Mr “LEAR-JET”, Bill Lear:
Date: 9/30/2014 11:55:53 AM
To:
Bcc: marksztanyo
Subject: John Lear --- on John Lear (great resume)
Talking about a bold pilot …
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Lear (son of
Bill) gave this talk on July 9th, 2004 to a group of fellow pilots
in Las Vegas called, the "Hangar of
Quiet Birdmen". Each month one pilot in the group gives a 15 minute
talk on his career.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Lear on
John Lear:
One of
the anguishes of advancing age is losing old friends. The upside of
that, though, is that I get to tell the story my way.
I learned to fly at Clover
Field in Santa Monica when I was 14. However before I got to get
in an actual airplane Dad made me take 40 hours of Link
with Charlie Gress. I can’t remember what I did yesterday
but I guarantee you I could still shoot a 90 degree, Fade-out or Parallel radio
range orientation.
When I turned 16 I had
endorsements on my student license for an Aero Commander 680E
and Cessna 310.
I got my private at 17 and
instrument rating shortly thereafter.
The Lockheed 18 Lodestar was my first type rating at age
18. I went to work for my father and brother flying copilot on a twin
beech out of Geneva Switzerland after I got out of high school.
Dad was over there trying to peddle radios to the European airlines.
However just after I turned 18
and got my Commercial I was showing off my aerobatic talents in a
Bucker Jungmann to my friends at a Swiss boarding school I
had attended. I managed to start a 3 turn spin from too low an altitude and
crashed. I shattered both heels and ankles and broke both legs in 3 places. I
crushed my neck, broke both sides of my jaw and lost all of my front teeth. I
managed to get gangrene in one of the open wounds in my ankles and was shipped
from Switzerland to the Lovelace Clinic
in Albuquerque where Randy Lovelace made me well.
When I could walk again I
worked selling pots and pans door to door in Santa Monica . In
late 1962 Dad had moved from Switzerland to Wichita to
build the Lear Jet and I went to Wichita to be work in
Public relations until November of 1963 about 2 months after the first flight
when I moved to Miami and took over editing an aviation newspaper
called Aero News.
I moved the newspaper to
El Segundo in California and ran it until it failed. I then got a job
flight instructing at Progressive Air Service in Hawthorne ,
California . From there I went to Norman Larson Beech in
Van Nuys flight instructing in Aircoupes.
In the spring of 1965 I was
invited by my Dad back to Wichita to get type rated in the model
23 Learjet. I then went to work for the executive aircraft division of
Flying Tigers in Burbank who had secured a dealership for
the Lear.
In November of 1965 my
boss Paul Kelly crashed number 63 into the mountains at Palm
Springs killing everybody on board including Bob Prescott ’s 13
years old son and 4 of the major investors in Tigers. I took over his job as
President of Airjet charters a wholly owned subsidiary of FTL and
flew charters and sold Lears. Or rather tried to sell them. It turns out
that I never managed to sell one Learjet in my entire life.
In March of 1966
2 Lear factory pilots Hank Beaird, Rick King and myself set
17 world speed records including speed around the round the world, 65 hours and
38 minutes in the first Lear Jet 24. Shortly after that flight I got
canned from Tigers and moved to Vegas and started the first 3rd level
airline in Nevada , Ambassador Airlines. We
operated
an Aero Commander and Cherokee 6 on 5 stops
from Las Vegas to LAX. This was about the
time Hughes moved to Las Vegas and I was doing some
consulting work for Bob and Peter Maheu.
The money man behind Ambassador
was Jack Cleveland who I introduced to John Myers in
the Hughes organization. Cleveland and Myers tried
to peddle the 135 certificate to Hughes without success and
Jack ended up selling Howard those phony gold mining claims
you all may remember. I went back to Van Nuys and was
flying Lear charter part time for Al Paulson and
Clay Lacy at California Airmotive,
the Learjet distributor.
That summer I started a
business called Aerospace Flight Research in Van Nuys were I rented
aircraft to Teledyne to flight test their Inertial Guidance
Systems. We had a B-26, Super Pinto and Twin Beech. I think we lasted
about 4 months.
