Theodore John Vass (aka: Ted) Born: September 4, 1925.
Ted became interested in aviation in mid elementary school. He read aviation books and magazines, drew pictures of airplanes and built models. He remembered an incident in 7th grade (1937), while in the school yard during recess, when he saw a Douglas DC-3 fly overhead and knew what it was. He made a conscious decision that he wanted to pilot one of those some day.
Soon after the start of his junior year of high school, he earned the cost and began flying lessons on October 4, 1941 in a Piper J-3 Cub. He was a charter member of the Civil Air Patrol, the Army Air Corps paramilitary auxiliary formed in early 1942 to make use of privately owned civilian aircraft in the war effort. He rose to the rank of Master Sergeant in the C.A.P. He applied and took the entrance tests for the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet pilot training program in his last semester of high school (spring 1943) and was accepted. When he entered the cadet program after his 18th birthday, he already had a civilian Private Pilot License.
He flew PT-13s, PT-17s, PT-19s, BT-13S, BT-14S and TB-25S in cadet flight training. After graduating and being commissioned a Second Lieutenant on April 15, 1945, at the age of 19, he spent some time in pilot pools where he flew the B-25 some more and the AT-6. Then he was sent to B-17 transition. The war ended just as he was finishing that training. He was honorably discharged in December 1945.
He then got a civilian Commercial Pilot License with a Multiengine rating on the basis of his military training and added a Flight Instructor rating to use for earning expense money and building flying time while going to college. I He chose the University of Southern California because it offered a course in business administration called "Commercial Aviation" that focused on the management of aviation oriented business enterprises. There he met his future wife, Kamala, who was taking the same course and had a private pilot license. They were married a month before graduation.
After college graduation, Ted got an instrument rating and began applying to airlines for a pilot job. When he was hired by United Air Lines to begin new hire school as a First Officer (co-pilot) on January 9, 1952, he spent his first year at United fulfilling that goal to pilot a Douglas DC-3. He went on to pilot the Convair CV-340, Douglas DC-6, Douglas DC-7, Vickers 745D Viscount, Sud S-210 Caravelle, Douglas DC-8 and Boeing B-747 aircraft types. He was promoted to Captain (pilot-in-command) by United on August 10, 1956 and qualified in overwater navigation on a June 23, 1971 flight in a DC-8-62 from Honolulu to New York.
On October 11, 1983, Ted's wife, Kamala, died in her sleep from lung cancer. She had been a cigarette smoker. It was quite an emotional blow for Ted and the rented apartment they had shared soon became a painful reminder. Ted decided he wanted to live near one of his four children, three daughters and one son, all of whom had finished college. The daughters were all married but his son was not. His son had graduated from the University of Florida, had an Airline Transport Pilot license and had gone to work as a corporate pilot for a company in Lake City, FL. He had become a Vice President of a company as well and had bought a three bedroom house in the country club area of town. He invited Ted to come and stay with him for a while and Ted decided to take him up on it. United's B-747 crews based in Chicago were flying schedules to Tokyo via Seattle, so Ted would have only three trips a month and it would be easy to commute to work from Lake City via Jacksonville. Ted liked Lake City and deciding to stay, rented an apartment in Lake City.
In early 1985, Ted was asked to take on the job of 'B-747 Line Check Manager' for the eastern part of United's system. Line checks were a quality control activity where the check pilot would ride sitting in the cockpit observer seat during a regular flight and check crew compliance with company and FAA regulations and operating procedures.
Later in 1985 the FBO at the Lake City airport changed hands and there was no longer an airplane available to rent if Ted or his son, Jay wanted to do some private flying. They decided to shop for a suitable airplane to buy. They settled on a normally aspirated Cessna 210 as the right thing and found a Chicago dealer with a good used 6 seat, 300 h.p. 210L. On October 3, Ted went to take delivery on it and flew it nonstop from Chicago to Lake City. It was a nice airplane.
On October 3, 1989 mutual friends introduced Ted to an attractive widow named Edith Purser, who was about 13 months younger than Ted and was a pharmacist. Ted took an immediate liking to her and they started dating. The better he knew her, the more he liked her and in March of 1991, he proposed to her. She said "Yes" and they were married on April 6, 1991. She owned a large house in Lake City, so he moved in with her. Between them, they had 10 children.
The marriage caused Ted to decide to retire from United Airlines in order to have time to enjoy life with her. The end of April in 1992 would be the optimum time. He would be 66 years old and the year of marriage they would have behind them would give her survivor rights to benefits from the air line such as pass privileges.
Ted continued to fly his own airplanes until the end of November, 2004