Full Throttle

By John Deakin

Full Throttle is an entertaining account of an amazing man’s life in aviation that is sure to leave the reader laughing and head-shaking as the pages turn quickly during this enjoyable read. It is a compilation of short stories told by John Deakin over the years on Compuserve's AVSIG Forum, the oldest aviation forum in the world. Some of Deakin’s stories are funny, some are sad, and a few are shocking for the amount of trouble Deakin managed to get himself into and (barely) out of over the years. His professional career consisted of flying an assortment of airplanes for Air America in Vietnam and as an airline pilot for Japan Airlines. Non-professionally and for fun Deakin flew a wide assortment of WWII fighters and bombers.

Young Deakin started as a line boy in his teens before working as a freighter pilot (B-25 captain at 19), corporate pilot, spending five years with Air America, the CIA airline, and 32 years as a captain for Japan Airlines. His last 29 years with JAL were spent Captaining the 747; the last five years of which, John was #1 in seniority system-wide.

The first half of the book tells of Deakin’s training as a budding pilot and the experiences which formed the skills he later needed to survive the rigors of flying in a combat zone. A few of these experiences could easily have been fatal, but through them all, the young aviator maintains his sense of humor about how he got himself into such a mess! There were more than a few “messes” on various continents as he learned to survive.

Deakin’s intense experiences while flying for Air America in Vietnam are always colored with the morbid humor that accompanies stressful situations. His part ownership of the Kontiki Lounge in Gia Dinh, Vietnam, presents its own special view of life “in country.” After his Air America experience, he expounds upon his experiences as an airline captain, which range from hysterically funny to the high-stress situations that accompany weather and diversion decisions as well as dealing with unruly passengers.

The later chapters of the book are first-hand accounts and detailed descriptions of what it’s like to fly some of the World’s most interesting and rare airplanes. For those who are likely to never get the chance to do so, Deakin gives them a first-hand glimpse into the details known only to those who’ve flown such aircraft as the Constellation, Bearcat, Japanese Zero, C-46, B-24, and B-29.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Deakin
• Release date: Sep 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9780974977034

John Deakin

John always said “Get a job doing something you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” After a few attempts at actually working, mostly imposed by his father in his early teens, John eased into flying airplanes, and sure enough, found the saying to be true. He started out as a line boy in Sarasota, Florida, and began collecting money for his flying addiction by age seventeen and never looked back. He blew all of his money on aviation ratings and restaurant food, and, as a result never learned to cook beyond frozen meals and the occasional peanut butter and jelly sandwich.John hated high school, and by his own assessment, barely made it through. He never darkened the door of college, being convinced that he’d learn more at the airport. He applied for the airlines early on, but they all wanted applicants with college diplomas and high grades at that. John railed against this at the time, but finally decided the airlines were not for him, since he’s never appreciated the union mentality. He banged around in odd jobs as a budding pilot, until he landed a job overseas for which he lusted greatly, being young, adventurous, and naive. The young lady he’d been dating for a year or so apparently had other plans for him, and was quite upset at his sudden overseas departure. John was greatly relieved, and smugly pleased to be out of that situation!The dream job turned out to be with Air America, which John later discovered was a CIA Proprietary Airline. He spent about five years with Air America in various “garden spots” of Asia and the Pacific, had many adventures, cut a wide path through the fleshpots, and thoroughly enjoyed the massive amount of flying time in wonderful airplanes. As many Air America pilots did, John learned to do strange and amazing things with those airplanes. John has often said that that was the happiest time of his life. In 1968, Air America was failing, and the lure of jets was strong. John had an opportunity to join Japan Airlines as “Christmas Help” as a 727 captain, figuring he’d build experience for three to five years, and move on. To his surprise, his advancement to DC-8 captain, then 747 captain was very rapid. JAL was growing monstrously, and there were not enough Japanese pilots available to fill the slots. John spent the next 32 years with JAL, for the most part very happy ones, acquiring a wife and two fine sons who live and work in Seattle today. Amazingly, he only married the once, when everyone he knows has been divorced—some multiple times.When age forced John to retire from JAL, he became a Gulfstream captain. He loved the airplane, but other issues somewhat “reduced his enjoyment.” The stress and being slightly overweight forced his blood pressure up and he suffered a stroke in 2008 at the age of 69. The after-effects of the stroke were minor, and much to his surprise he happily enjoyed being retired and now admits that he wishes he’d retired sooner. John now lives fairly reclusively with his wife in Southern California and spends his time on the business aspects of Advanced Pilot Seminars, handles a steady flow of email, and is thoroughly enjoying life, as he always has.The Prologue mentions that he refused to write this book. "Refused" is accurate, but "too lazy" is more descriptive, and he’s amazed that Walter took the time to compile some of his stories. John hope you enjoy them, but if you don’t blame Walter, not him!