I then went to work for World
Aviation Services in Ft. Lauderdale ferrying
the Cessna O2 FAC airplane from Wichita , fresh
off the assembly line
to Nha Trang in Viet Nam with fellow QB
Bill Werstlein. We were under the 4440th ADG Langley VA. and
hooked up with a lot of other military pilots ferrying all manner and types of
aircraft.
Our route
was Wichita to Hamilton , Hickam, Midway, Wake, Guam, Clark and
then in country. The longest leg was Hamilton to Hickam an
average of 16 hours, no autopilot, no copilot, and one ADF. We also had
3 piddle packs. Arriving in Nha Trang we would hitch a
ride to Saigon and spend 3 days under technical house arrest, each
trip, pay a fine for entering the country illegally, that is being civilians
and not coming through a port of entry, catch an airline up
to Hong Kong for a little R & R and straight back
to Wichita for another airplane. I flew this contract for 4
years.
During some off time in 1968 I
attempted to ferry a Cessna 320 from Oakland to Australia
with the first stop in Honolulu . About 2 hours out
from Oakland I lost the right engine and had no provisions for
dumping fuel. I went down into ground effect (T effect for you purists)
and for 3 hours and 21 minutes flew on one engine about 25
feet above the waves and made
it into Hamilton AFB after flying under the Golden Gate
and Richmond bridges. An old friend Nick Conte, was officer of
the day and gave me the royal treatment. Why did I go
into Hamilton instead of Oakland ? I knew exactly where the
O club was for some much needed refreshment.
In September of 1968 between
0-2 deliveries I raced a Douglas B-26 Invader in the Reno Air Races.
It was the largest airplane ever raced at Reno , and I placed 5th in
the Bronze passing one Mustang. It was reported to me after the race by
XB-70 project pilot Col. Ted Sturmthal that when I passed
the P-51, 3 fighter pilots from Nellis committed suicide off the back
of the grandstands. In the summer of 1970 I
helped Darryl Greenamyer and Adam Robbins put on
the California 1000 air race in Mojave California . That’s the
one where Clay Lacy raced the DC-7.
I flew a B-26
with Wally McDonald. I then started flying charter in
an Aero Commander and Beech Queen Air for Aero Council a
charter service out of Burbank . They went belly up about 3 months
later and I went up to Reno to work for my Dad as safety pilot on
his Lear model 25. After my Dad fired me I was personally escorted to
the Nevada/California
border by
an ex- Los Angeles police detective who worked for Dad and
did the muscle work.
I went back down to
Van Nuys and was Chief Pilot for Lacy Aviation and was one
of the first pilot proficiency examiners for the Lear Jet. In the
summer of 1973 I moved to Phnom Penh , Cambodia as
Chief Pilot and
Director of Operations
for Tri Nine Airlines which flew routes
throughout Cambodia for Khmer Akas Air.
I flew a Convair 440
an average of 130 hours a month. We had unlimited quantities of 115/145 fuel
and ADI and were able to use full CB-17 power (which was 62” for any of you
R-2800 aficionados). In November of 1973 I moved
to Vientianne, Laos and flew C-46’s and Twin Otters for
Continental Air Services Inc. delivering guns and ammo to Gen.
Vang Pao and his CIA
supported troops.
We got shot down one day and
when I say we, Dave Kouba was the captain. We were flying a twin
otter and got the right engine shot out. Actually the small arms fire had hit
the fuel line in the right strut and fuel was streaming out back around the
tail and being sucked into the large cargo opening in the side of
the airplane and filling the cockpit with a fine mist of
jet fuel.
I held the mike in
my hands, “Should I call Cricket and possibly blow us up or...?" (Some of
you may remember "Cricket"... “This is Cricket on guard with an air
strike warning to all aircraft".)
But Davy found us a
friendly dirt strip and we were back in the air the next day. When the war came
to an end in 1973 I moved back to Van Nuys and started
flying Lears for Lacy again until October when I went up
to Seattle and sat in on a Boeing 707 ground school for Air
Club International on spec.
3 weeks later I ended up in
the left seat of the 707 with a total of 8 hours in type. Air
Club begat Aero America and we flew junkets out
of Vegas for
the Tropicana and Thunderbird Hotels. I
left Aero having not been fired and in the summer of 1975 I was
Director of Ops for Ambassador Airlines 2 flying
707 junkets also out of Vegas. After that
airline collapsed I moved
to Beirut, Lebanon in September of 1975 and flew 707’s for
2 years for Trans Mediterranean Airways
a Lebanese cargo carrier.
