Sojourners of the Sky (2 page)

Pan Am DC6

Courtesy of the John Wegg Collection

New York to London

DC6B Cockpit

Courtesy of the John Wegg Collection

Pan Am DC6

Courtesy of the John Wegg Collection

Pan Am DC6

Courtesy of the John Wegg Collection

Two

Back to the Beginning

Pan American Airways, Idlewild Airport, New York

March, 1958

D
arkness was not far off. It was an hour before departure time and John Tacker stood beside engine number three conducting the preflight inspection. The wind was howling and there was a very light freezing drizzle in the air. John was shivering but told himself not to hurry. There were plenty of things that still needed to be checked, and he would not allow himself to miss something simply because he was uncomfortable.

As miserable as the weather conditions were, John Tacker was smiling. After a tough couple of years, John managed to get hired with Pan American Airways as a copilot on the DC6. It was his dream job, one that nearly every pilot with a commercial license would kill for. He’d been with the company for nearly twelve months. All he had to do was keep his nose clean for the rest of the month and his probation period would be over. Things had gone well, and soon John would be set for life. John loved everything about Pan Am and the DC6.

For longer than he cared to remember luck had eluded him. It was as if some external force had been slowly nudging him toward the edge of despair, but not anymore. He couldn’t be more pleased; good fortune had once again returned to his life. He’d finally landed a job with the best airline on the planet, and that alone was enough to solidify in his mind that he was one of the luckiest S.O.B.s on Earth. John Tacker was somebody again.

The training was intense, consisting of two months of ground school to learn virtually everything there was to know about the Douglas DC6. Their ground instructor had spent an entire day talking about the carburetor alone, followed by an entire week on the engines. Getting through it was the toughest thing John had ever done. To make it, he’d spent hundreds of hours poring over the books. He and his classmates often joked about the necessity to carry their study material with them to the bathroom.

The DC6, manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Corporation, was equipped with four Pratt & Whitney Wasp engines. Each radial engine had eighteen cylinders and fully reversible Hamilton Standard propellers. At a little over one hundred and six feet in length, and with a tail that stood twenty-eight feet in the air, the preflight inspection would take John quite a while to accomplish.

When his duties outside the aircraft were complete, John stood for a moment in the light rain to gaze upon the side of the airplane. He wasn’t looking for an anomaly; he was staring at the christened name painted on the nose of the airplane: Clipper Seven Seas. Seeing the name put a broad smile on his face and subconsciously caused him to inhale deeply. John was proud of himself. It was a good feeling. Pride running through his veins was something the young copilot could never get enough of.

Slightly wet and shivering, John rubbed his hands together as he climbed the airstairs placed against the forward entry door on the left side of the airplane. At a height of just over six feet, the brown-haired, one hundred and ninety pound copilot had to duck his head as he passed through the forward entryway. The warm air struck his face the moment he entered the cabin, helping to take the edge off the chill he felt. John brushed the water droplets from his finely tailored dark jacket, unconsciously willing his hand to apply a little less pressure as it passed over the three gold stripes on his sleeve. He would have removed his white cap, but to do so in the presence of passengers was not allowed.

John glanced toward the rear of the airplane and noticed all fifty-four coach seats were full. It also appeared as though every one of the sixteen first class seats, located in the rear of the aircraft, were also occupied. He could see his captain in the back of the airplane speaking with a couple of their “high-end” passengers and decided that it would be best to keep a low profile and proceed directly to the cockpit. As the copilot turned to his left he bumped into Kelly Brennen, their Purser for the flight. Kelly would be in charge of the cabin.

Without the company mandated heels, Kelly stood five-five and was quite meticulous about her curly red hair. Her light-colored, freckled skin had made her the target of ridicule as a young girl. But as an adult, Kelly figured out how to apply just the right amount of makeup to accentuate the good looks she’d been born with. Though the childhood teasing had indeed left her scarred, she learned to deal with her problems by building walls and taking control. She was only twenty-four years old, but secretly lived in fear that her domineering personality, a part of her that she seemed unable to quell, meant she would likely end up a spinster.

“Hi, Kelly. I didn’t get to meet the other two stewardesses this afternoon at the briefing. They aren’t running late are they?” asked John.

“Hi, Mr. Tacker, they’ll be along in a minute. Our supervisor had a couple of issues with their uniforms and fingernails,” replied Kelly, rolling her eyes. She had flown with John on one other occasion, and if the passengers were not within earshot she would have called him by his first name.

“I didn’t get a look at the crew list. Who else are we flying with?” queried John.

“Liesel Vantall and Sue Gruber,” said Kelly.

John perked up when he heard Liesel would be on board. He’d flown with her a few times and considered her to be one of the most beautiful women he’d ever met. Unfortunately, other than saying hello and goodbye, he’d never had the courage to speak with her. But in spite of the fact that his mouth refused to operate, his eyes could hardly look away whenever Liesel was in the vicinity.

“You’ve met the rest of the cockpit crew then?” asked John.

“Oh yes, I have,” she said. “Lars is new. I’ve never flown with him, but the others have been around a while.”

“Yeah, this is Lars’s first trip, but don’t be concerned. We also have G.R. to help keep an eye on things,” noted John.

“I know all about G.R., but thanks for the warning. I’ll be sure to tell the other stewardesses that he’ll be on the prowl,” said Kelly as she turned to walk back into the cabin.

With a smile and a wink, John turned toward the main office. Once in the cockpit he turned to squeeze past Ed Vito, their navigator for the flight, who was sitting at a small table on the right side of the cockpit. “Ed, me boy, how’s life in the big city?” asked John with a happy grin.

Speaking with a deep Italian accent that he couldn’t hide even if he wanted to, Ed replied, “Everything is-ah pretty good, John. Thank you so much for asking.”