Book preview

Flying Fish

Wanted, Dead or Alive

Single Engine Twin

Trouble in Paradise

Don’t Get Mad, Get Even

My Only Violation

No Pisco Sours for Me, Thanks!

Ferry Pilot

Florida to Buenos Aires

Single-Engine, Over-Water, No-Gyro IMC ...

Pushing on from Pisco

Hairy Flight

Getting It Back Together

Fired!

The Air America Years

Was It Really Like That?

One Door Closes, Another Opens

DC-3 Type Rating

Off to Taiwan

Chinese Ground School

Remembering Art Shower Shoes Wilson

Working for The Company

Pigs Flew at Air America

Toilet Paper

’Lectricity!

K.M. Chow and the Old China Hands

Air America Dress Code

Making a Living

Strange Critters—Pilots, Captains, & Chief Pilots

Captain

Hey, Chief!

The Real Thing

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

Life after Daffy

DC-8 in SFO Bay in ’68

FE’s and Thrust Levers

Sleep with Head Inboard Only

Frank Waterhouse and the B-58

X-Wind Limit? Instructing at JAL

JAL Flight Deck Operations

ATIS

Crew Relations (I want some Ice Cream)

Cheerleaders in the Cockpit

International Crew Habits, Vibrating Alarms

Narita to New York—almost

Narita Spring Thunderstorms

European VOR Anomaly

Paris PERNO SID

Rising Sun

How Come You Have a Job?

JAL’s Version of History

The Truck

Touch & Go’s

Airspace Junk and Fast Descent

Dreams Do Come True

Filing ‘direct’

Waterspout at EYW!

Reclining V-Tail seat

Mile High Club

The Record

Just for the Glory of it

Connie, My Connie

AIRSHO 2000 (The Agony and the Ecstasy)

Bearcat!

Psssst! Wanna Trojan?

Liberator!

The Old Commando

Superfortress!

The Legendary Zero

Hurricane!

A Message on CompuServes AVsig Forum

Glossary

About the Author

Connect with the Author

Prologue

This is the book John Deakin refused to write. He outlasted us and we finally got tired of begging him to write it, so we gathered his writings together and did it without his knowledge or permission. It might have been better had he done it, but we didn't think we would live to see it had we waited. John is guilty of having written the stories within. We are guilty of compiling them and turning them into a book.

The editors would like to acknowledge special appreciation for their invaluable assistance in gathering material, compiling it, and editing to Mark Horak, Tom Gresham, Carol Tomlin, Cathie Bizette, and Pat Atkinson. Walter Atkinson and George Braly also helped. Thank you to Mary Grace for the line art drawings.

We also would like to acknowledge the unwitting contributions of the people John has written about within these pages—they are the guilty parties along with John. They know who they are and you are about to find out.

If you think you recognize yourself herein, don't flatter yourself. It wasn't you. It was someone who looked like you and was using your name.

The Editors

2004

Prologue II by John Deakin, July, 2014

The final, ready-to-print version of this book was presented to me one evening in 2004, in George Braly’s home in Ada, Oklahoma. I’d had no inkling of the project, and to say I was dumbfounded is an understatement. Walter’s statement to me was, John, you can accept it and it will go off the printer as is, or you can reject it, and it will disappear, and we’ll not speak of it again.

How could I reject it? Walter (and others) had gathered stories I had mostly told on CompuServe’s AVSIG Forum, put them in order, and changed only a line here and there to make sense in book form, rather than a sometimes sloppily composed message with misspellings and grammatical errors. The distinction is all but invisible to me, so I have no trouble accepting the words as my own.

I never felt my story or words were worthy of a book, which is the reason I didn’t want to write it. I am stunned that others think they are.

Many thanks to Walter (and others) for doing this. I am deeply touched.

