Raymond Wiles Gundlach 1911 - 2002
Ray Gundlach was born 25-October-1911 in Portland, Oregon, and moved to Dixon, California as a youth. During Charles Lindbergh's 1927 U.S. tour following his Paris flight, he stopped at Mather Field in Sacramento. Ray, aged 16, and a bunch of his buddies drove the 25 miles to Mather Field in an old Ford to see the American Hero. From that 1927 Lindbergh tour, Ray was immediately hooked on aviation and in early 1928, he brought an old plane with his friends that never got off the ground. That plane was followed by JN4 (Jenny) and in 1932 by a Long Wing Eaglerock.
In 1936 Ray worked his way over to China on a cattle boat to try to gain employment with CNAC (China National Air Corporation). When he arrived in China, CNAC had more pilots than planes, and he went to Shanghai where he taught flying to the Chinese for several months. Ray left China in 1937 and returned to California where he continued to accumulate flying hours training and flying out of Oakland, CA. Ray was hired by United Air Lines in May 1940, and after school his first domicile was Chicago flying Boeing 247s. After WWII he was domiciled in San Francisco until he retired. During his career with United he flew 247s, DC-3s, DC-4s, DC-6s, DC-7s and finished his career in 1968 flying DC-8s. When Ray retired in 1968 he had over 24,000 hours.
Since many United pilots were reservist in 1941 and called to military duty, when Ray tried to enlist in the Army Air Corp in 1941 he was "frozen" at United as a vital civilian occupation. He was domiciled in Chicago and Seattle during WWII and flew troops throughout the U.S. and into Alaska. Making Captain in 1941 he flew 27 of his 28 years with United in the left seat, except for a few trips during the Viet Nam War when he flew co-pilot when United took their most senior pilots to form DC-8 crews for the United contract flights into Saigon.