It was a very interesting job
in that they had 65 stations around the world and you would
leave Beirut with a copilot that had maybe 200 hours
in airplanes and fortunately a first rate plumber and
off you’d go around the world. My favorite run
was Dubai to Kabul, Afghanistan with a stop
in Kandahar. Kabul is a one way strip, land uphill and take
off downhill, it was 6000 foot elevation with no navaids.
During those 2 years I made
many round the world trips and many over the pole trips. In 1977 I moved back
to Vegas and was Director of Operations for Nevada Airlines
flying DC-3’s and Twin Beech's to the Canyon. In September of 77
I was called to Budapest for another CIA operation flying
707's loaded with arms and ammo to Mogadishu .
Leaving Budapest then refueling in Jeddah we
flew radio silence down the Red Sea trying to avoid the MiGs based
in Aden, whose sole purpose on earth was to force us down. The briefing
was simple. If you guys get into trouble DON'T CALL US. Back
to Vegas in December of that year I was hired as Chief Pilot for
Bonanza Airlines 2 operating DC-3's and a Gulfstream 1 from Vegas to
Aspen .
After that airline collapsed I
was hired by Hilton Hotels to fly their Lear 35A. In my
spare time I flew part time for Dynalectron and the EPA on an
underground nuke test monitoring program. I flew their B-26,
OV-10, Volpar Beech and Huey helicopter. I also flew
the Tri Motor Ford part time for Scenic Airlines. In 1978 my Dad
passed away and
left me with one dollar, which
incidentally, I never got.
In 1980 I ran for
the Nevada State Senate district 4. I lost miserably only because I
was uninformed, unprepared and both of my size 9 triple E's were
continually in my mouth.
I got fired
from Hilton shortly after that and moved
to Cairo, Egypt to fly for Air Trans another
CIA cutout. After the Camp David accords were signed in 1979
each country, Egypt and Israel were required to operate 4 flights a
week into the other's country. Of course,
El Al pilots didn’t mind flying into Cairo but
you could not find an Egyptian pilot that would fly
into Tel Aviv. So an Egyptian airline was formed
called Nefertiti Airlines with me as chief pilot to fly the
4 flights a week
into Tel Aviv. On our off time we
flew subcontract for EgyptAir throughout Europe and Africa
.
All this, of course was just a
cover for our real missions which was all kinds of nefarious gun
running throughout Europe and Africa which we did in our spare time.
And now that our beloved 40th
president has passed on I can tell you that in fact (with my apologies
to Michael Reagan) the October Surprise was true. The October
surprise for those of you that don’t remember happened during October
of 1980 when Reagan and Bush were running against Carter
and Mondale. George Bush was flown in a BAC 111 one
Saturday night to Paris to meet with
the Ayatollah Khomeini. Bush offered the Khomeini a deal
whereby if he would delay the release of the hostages held
in Tehran until Reagan’s inauguration, the administration
would supply unlimited guns and ammunition to the Iranians. In order
to get Bush back for a Sunday morning brunch so that nobody would be alerted to
his absence he was flown back in an SR-71 from Reims field
near Paris to McGuire AFB.
Of
course Reagan won, the hostages were released and one of my jobs
in Cairo was to deliver those arms
from Tel Aviv to Tehran.
Unfortunately, the
first airplane in, an Argentinean CL-44 was shot down by
the Russians just south of Yerevan and Mossad who was
running the operation didn't want to risk sending my 707. The arms where
eventually delivered through Dubai , across
the Persian Gulf and directly into Tehran .
During the 2 years I was
in Cairo I averaged 180 hours a month with a top month of 236 hours
in a 31 day period. I spent a 6 week tour in Khartoum flying cows
to Saana, North Yemen in an old Rolls Royce powered
707.
