The Pan Am Story

Screaming_Emu said:
...I don't want to play anymore

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Our recently retired EMB-120 chief instructor was at Eastern. I'd have to dig out the post, but I seem to remember he flew a good number of their various types there before the music stopped and he came to SkyWest. Before that he was USAF...

So, yup.
 
Question, if you made it to your next "gig" or made it pretty high up where you are at now and something happened, would you/could you go back and start over at a regional on year one f/o pay? Or would you just say "• it!" and start a new career?
 
skyw82 said:
Question, if you made it to your next "gig" or made it pretty high up where you are at now and something happened, would you/could you go back and start over at a regional on year one f/o pay? Or would you just say " it!" and start a new career?
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I'm actually asking myself that question pretty intensely right now. No where near ready to start another career; just feeling the "used car salesman" pain that can come along with a Part 91 gig. Things can and do change unexpectedly and in a hurry... At least with a regional you know the suck up front.
 
Derg said:
I have the luxury of working with people that were part of the Pan Am acquisition on both sides of the cockpit door.

Some of the stories, hoooo boy.
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"Hard Landings" is definitely worth the read, but, IMHO, the author was way too much of a fanboi for SWA. Got seriously old.

"Flying Colors" is not a bad read if you want the original bad story, the life and demise of Braniff.

"Flying the Line" 1 and 2 aren't bad from a historical perspective. The early part of the industry blew chunks hard. Without an independent safety board, the pilots basically got blamed for everything ("Well, looks like the pilots f*#$ ed up...where's the bar?").

I love just about everything Len Morgan wrote on the airline biz, but he glossed over a LOT of the bad stuff.

Richman
 
I haven't read any of those but I should one of these days!

Are people still fanboi's of SWA? I thought they were amongst the rest of us now.
 
Derg said:
I have the luxury of working with people that were part of the Pan Am acquisition on both sides of the cockpit door.

Some of the stories, hoooo boy.
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My mother worked for Pan Am 1967-1972 and have great memories of my parents throwing these huge parties at our house for all these Pan Am folks. A time when I thought airline pilots were like the second coming of Christ. Man, times of changed since those innocent days..
 
Derg said:
I haven't read any of those but I should one of these days!

Are people still fanboi's of SWA? I thought they were amongst the rest of us now.
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The book was written back when they were teh new hotness.

Had the author kept to the information, I may have upgraded my review from "eh?" to "OK" on the Richman Scale of Total Awesomeness.

Richman
 
I read "Skygods" in the summer of 2001, just after I went over to AA. Life was awesome. I'd finally made it to "the show". Training dept putting through new hire classes of 50 a week... I finished "Skygods" and thought to myself, "Wow, if that can happen to them, I wonder what name I'll be working under 20 years from now? I wonder if AA will exist, and what it'll be like."

A few weeks later my questions were answered.

Those Pan Am guys thought they'd be flying the Pan Am Intergalactic Moon Shuttle routes when they retired. On Sept 10th, 2001 I thought I had the Golden Goose by the tail with 1000 people junior to me. You do not know what the future is in this industry.
 
Autothrust Blue said:
Our recently retired EMB-120 chief instructor was at Eastern. I'd have to dig out the post, but I seem to remember he flew a good number of their various types there before the music stopped and he came to SkyWest. Before that he was USAF...

So, yup.
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He gave me my checkride in the emb Twin Falls in 2006. I don't know why, but I'll always remember 2 things from that night, actually 3. The first being the one guy who nearly killed us on his checkride(he failed). The ride back where the cops thought we were the bad guys because there was 5 dudes packed in a car at 4am driving thru town. And 3, I can't talk about :)
 
Retired in SAN said:
My mother worked for Pan Am 1967-1972 and have great memories of my parents throwing these huge parties at our house for all these Pan Am folks. A time when I thought airline pilots were like the second coming of Christ. Man, times of changed since those innocent days..
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They weren't innocent, we were just to young to know what was going on :)
 
mrivc211 said:
They weren't innocent, we were just to young to know what was going on :)
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We were. But correct, no they were not innocent at all. Found out what was really going on after my parents divorced. A true screw-fest was had by all... Fortunately, they brought me all types of flight manuals before the ceremonies commenced.. Have a miniature museum in my house.
 
Richman said:
Eh. This future has it's upsides. Think of all the idiots that would be driving flying cars right now.

Richman
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True that.

I don't know. In my lifetime we stopped flying passengers at Mach 2.0+ and got rid of our manned spaceflight program (well, okay, the ISS is doing ISS things, but you get the idea). I'm kinda disappointed.
 
Autothrust Blue said:
True that.

I don't know. In my lifetime we stopped flying passengers at Mach 2.0+ and got rid of our manned spaceflight program (well, okay, the ISS is doing ISS things, but you get the idea). I'm kinda disappointed.
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Ya still got the zombie apocolypse to look forward to.
 
Retired in SAN said:
We were. But correct, no they were not innocent at all. Found out what was really going on after my parents divorced. A true screw-fest was had by all... Fortunately, they brought me all types of flight manuals before the ceremonies commenced.. Have a miniature museum in my house.
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I hear ya. Back when the USSR was invading Afghanistan in the late 70's, my grandfather decided it was time to high tail it to the states(we had a home here). He gave my biological father close to a million dollars to take care of my mom and me forever. My bio dad decided to send us to the states, move to Germany, and start a new family with the money. I knew about this from an early age, but I didn't know details until bits and pieces would slip from family members who kept things from me. I will say this, I see a BIG difference in the outcome of kids lives when their parents were more protective and decided to keep it from them vs throwing everything out in the open.
 
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