TWA hired alternating classes of S/O's and F/O's , however they upgraded in seniority. Unfortunately some guys bit the olive on their IOE [100 hrs.] due to lack of recent experience. They used to hide from the LCA's in Delta Ops. Made you glad you worked for DAL.

 

Rhino, Sid and Joey, thanks. Since it seems like some are interested I'll give the story of how she ended up with TWA, as well as the story of her brother (who's flag sits on the desk beside my computer).

She and her brother were left as orphans outside of Dayton Ohio after their father committed suicide following the loss of the family fortune in the stock market crash of 1929. Far from feeling sorry for themselves, both say they learned how to get along with people and work with folks as a result of being in the "home." Back then Wright Army Air Field was the epicenter of aviation and both she and her brother spent their time in the playground watching airplanes fly overhead, dreaming they would be in them someday.

"Lindy" as I know her, adopted Charles Lindbergh as her namesake. Her brother, George, was in his second year of college under an Air Corps sponsorship when WWII broke out. He left school, telling his advisors he would rather be over there making history than over here studying it. Along the way he saved an instructor from a burning Vultee and went on to assignments in the P-40 and P-47, as well as high speed flight test work in the P-38 and P-51.

Lindy went on to fly for TWA where she worked for Hughes. George finished his internship working for Kelly Johnson and Jim McDonnell then went into flight test working with pilots like Bob Hoover and Chuck Yeager. After a couple of P-38 incidents George's early job was cockpit standardization across the Air Force (putting that famous dive flap switch in one location - prior to standardization every Colonel could equip his airplanes to his preference ... standardization brought us the "6Pack" we use today) Then his fate took a bizarre turn.

One spring day he took a nap, to awake to severe leg pain and a high fever. He had contracted a version of Polio. For the next several months the Air Force tried to keep him on flight status, even coming up with some tests of his abilities that seem impossible today. Once he was assigned an airplane with bad brakes and the test was simply not crashing it, which he passed. However, his flying days were over.

The way he tells the story, he had no time to feel sorry for himself. His Commanding Officer assigned him back to Wright Patterson to work on advance projects for the Air Force. He managed the construction of the X-15 and worked in program management on versions of the P-80, XF103, F105 and F-104. These were the first airplanes to be standardized under a "weapons system" approach. But, his real contribution was his work setting up Air Force Space Command.

Gemini went into space on Air Force Missiles. Project Blue Gemini was the Air Force side of the program. There are memos between him, General Schriever and Robert McNamara on whether there should be a NASA, or if space was to be an Air Force project. His work focused on creating the first communications satellites, relay systems and GPS. Much of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory was later incorporated into Skylab and some ideas made it into the Space Shuttle.

Gemini developed the technology we needed to get to the moon. Long duration missions, docking and the first guidance computers. There were thousands of engineers, most relatively nameless outside of their circles who came together to put a US Citizen on the Moon.

George's active role finished when McDonnell's work on Apollo wound down. He retired as the Chief of Advanced Systems design.

Both of those folks overcame long odds as orphans, and a cripple in George's case, to bear witness to what was probably the best time to be alive as an aviation nut.

George was not the nostalgic sort and frankly could care less about what happened yesterday, not to mention 40 years earlier. Most of those guys in flight test seem to be cut from that cloth. They were explorers, not historians.

 

Original 767's with F/E panels designed for old United Airlines. They made it to Ansett Airlines of Australia. Talk about a bare overhead panel.

Ansett AN22 Flight Deck 14 June 1987 - YouTube

scroll through the movie to catch the overhead panel and F/E's panel

 

Great thread--remembering as a kid my first flight on an old Frontier Convair in the early 70s. Got a donut and my own can of sprite as we bounced across UT, WY, and CO to finally end up in Denver.

 

That's still the way it is, unless it changed in this new contract. Not that it's been invoked at all in the last decade of stagnation.

 

This guy?

 

Not sure anyone really gives a d%#^, but I was hired TWA in '98 - and told upgrade in 5 years! We were given a little briefing (Don't ***** or complain about the FE seat because some guys were sideways for 15 years.)

I just crack up when I hear pilots today (at Allegiant) moan about reserve as 5 yr. Captain. Good God - grow a pair.

 

I had met a few of our TWA Capts that had to wait a year before they could checkout as Capt because they were old enough to get their ATR (ATP) license.

 

Bucking Bar:

Great story and history regarding these two people!

I appreciate the time taken to share this very interesting background information.

Since I was a major guru back in the day of the X-15 program (one also aimed during that time to fly in century series aircraft like the F-104, F-105, and even further into the MOL program and Gemini), it is great to know your friend was so involved with these aircraft and programs.

Two very special folks that thrived and lived during a very fascinating era of aviation.

 

He had a very strange career progression. He goes from TWA mechanic to Vice President of Operations for Columbia Airlines, 5 years later. Then 2 years later, he's a consultant for the world's richest art collector. 2 years after that, he's a Captain on Concorde. Wow.