My cousin: High school drop out. Stole his first plane. Hired on at PAA. Flew as co-pilot on the Clippers out of San Francisco to Hawaii, far east. As captain flew the Hump in WWII in C-46's and also Brazil-west Africa in the DC-4 (as Pan Am military contract), post war captain on DC6&7, Stratoliner, DC-8, 707 and 747. Retired off the 747 in 1974 (close to if not #1 seniority) He stopped flying about 4 years ago selling his Cessna 150. He's 99 and still drives and has his mind together. I remember him at our house in late 1969 telling us that he was getting a 30k a year raise from the 707 to the 747, my father's jaw just about dropped. We were a family of 5 doing rather well on about 30k a year.

This might be hard to see:

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...OPx6GMDSTyE4l4

Help wanted ad for United Pilot, 1964.

Don't know what the requirements were, but obviously the vision test was tough.

Well, a -100, anyway...

Amen !!! !

i think I caught the round engine swan song in the lower '48, DC3s 87-97, CV340 97-99, then the 727 00-08(pax),finally glass in the CitationXL/XLS at NJA 08-10,after furlough the Dc9 briefly(pax/cargo), then the Classic 747 till this year,now the 400, interesting career so far,God bless it. my inner freight dog is satisfied.

lucky bastard!

I was too late for Pan Am but I did get to fly one of their former Clipper 747s !!!

Boeing quit building airplanes after the discontinuance of the B727-100.:mad:

Well thank your lucky stars they invented Airbuses just in the nick of time for you. ;)