John Deakin

Deakin, with Lambert 90A Monocoupe, Sarasota Florida, circa 1956

Youth, Experience, and Survival

Editor’s note:

It seems in aviation that all too often, experience comes with the unintended consequences of events the pilot didn’t plan on or, at the very least, tried to ignore. It could be that the only thing all of these experiences have in common is that the pilot survived in spite of himself. It makes one ponder why pilots seldom will answer the burning question, What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done in an airplane?

As we compiled these stories, we came to the conclusion that Mrs. Deakin’s little boy Johnny is either very good, very lucky—or both.

What Really Counts

Before we get too deep into this book, let’s take a shot at some of the common aviation myths and Old Wives’ Tales (OWTs) that are so common in this wacky business.

Many people equate the gift of gab, gray hair, hours aloft, or years in the business with pilot quality. High time or old pilots are often given far more respect than they deserve, and there are many of these types around most airports—and some in airline cockpits, too. General Aviation airports usually have a few of them sitting around basking in the admiration of the student pilot, who vies for a position in the pecking order by measuring their accomplishments and hours against other pilots. It reminds me of the cartoon of two kids, about five years old, leaning against the Fly me for a quarter airplane in front of the drugstore, one nonchalantly saying, Oh, about 3 hours, how about you? First thing students learn is never to ask this question unless they are sure they are on top, going into that conversation!

I recall well one little old blue-haired lady who raved about What a wonderful pilot he is in reference to another corporate pilot. I politely said, Yes, he’s a very nice guy, and she said, "No, no, I mean he’s a wonderful pilot!" I let it go, for she was the mother of my boss. But I wondered just what basis she had for that judgment, for he was widely known as a hamburger with little more than a gift of gab, and she had no aviation knowledge at all.

Then there was the retired US Air Force Bird Colonel who showed up in Saigon, bringing with him considerable fame as a very high-time B-52 pilot in the Strategic Air Command. I flew with him in the Twin Beech during his line training for a few days and rejected him as unfit for any cockpit duty—in anything. Not only could he not fly, but also his headwork was nonexistent. Another instructor came to the same conclusion. In one of his less stellar moves, the chief pilot rode around the pattern with The Colonel once and signed him off. He wrecked a Twin Beech on his first takeoff on his first day and then quietly went home.

Dissecting My Bio

Sure, hours and years aloft can mean something, but other things need to be considered. Take a peek at my bio below; there are a few things there I’d like to dissect. A few have warned me that some may attach more credence to what I say than they should because of my apparent credentials. I hope that’s not true; I hope they pay attention because what I say makes sense. If it doesn’t make sense, then I want to hear about it.

The Author’s Aviation Bio (Updated to 2014)

I am a 39,000-hour pilot who worked his way up the aviation food chain via charter, corporate, and cargo flying; spent five years in Southeast Asia with Air America; 33 years with Japan Airlines, mostly as a 747 captain, and 8 years as a Gulfstream IV captain for a West Coast operator.

I flew my own V35 Bonanza (N1BE) and was very active in the warbird and vintage aircraft scene, flying the C-46, M-404, DC-3, F8F Bearcat, Constellation, B-29, and others. I have been a National Designated Pilot Examiner (NDPER), able to give type ratings and check rides on 43 different aircraft types. After a year, the FAA didn’t think I was suited to be part of the NDPER program so they fired me. However, after that the FAA asked me to develop a training program for the C-46 and qualify pilots for that aircraft. (I haven’t quite figured out that organization!) I currently teach engine management seminars, and due to a stroke in 2008, I no longer fly.

Over 39,000 hours? Well, yeah, I’ve watched in fascination over 53 years of professional flying as that total has grown to a number that surprises even me, particularly in light of some of the dumb things I’ve done. But, consider: 747 time accounts for well over half of it, and since the 747 is almost exclusively a very long range aircraft with supplemented or double crews, I've spent several thousand of those hours sleeping in the crew bunk and more than a few in the seat, peacefully snoozing on duty (which I encourage on long flights, preferably one pilot at a time!) Many thousands more were spent in the cockpit, boring along (and bored) at FL370 on 12- and 14-hour flights above most of the weather. More to the point, since there are so few takeoffs and landings, by the time the other pilots get their share I’m lucky to get two takeoffs and two landings per month. That’s twenty-four per year, for twenty-five years for about 300 total. Ok, maybe 500, because some of that time was on short-range flights of nine hours, or less, with a normal crew. Folks, this is not a lot of experience relative to the total time!

