Foil: 64 Panel: 2 Column: 2 Line: 106

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Ms. Lynne Whitaker Jody R. Whitaker and Joel Whitaker

Today, November 7, 2015, we gather to celebrate the many decades long career of my father, Randy Douglas Whitaker. We share a golden thread, a legacy, a passion, a desire to wander among the clouds. As far back as I can remember, the blue sky was calling. It could have been the wispy white clouds, or maybe the bright puffy ones, or maybe it was the chance to soar amongst them and take a bit of the majesty home with us every day.
My very first memories are of those blue skies, they beckoned for me to stretch my arms wide and pretend I was soaring, they beckoned me to dance on the cloud tops. You see, my dreams came from watching my dad don his green Navy flight suit, assemble his gear, and drive off to work, to fly. To fly in the service of our country as a Naval Aviator, as a pilot in the United States Navy, Vought A-7E Corsair II equipped Attack Squadron VA-97, assigned to the USS Enterprise, CVN-65. A job that required every man in the squadron to be hurtled off that ship in all manner of ocean conditions, day or night, clouds or clear, and manage, with God's grace and hours of careful, rigorous training, to be collected back aboard the ship. Which sometimes meant in the soup, at night, with no visual references outside the dimly lit cockpit, alone, in a single engine aircraft, over the ocean, miles from the back of the boat, in treacherous seas, waiting for his chance to log another trap on board the ship. And trap he did, on well over 100 different occasions.

I remember that ship, that airplane, that squadron. The smell of that flight helmet as I pretended to be my dad, flying his attack jet over the ocean, over the desert, amongst the clouds. Burning jet fuel, screaming jet engine, vortices peeling off of the wingtips as we pulled insanely high G's to evade impacting the ground as we completed our bombing run. I was him. Our thread of passion connecting us from my earliest days.

His next chapter took him, and our family, to Chicago, to Delta Air Lines. As a flight engineer on the Boeing 727. To this day still one of my favorite aircraft. 3 Engines, T-tail, ask most people and they can pick it out of a lineup. Loud, smoky, and fast, it epitomized the legacy of jet airplane for me, a 5 year old boy. I watched in awe as we toured the Delta Flight Operations Department at O'Hare International Airport. As my dad walked me through the hallowed halls of the life of an airline pilot. A life he would live out for over 36 years. To retirement. To that day when all U.S. Airline pilots must, by decree of the Federal Aviation Administration, shut down those screaming jet engines for the last time. They must hang up their wings. Rest their hats on the rack. And place that revered uniform in the closet one last time.

That's why we're here today, to celebrate a man and a career that safely and consistently, allowed over 1,000,000 people to travel over 10,000,000 miles to be with their loved ones, close that major business deal, tend to the sick, lead people to greatness, play the best game of their lives, or simply to catch their breath on an amazing beach with their toes in the sand. Day in, day out. In all manner of weather. As an Airline Pilot.

From a speech written by Jody Roland Whitaker, United Airbus First Officer, for his father's retirement on October 14, 2015.