Back
in Las Vegas in December of 1982 I sat on my ass until I was out
of money, again, and then went to work for Global Int’l Airlines
in Kansas City, another CIA cutout run
by Farhad Azima, an Iranian with a bonafide Gold
Plated Get Out of Jail Free card flying 707’s until they collapsed in
October of 83. During the summer of 1983 the FAA
celebrated its 25th
Anniversary at
the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City
. There was much fanfare and speech making and
2 honored guests. Bill Conrad from Miami ,
Florida who had the most type ratings, I think over 50. And myself. I had the
most airman certificates issued of any other airman.
After Global’s collapse I
went to work for American Trans Air flying 707's. I wrote their
international navigation manual as MNPS for North Atlantic operations was just
being implemented and became the first FAA designated check airman for MNPS
navigation. ATA then added 727’s and then Lockheed L-1011's. For
a very brief time I was qualified as captain in all three.
After getting fired from ATA
in July of 1989 I became a freight dog flying
DC-8’s for Rosenbalm Aviation which became Flagship Express and
after that airline collapsed I was hired as Chief pilot for Patriot Airlines
out of Stead Field in Reno , flying cargo 727’s from Miami to
South America . After getting fired from Patriot I went to work
for Connie Kalitta flying DC-8s then the L-1011 on which I was a
check airman. Kalitta sold out to Kitty Hawk International which went
bankrupt in May of 2000.
I was 57 at the time and
nobody is going to hire an old —— for two and a half years except to fly
sideways so I turned in my stripes andever present flask
of Courvoisier. Except for one last fling in March of 2001 where I flew
the Hadj for a Cambodian Airline flying L-1011’s under
contract to Air India . We were based in New Delhi and flew
to Jeddah from all throughout India . There was absolutely no
paperwork, no FAA, no BS and for 6 weeks we just moved Hadji’s back and
forth to Saudi Arabia .
One final note, in October of
1999 I had the honor and extreme pleasure to get checked out in a Lockheed CF-104D Starfighter.
My instructor was Darryl Greenamyer, the airplane was owned
by Mark and Gretchen Sherman of Phoenix . It was the
highlight of my aviation career particularly because I survived my first and
only SFO in a high
performance fighter.
One other thing, some how I
managed to get the following type ratings:
707/720/727, Convair 240/340/440,
DC-3, DC -8,
B-26, Gulfstream 1, Lockheed Constellation, Lear Jet
series,
HS-125, Lockheed L-1011, Lockheed L-18, Lockheed P-38, Martin 202/404,
B-17, B-25, Grumman TBM and Ford Trimotor. I also have single
and multi engine
sea, rotorcraft helicopter and gyroplane, and lighter than
air free balloon. I never got all categories having missed the Airship. And in
case you are interested, many, many airmen have lots more type ratings.
What I did get, that no other
airman got was the most FAA certificates:
These are the ATP, Flight
Instructor with airplane single and multi engine,
instrument, rotorcraft helicopter and gyroplane and
glider. Flight Navigator, Flight Engineer, Senior Parachute Rigger,
Control Tower Operator, A&P, Ground Instructor, Advanced and Instrument and
Aircraft Dispatcher.
I have 19,488 hours of total
time of which 15,325 hours is in 1,2,3 or 4 engine jet.
I took a total of 181 FAA (or
designated check airman) check rides and failed 2.
Of the thousands of times I
knowingly violated an FAA regulation I was only caught once but never charged
or prosecuted.
The farthest I have ever been
off course was 321 miles left over the South China Sea in a 707 on
New Year’s day 1977 on a flight from Taipei . The deviation was
not caught by Hong Kong, Manila or Singapore radar and I penetrated
six zero to unlimited restricted areas west of the Philippines. I landed
in Singapore 7 minutes late without further incident.
How, you ask, did I get so far
off course? The short answer is I was napping at the controls. I have
flown just about everywhere
except Russia , China , Mongolia , Korea ,
Antarctica, Australia or New Zealand. I am a senior vice-commander of the
American Legion Post No.1 Shanghai, China (Generals
Ward, Chennault and Helseth) (operating
in exile) and a 21 year member
of the Special Operations Association.
Now some of you may be asking
why so many airlines collapsed that I worked for and why I got fired so many
times. My excuse is simple. I am not the brightest crayon in the box,
I am extremely lazy, I have a smart mouth and a real poor f**king attitude.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Full post disclaimer in left column. PCN Home Page is located at: http://pcn.homestead.com/home01.html
No comments:
Post a Comment