My hat is off to commuter pilots who operate killer schedules through long winter nights, often down in the clag and in high-density areas, or to short-haul pilots, freight dogs, often operating shabby equipment, and to many others who get more genuine experience in a few months than I have in the last twenty-five years. Give me credit for patience, not demanding flying experience.

Now, about this business of being a 747 captain, some of whom would like to wear five stripes instead of the normal four? With rare exceptions, the only difference (other than waistline) between a 737 captain and a 747 captain is union seniority, which is all well and good, but that has nothing to do with skill, talent, knowledge, or ability. Oh, the pay is better, too, but that’s also a union function, because way back in the beginning, ALPA somehow got pay tied to productivity, which sounds fair enough, but that effort ended up somehow connected to aircraft weight. In reality, the 747 is a pussycat, the easiest of all the transports to fly, genuinely an old man’s airplane. It is really hard to make a bad landing, though I seem to succeed in that far too often. Note also that transport certification rules constantly emphasize something like No more than average piloting skill must be needed on the various criteria.

Now, what about the instructor thing? Did you ever stop to think that 300-hour pilots form the bulk of those getting this certificate? Can it really be so hard? It probably took me longer, and I had to study harder because I hadn’t been exposed to the basics in many years, and these days there are a lot more basics! Reminds me of the old saying, He’s forgotten more about flying than (someone else) ever knew. Think about that for a moment. It’s often literally true, and it does not reflect favorably on the old coot who has forgotten so much. I don’t consider it a compliment.

Respect My Examiner Designation?

Surely though, I deserved respect as an Examiner? Well, maybe, but note that my privileges were restricted to the Curtiss-Wright C-46 Commando, a 55-year-old military transport, of which only a few flying examples remain. The FAA Inspectors not only don’t want to get into these relics to conduct check rides, they don’t want anything to do with them and they don’t want to know anything about them. Are you kidding me? Fly an ancient, 48,000-pound taildragger? Or worse, climb into the jumpseat of one, while strangers are up front, yanking engines and simulating emergencies now done only in simulators? Do you have any idea what a helpless feeling that is? Very few FAA people think this is a part of their job description! (I am grateful to Karla Wattier, of the VNY FSDO, for her can-do attitude and willingness to occupy that jumpseat with me up front!)

There are only a few pilots left who are interested in flying these old beasts, and with most modern pilots having learned to fly in jets (the military-trained ones, anyway), there aren’t many who would take a paying job flying a C-46, much less do it as a labor of love. Of that small number of nuts, very, very few happen to have an instructor’s certificate, an absolute requirement to be an Examiner. So, when I came along and joined the SoCal (Southern California) Wing of the Commemorative Air Force in Camarillo, California, it suddenly got really easy to get to be a C-46 Examiner. In fact, I wonder if the FAA Examiner’s school in OKC would have allowed me to fail! It seemed that everyone in the FAA was on my side, warmly supportive and encouraging (No, I’m not joking.) Hmm, have I missed something here?

Yes, I fly a Bonanza, though not as much as I would like. You would be amazed at how hard I had to work when I bought that machine in 1992. I thought I was current, but for some months I was VFR ONLY until I worked up the courage to start a little light IFR after some retraining and practice. That was the first time I realized how much help I’d been getting in the 747 cockpit all these years. With 500 hours and some training, I’m a little better now, I hope.

Now that I hope I’ve stripped away some of the illusions, allow me to say that I am indeed proud to have served with Air America, and it surely wasn’t the outfit portrayed in that dreadful movie. It was the most interesting, demanding, and challenging flying I’ve ever done, or ever will do. I am deeply honored and privileged to have the opportunity to once again fly my beloved C-46, my favorite airplane of all time. I do try to study, I read a lot, I think I’ve paid attention to the aviation business for a lot of years, and so I hope I can pass along some of that here.

Think for Yourself

Please, don’t take my word for anything because of my so-called credentials. As you read what I write, consider the content and think for yourself. Consult with others for their opinions and make them (and me) back them up with logic and data, not credentials or inappropriate claims.

