In the late 50s, early 60s, I worked for the Federal Aviation Agency, located at Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City. I was also going to school at the time. The FAA facility in Oklahoma City was best known for its school (later known as the “Academy”) that trained Air Traffic Controllers and engineers and technicians that built and maintained the nations air routes. Also located on the same site, next to the training facilities, was a huge warehouse that stocked all the parts for FAA’s navigation and communications equipment. In addition, it housed spare parts for the Agency’s fleet of aircraft. The aircraft were used to check, and ensure the accuracy of, electronic navigation sites all over the United States.
I worked at the school and because of my own schedule of college courses, I often worked non-conventional hours. One day I arrived at work about mid-afternoon. It happened to be one of those times that the FAA school was between courses and there wasn’t too much to do except update some of the material and prepare lesson plans, etc. When I arrived that afternoon I stopped by the warehouse to pick up some parts for some of the schools training equipment. One of the pilots that I knew was there and asked if I’d like to take a trip. I asked him how long a trip because I had a class before noon the next day. He said, “Oh, no problem, we’ll be back in plenty of time.” I asked him where we were going…he said, “Montana.”
It turns out that one of the aircraft had cracked a windshield while on a calibration flight and was stranded in Billings, Montana. So we loaded a new windshield and an aircraft maintenance man into a 707 jet — at the time it was the only big jet in the FAA fleet. And off we went to Montana. We unloaded the windshield and the maintenance tech stayed to replace the windshield and returned on the repaired aircraft.
We were back in Oklahoma City fairly early the next morning. I got to be co-pilot both going and coming. It turns out that I was to be “co-pilot” on a lot of airplanes over the next couple of decades… but that’s the subject for another blog.
I arrived in plenty of time for my class, and one of the guys I usually sat by, asked me what I did last night. I replied (truthfully) “went to Montana.”
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