Foil: 14 Panel: Retired United Pilots Association Column: 2 Line: 36

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:

I was born on October 8, 1942 in Athens, Alabama. I was hired by United Airlines on September 1, 1963 at Huntsville, Alabama and was trained in all job functions of a ground employee at a small airport (reservations, ticketing, passenger service, load planning, aircraft fueling, and baggage handling).

I was transferred to Bakersfield, California station operations in February, 1964. I soon began to take flying lessons and to go for interviews with United's personnel department at Los Angeles to transfer to flight operations. On January 18, 1965, with 42 hours in my logbook and a fresh private pilot's license in hand, I signed a contract to be trained as a United Airlines flight engineer, contingent upon getting my commercial license within one year at my expense.

In September, 1965, I began training for an instrument rating at United's expense. In October, I entered the United Flight Training Center as a Douglas DC-6 flight engineer student. I began "flying the line" on January 1, 1966. As seniority improved, I moved up to Boeing 727 Flight Engineer (April, 1967), B737 Copilot (July, 1968), and to B727 Copilot (Jan, 1980). In my 20th year with United, I finally had the seniority to move to the captain's seat on the B737 (June, 1986), then to B757/767 captain (March, 1992) and for the last 7 years and 4 months of my career, Boeing 777 captain (June, 1995). I was selected to serve as an FAA designated flight check airman on each type of aircraft that I flew as captain.

FAA regulations mandated retirement at age 60 so retirement was forced upon me in October, 2002. My last flight was from Dulles Airport (Washington, DC) to Charles deGaulle (Paris) and return. I enjoyed a wonderful career of 37 years and 10 months without a single emergency situation.