I have listened to an Airport Big-Mouth (ABM) proclaim, "You can’t log PIC time unless you are the PIC!" A quiet, professional, young CFI attempted to point out the FAR that clearly does permit just that but got shouted down by the ABM, who pointed out that I’ve been flying for fifty years, and that’s ridiculous! What does fifty years of experience mean when he’s so wrong? In fact, the FARs permits more than one person to log PIC at the same time, and with very good reason! The ABM shouted this down, too.

Or, take the senior editor of a well-known aviation publication who beat on the OWT, the downwind turn, where the demonstrably false theory is that when turning downwind in a constant wind, the airplane must accelerate—or stall! Rubbish! This one is laughable, except for the fact that he claims to be a test pilot! He should know better, but I know of several letters to the Editor about that article that drew no response, and the article has gone uncorrected and will confuse students forever. A CFI and columnist for a training magazine also fell into this old trap some months back. How can a lowly CFI argue against people like them?

The fact is, of course, that you can fly a constant circle at 100 knots indicated in a 200-knot stable wind and never know the difference in the cockpit, never see a change in your instruments from the wind. It would be a sight to see from low altitude if you did it while watching the ground, though! This is not to be confused with flying from one wind condition into another wind condition, which is wind shear, and an entirely different thing.

Another example was one of the Lycoming Field Reps with whom I got into a discussion over GAMI fuel injectors. These devices allow almost any fuel-injected general aviation engine to run smoothly lean of peak, where it runs cooler and cleaner. This old fountain of knowledge all but screamed, I wouldn’t recommend lean of peak to my worst enemy!

Gee, said I, there are several hundred million hours of experience running well lean of peak on the big old radials. Why is it harmful to a big-bore flat six?

Gas is cheap; engines are expensive! he said, not exactly addressing the issue.

Well, yes, but if running lean of peak will extend engine life and thereby also improve safety, isn’t that even better?

I wouldn’t recommend lean of peak to my worst enemy! he repeated (about five times in all). His other justification was I’ve been giving depositions for Lycoming for twenty-five years now, and (you guessed it) I wouldn’t recommend.... He never did answer my question or support his adamant opinion with facts.

Pay Attention to Content

My point in all this is that if you learn nothing else from me or from this book, learn to pay very little attention to credentials, or a loud voice, or age, or time in the air, the color of hair, or gender, or race, or anything but the content of advice and instruction, here and elsewhere, whether from a grizzled old pilot or a young student pilot, some of whom can have astonishing insight and a new, fresh way of looking at things. Think about what you hear, and what you read, no matter how authoritative the material seems. Treat new information like a raccoon treats his food. He washes it and examines it, turning it over and over, washing it some more, looking, sniffing, poking, prodding, washing, and only after a long and careful examination does he finally swallow it. If something does not fit with your previous knowledge, then either the new information is wrong or the old is, or you’re missing something. Track it down—before it kills you.

Remembering Pappy Farrish

I cannot hear the words National Airlines captain without thinking of Pappy Farrish. Ole Pappy was one of the most senior captains for NAL in about 1955. His home was JAX (Jacksonville, Florida), where he owned an F-51 Mustang*, a Staggerwing Beech, and either a Pitts, or a T-6, I forget which. For that at least, I admired him greatly, and a similar situation was my own life dream for many, many years.

He had fallen out the front cargo door of a DC-6 years before and broken his back, so he had a severe hunchback condition, and he also wore his purest white hair long in those days of short crew-cuts. He was a runt, probably forty, looked eighty, and had a sulfurous temper, the foulest language of any human I’ve ever met, and he chewed tobacco. I mean, this man CHEWED TOBACCO, and could he ever spit. His aim warn’t so purty good though, so any cockpit he had occupied needed to be steam cleaned and fumigated; then the airplane needed changing. The barf bag he used for a spittoon was usually pretty clean, at least on the inside.

One of his common patterns included a night nonstop DC-6 flight from New York to Sarasota FL, arriving very early in the morning, perhaps 0300 or 0400. The airplane would remain there for about four hours, with the crew snoozing on board, then depart back to New York.

