greatly.

SPEAKER_00 53:23

Let's go back to the late 1950s for a moment, when the jet age was beginning and Pan Am was celebrating the 24th anniversary of the China Clipper and the milestone of 50,000 flights across the Pacific. Here's a news clip from 1959.

SPEAKER_11 54:15

It celebrates the historic anniversary.

SPEAKER_00 54:19

The Trans-Pacific Run is no longer an adventure, it's routine and less than many of the people listening may have never had an opportunity to have flown on Panium, but today Panium's history and its people still captivates the public's imagination of luxury and adventure. Do you have a message to them as you've lived through the golden age of travel?

SPEAKER_07 54:47

I was thinking about how people today don't really know what romantic adventure means. Going back to the 314, I think that uh there was nothing so romantic as going down to the dock, walking the plank over to the seawing, stepping in the lounge, taking a seat, taxiing out, South Bay, taking off, fly over the Golden Gate Bridge, social hour of drinks, and everybody gets together, and then dinner is served in uh white linen and silverware and and China dishes with Pan Am's label on them. Everything is cooked right on board the airplane, a wonderful dinner, and uh another social hour with after dinner drinks and time to go to bed, eight hours of sleep, and get up in the morning and breakfast to order, and are sitting there after breakfast having a coffee, and announcement comes over the PA system. Ladies and gentlemen, if you look out the left side of the airplane, you will see the large, the big island of Hawaii. And uh later on we'll be passing on the left side the Maui and Molokai and Lennai, and later on we'll be letting down and crossing Diamond Head Point on Oahu and landing at the Sea Drome in Honolulu. They land and get off the airplane, walk the plank back to the floating dock amidst flower lays and singing and hula dancers. Welcome to paradise. And today they stuff 300 people in a long aluminum tube, blast them off into the near stratosphere. The stewardess starts handing out trays of food that have been frozen and just warmed over, and as soon as she hands out the food, she starts taking them back on the other end with the announcement, ladies and gentlemen, will you please finish your trays? We'll be landing shortly. And that's all they know today, and they don't know what romance is.

SPEAKER_00 57:19

That was very poetic and well said. Thank you very much. In your opinion, what is the legacy of Pan American?

SPEAKER_07 57:29

Like I said, I think that Pan Am operation was done very well. And uh I would like to see the younger generation come back and ask for the same type of of uh service again. Um and uh keep keep on pitching and and uh keep on trying, because uh I would uh I would like to to uh see it come back. I don't uh know that if it did come back, whether it would survive in the hard driving systems that we have now. One thing that I do not like to see is the admiration and the uh fondness of people for automatic systems. They have uh computer-operated cars automatically, no no drivers, and uh I shudder to see that being tried once in a while on aeroplanes, and uh I think now that some small airlines are taking people off the streets and teaching them how to push buttons on a computer and then putting them in an airplane, I don't I don't uh favor that and object strenuously. And uh I I hope that they'll come to their senses and and not do that anymore.

SPEAKER_00 59:24

The Pantium Museum on Long Island, right outside of New York City, opened in 2016 and is a place where the history of Pantium lives on for future generations. What do you think of what they're doing?

SPEAKER_07 59:38

I think the uh museum is a wonderful idea, and uh like I say, keep showing it to as many people as you can, and and uh maybe somebody will get some sense one day and and start over again.

SPEAKER_00 59:57

Thank you so much for your time, sir. This interview has been a great honor for me personally. Um, could you do us one more favor? Could you make an announcement as if you were flying us to Hawaii and we were on final approach?

SPEAKER_07 1:00:12

Ladies and gentlemen, we'll be landing in uh Maui shortly. Uh hope you enjoy your vacation. It's the weather as uh beautiful as always. The sun is shining, temperatures 80 degrees, and uh hope you enjoy everything. It's been a pleasure having you aboard.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:37

That was perfect. Thank you again, sir.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:41

Well, thank you very much. Uh I've enjoyed it, and uh uh I'm starting to enjoy being a century. Um a little bit scary because I have never done this before, but uh I uh wouldn't mind continuing on if I could stay in uh about the same health. And uh I I thank you so much for the consideration and and the uh efforts that you've all gone through to to uh bring this about. Thank you very much. I feel quite honored to be uh called on for something like this. It's uh it's uh very, very impressive. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:29

Fair winds and following seas, Captain. 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.thepanammuseum.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 from the 1969 For Once in a Lifetime ad campaign. As flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world, thank you for flying, Pan América.