The Vito family moved to the lower east side of Manhattan when Ed was just a boy. They opened an Italian restaurant that became the talk of the city after only six months in business. Of course, there were the occasional whispers that the mob was involved. Certainly the Vito family seemed to have plenty of money, more than any single restaurant could generate.

Even Ed didn’t seem to need the money he earned at Pan Am. With dark hair and dark eyes, Ed was thirty, slim and single. And regardless of where he was going, he always dressed to the nines, unless of course he was required to be in uniform. He wore his hair slicked back and seemed to know everyone with an Italian last name.

One personal quirk of Ed’s was that he never left the house with less than a couple of grand in his pocket. This at a time when that amount of money would be more than enough to make a sizeable down payment on a two bedroom house in an upscale neighborhood. When asked about it, Ed would reply, “Hey, you never know when you’re gonna see something you want to buy.” And as if words weren’t enough, Ed would often use his hands to accentuate what he was trying to say.

“Hello, G.R.,” said John, as he slipped past the flight engineer who was sitting at a very small panel a few feet forward of Ed Vito’s station.

“Hello, John,” replied G.R., without bothering to look up from his work.

“G.R., the stews are on to you, so you might want to check the passenger list for any single women you can harass. And I’d appreciate it if you would give Liesel a wide berth. I’m very much hoping to get to know her better,” said John.

Gary Grey, or, G.R., was the senior flight engineer on board. Though not a pilot, and with no interest whatsoever in becoming one, there was literally nothing he didn’t know about the DC6.

All Pan Am pilots considered a good flight engineer to be worth his weight in gold. Indeed, Pan Am flight engineers earned the equivalent of eighty-five percent of captain pay--a fact that irritated copilots to no end.

G.R.’s job would be to manage, and repair if necessary, all of the aircraft systems. It was a demanding job, which was why Pan Am scheduled two flight engineers for their lengthy all-nighter across the Atlantic Ocean to London Heathrow.

“You can have Liesel, John. I’m not interested. Those German girls are great looking, but they end up getting fat from eating all those potatoes,” stated G.R., while keeping his eyes on the switches and knobs he was setting on his panel.

G.R was closing in on fifty, but he didn’t look it, and more importantly he didn’t feel like it. With biceps threatening to tear through the seams in his shirt, deep blue eyes and only a hint of gray hair, G.R. used all that he had to get what he wanted. If ever there was a man who used his small head to do his thinking, it was G.R. Of course, that mindset only kicked in when he wasn’t busy fulfilling his role as a highly respected flight engineer.

John turned to look at Lars, sitting on one of the two bunks adjacent to the engineer station. Holding the position of junior flight engineer, this would be Lars’s first trip on the DC6 and he was intently watching his superior’s actions.

“Lars, did you spot the nick on one of the prop blades on the number two engine?” asked John.

Without looking away from G.R.’s hand action, Lars replied, “Sure did, John. It’s within specs. It’s also in the ship’s log.”

“Very well,” said John.

John noticed the other copilot for the flight was already sitting in the left seat, actively preparing that side of the cockpit in anticipation of their captain’s arrival. Watching the young man busily check and set the various switches and knobs, John asked, “Asa, would you like to sit in the right seat for landing tonight?”

Asa looked at the more senior copilot, and with a surprised voice asked, “What?”

Normal policy at Pan Am dictated that the senior copilot sit in the left seat whenever the captain was on break. He also sat in the right seat during takeoff and landing. The junior pilot usually didn’t have any choice in the matter. He was only there to give the other pilots the benefit of a nap. If the captain didn’t feel like flying that day, and the senior copilot was willing to give up the chance to perform a takeoff or landing himself, then only a fool would decline the offer. Having been on the job less than three months, Asa wasn’t sure he’d heard the more senior copilot correctly.

“Based on the weather, I think Charles is going to make the takeoff, but he might give up the landing. If you want to sit in the right seat just in case, it’s yours,” said John as he maneuvered himself into the right front seat.

“Uh, yeah, that would be sharp,” responded Asa.

The minute John was situated in his seat, he, like Asa, set about pre-positioning all of the switches and handles to prepare the aircraft for flight. Their goal was to have everything ready before the captain set foot in the cockpit.

Captain Charles Pratt entered the cockpit twenty minutes prior to departure. At five-foot-eight, one hundred and forty pounds, with sandy brown hair and blue eyes, the captain appeared to be nothing more than strictly average. He had no scars, no tattoos---nothing whatsoever that might distinguish him from any man one might meet on any street in any city in America. However, what did distinguish Charles from most others was the transformation he went through whenever he sat in the left seat of a DC6. There were very few pilots on the Pan Am seniority list that commanded the same level of respect as Captain Pratt. His aeronautical knowledge, experience and sheer talent at piloting a four-engine airplane across an ocean was almost legendary at Pan American Airways. Outside the cockpit, however, Charles was meek, frequently unsure of himself, and more often than not, completely without backbone. He’d made captain in his late thirties, which wasn’t unheard of, and lived happily with his wife on a small ten-acre farm in a quaint hamlet just outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” said Charles, in a much deeper voice than one might expect coming from a man of his limited stature.

Each man present acknowledged the greeting while continuing to work, except for Asa, who immediately slid his seat back in order to vacate his captain’s rightful place.

“Any discrepancies I should be made aware of?” asked Captain Pratt.

“No, sir. Everything is ship-shape,” said G.R., while paging through an aircraft performance manual.

“Looks like a clean airplane, Charles,” added John.

“Very well, gentlemen,” said Charles. “G.R., it appears as though we will have a full airplane this evening. And judging by the weather, I think we might want to subtract five knots from V-one. And while we’re at it, let’s add five knots to our rotation and V-two speeds. Do you concur with that?”