In those grand old piston days, it was required that a ramp agent stand guard under and slightly behind each prop during start, dragging a large fire bottle along to guard against stack and intake fires which were not all that uncommon. Because it was closest to the battery, the #2 engine was usually started first, and Pappy loved to get that one going, then lean way out of the cockpit window, and let fly with a full wad of wet tobacco, right back into the spinning prop, thus splattering that disgusting mess all over the ramp, the airplane, and the poor unfortunate fire guard. If it worked, you could durn near hear his cackle of glee, and see him laughing as he started the other engines and taxied out. Made his day.

The only person on earth who seemed to like him was a super-senior, tough-as-nails red-haired stew (a non-PC term, these days) named Riley who had a temper and language to match his. It was a nightmare for the cleanup crew doing the turnaround service on the airplane, for it was necessary to work around these snoozing crewmembers quietly enough not to disturb them (especially Pappy) yet to do a good enough job not to incur the very considerable wrath of Riley.

How came I to know all this? I was the 15-year-old kid who had the contract to come over to the airport every morning, and all by myself do the turnaround cabin (and cockpit) cleaning on the airplane. I sometimes got to stand fireguard, too. A recurring nightmare was Farrish and Riley on the same flight, and I was not the only one who hated to see either name on the crew list.

I can still remember one day when the flight arrived very late, and Perry Snell, the Station Manager, told me, Skip the ash trays and the seat pockets, just pick up the heavy junk, hit the honey buckets, and get off.

Uh, said I, "you do know Riley is the head stew today, sir?"

Yeah, can’t be helped; it’s either make her mad or explain to the home office why the outbound flight is late. I did as I was told, but Riley caught me fleeing down the stairs with my buckets and junk and started yelling at me about the ashtrays. It didn’t help to run; the farther away I got, the louder she got. Man, could that woman swear. I lived in fear of the day she came back, but shortly after that, NAL changed the schedule to a few hours later, and I could no longer do the job and still make school on time.

Ahh, the good old days...

Starting an Airline

While hanging around and working at the Sarasota-Bradenton airport (SRQ) in the mid-50s, I became aware of a small group of pilots my father called airport bums. It was years before I realized that was intended as a derogatory term, for they were my heroes. That was probably why Dad put me into forced labor in the family glassblowing business at age twelve and held me in service to age seventeen. Years later, I accused him of violating the child labor laws, but he just grinned and said, Yeah, but it sure kept you out of trouble! In these more complex times, one wonders what trouble he had in mind. The local heroes all drank, smoked and womanized to excess, so perhaps that’s what he was worried about. Oddly enough, I never smoked or drank, and I was much too busy with airplanes to womanize, even if one had taken an interest in the greasy, smelly kid with the 60-weight oil on his shirt and grease under his fingernails.

For some years, the local talk among these airport bums was about possible ways to make money with airplanes, preferably with the least possible amount of work. The grand idea was to acquire a surplus military cargo aircraft and to fly cargo north and south between the Americas. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the primary considerations were the warm sunshine, easy booze, easy women, and similar companions to be found in the bars throughout the Caribbean. Me, I just wanted to fly whatever was used, and I was fascinated by the talk along with the inevitable war stories of airlines and old jobs in the past.

The first really serious scheme was to get a PBY, convert it to cargo use, and fly it to the western Yucatan, landing in the ocean near the fishing fleet. We would haul supplies for the fleet down from Florida and haul fresh red snapper back. A common theme throughout all those years and ideas was Pay for the round trip with the cargo southbound, then all the northbound cargo is pure profit.

Before we could buy the airplane, we had to find the money. The local airport bums didn’t have any, of course. The only pilots with money were airline captains; everyone knew that.

My Airport-Bum Heroes

The primary character in this story must be Bill Woods whom I have not seen or heard from in forty years. He just showed up around SRQ and somehow began flying oddball charter flights, picking up a buck here and there and, in general, just hanging around. He took me along a few times in the deHavilland Dove, and I learned a lot on several charters to Cuba (pre-Castro) and Grand Cayman as well as points north such as Harrisburg (in the winter). I remember distinctly the first time he let me make a full formal position report at some point between Key West and Cozumel, talking to Boyeros Radio, the primary ATC contact in Havana on HF. GMT time was still something of a mystery to me, and position reports were really complex for a neophyte. I went to great trouble to note the time we guessed we were over some fix, something like 2347 Zulu, and the time to the next fix, which was well over an hour down the line. Bravely, I picked up the big gooseneck mike, and trying to imitate Bill’s deep radio voice, said, Boyeros, deHavilland 73795, over (whatever) at two three four seven, eight thousand, IFR, (whatever) at two five zero two, (whatever) next. I was really proud of myself.

Bill had his hands full, for we were in heavy weather, no autopilot, lots of rain and turbulence, and like most old airplanes, we were getting really wet inside from leaks. (To this day, I believe the primary advantage of pressurization is that all the leaks are out.)

I made the report on a junky old HF radio, and there were lots of thunderstorms around (in fact, we were probably in one), so it was no surprise when Boyeros came back in heavily accented English mixed with a lot of static with Say again time over next position?

Checking my scrawled notes, I repeated, Estimating (whatever) at two five zero two.

There was a long pause, and I figured he’d gotten it. But then he came back, and said, deHavilland 73795, confirm your estimate is two FIVE zero two?"

That’s affirmative, Boyeros, two five zero two.

Bill had been swearing steadily at the rough weather, but now he broke into a torrent of abuse, this time directed at me. There's no such thing as a time of TWO FIVE ZERO TWO, you stupid shit. While I practiced my blank stare, he grabbed the mike and corrected the report, much to Boyeros’ relief.

I’m not sure why Bill let me hang around him after that. Perhaps it was for the entertainment value.

In the early days of the operation, Dick Prim (USN Retired) was another local character. Oddly enough for an airport bum, he also actually had a real flying job with Tropicana, first with a Bonanza, then a Travelair. He also had an instructor’s rating (they were ratings in those days), and he was the instructor who put me through my instrument training The Navy Way, consisting primarily of shooting LF Range approaches to the Tampa airport and basic maneuvering on primary instruments because that’s all the little Tri-Pacer had. He insisted that all takeoffs and touchdowns were zero-zero. The windows were covered with amber Plexiglas (he could see out) and I wore blue Plexiglas goggles that allowed me to see the instruments in blue, but all of the outside view was totally blocked by the combination of blue and amber. That excellent training would save six lives in an iced-up Twin Bonanza years later, but that’s another story.

Bill and Dick scoured the area for investors to help launch the new airline. The pitch was to put up some small amount of money, say $2,000 each, and become a stockholder in this airline. The real attractant was that all stockholders would get to ride along to the hot spots of the Caribbean any time they wanted—free. There were a lot of hustlers in Florida in those days, and in short order, we had something like ten investors, referred to behind their backs as pigeons.

A PBY was finally located, a deposit made, and plans were made to go get it. Then somehow, the PBY was sold to a buyer in the Philippines. There was talk of me going along as the copilot on the flight out there, but somehow that never happened. I was crushed.

Now, understand, no one but I knew I was a part of this new airline, and of course, I had no idea that others didn’t know that. After all, how could this thing ever do without me? I was right there! I was seventeen.

Part of the problem was legal. The rules of the day were much simpler then, but genuine, legal cargo aircraft had to be operated under a certificate, and getting those certificates was expensive. Bill figured out early on that the only way we could work it was to buy some airplane with a Limited certificate, and the only way we could operate legally (well, sort of semi-legally) was to actually buy the cargo, transport it on our own airplane, then sell it at the other end.

Caribbean Air Transport

Military surplus North American B-25s were still pretty common, and there were a fair number of them available. Most of them would sell for about $10,000 in flyable condition, so the attention turned to that type. In 1958, we bought N9868C which my logbook shows as a TB-25N. We spent months converting it from a medium bomber to a cargo aircraft by stripping out everything not necessary for flight. The top of the bomb bay was removed (we later discovered that this is a structural item) and a heavy floor was built in the bottom of the bomb bay. I did so much of the work on it that I suppose they felt they couldn’t leave me behind on the first flights, so I got to go. I was seventeen. How could they do this without me?

On January 27, 1959, Bill Woods test-hopped it and checked himself out. I got about twenty minutes of stick time. There were a number of test flights after that, a flight down to Venice for the installation of an old ART-13B HF radio, and I got to go on all those, picking up a little time here and there and getting my first landings. I had 471 total hours when I got my first landing in the B-25.

I didn’t get to go along for Bill’s type rating ride, and I remember being livid over that. What a pest I must have been! But I worked on that airplane; man, how I worked! No job was too dirty, and I’d often be