Bob is a pilot. Well, he was a military and airline pilot in the past.
Now he's a college professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
He joined the Army as an Enlisted Man and was in the Special Forces as a Radio Operator. He got an appointment to West Point and was commissioned as an Infantry Officer. After Ranger School and a year in an Infantry assignment, he went to Army Flight School and flew helicopters. The Army did not have an Aviation Branch back in those days, as they have now, so Bob was supposed to be developing himself as an Infantry Officer. He was trying to punch the right tickets by being a Battalion and Brigade staff officer, and an Infantry Company Commander, in hopes of getting back to Aviation assignments.
The Infantry Branch didn't like him wasting time in Aviation assignments when he should have been leading the troops in Infantry jobs. Finally, in early 1979, after 3 years instructing in Hueys at Ft. Rucker, Bob was going to be sent to an Infantry assignment in Europe, and would not have flown again for a number of years. That was unacceptable.
Having heard about a Coast Guard program that brings military pilots of other services into the Coast Guard as Aviators, Bob applied and was accepted. That's the good news. The bad news was that the program brought the pilots into the CG as a LTjg. So, Bob took a one grade cut in rank from Army Captain to CG LTjg, with high hopes of getting into fixed wing flying.
Bob had tried to get into fixed wing airplane flying in the Army, but that was impossible. Over the years he had earned all the FAA airplane pilot certificates and had done a lot of instructing in small Cessnas and Pipers. This was to no avail in the Army, but paid off in the Coast Guard by getting his first CG assignment in the summer of 1979 as an Instructor Pilot in the T-34C.
After 3 years instructing for the Navy in Pensacola, FL, Bob was assigned to the CG Air Station Miami, where he flew the HU-25 Falcon for 5 years until retiring in 1987. During that time he got qualified in 2 different CG Helicopters, the HH-52 and the HH-65, but didn't get to fly them much due to demand for him to fly the Falcon.
Upon retirement from the Coast Guard in 1987, Bob was hired by Pan American Worl Airways. He flew the Boeing 727 out of Miami as a Flight Engineer for about 7 months until the end of 1987. In January 1988, Bob upgraded to the B-737 as a First Officer (copilot), and continued to fly out of Miami until the fall of 1989. At that time he trained on the Airbus A-310 and began flying it out of JFK in New York to destinations in Europe and South America.
In the Spring of 1991, Pan Am was having financial troubles. Delta Air Lines began looking at parts of Pan Am to bolster their international flying. During the summer, they arranged to purchase about 1/3 of Pan Am - the New York/Boston/Washington Shuttle operation, and the A-310 Trans Atlantic flying to Europe.
Bob was very fortunate to transfer over to Delta on November 1st, 1991 - just a month before Pan Am went out of business on December 4th.
Unfortunately, Delta started getting rid of the A-310 aircraft in about 1993, and Bob got bumped back to B-727 First Officer. We had some intra Europe flying on the B-727, and Bob enjoyed those trips for about a year. In 1994, he got bumped all the way down to B-727 Flight Engineer again - the airline entry level position he had started at with Pan Am about 7 years earlier.
After about 6 months, Delta moved some MD-88 flying into New York, and Bob was able to again hold a First Officer position on that aircraft. In the spring of 1996, we signed a new contract that opened a pilot base in Orlando, FL with B-737 aircraft. The positions went very junior due to a pay scale that paid about 35% less than a pilot would make flying out of other bases on the B-737.
Bob and Linda moved from Fort Lauderdale, where they had lived for 15 years, up to Daytonal Beach, FL so Bob could drive to work in Orlando. He enjoyed the flying for almost 4 years, but finally, in the summer of 2000, was able to hold B-727 Captain out of New York. The pay difference was so much (got to get ready for mandatory age 60 retirement in March 2005) that he started to commute to New York again to start his trips out of JFK, Newark, or Laguardia airports. He loved flying the B-727, but in the summer of 2001 he got bumped back to Captain on the MD-88 as they got rid of the B-727 out of the New York crew base. The B-727 is getting old, and is very noisy, not very fuel efficient, and requires 3 pilots, so the company is slowly getting rid of them, and they will all be gone from Delta in a couple years.
In May of 2002, Bob got further bumped backwards and went back to the B-737 in the Orlando crew base. This was as a result of September 11th and the rather large downsizing of the airline after that event. The bad news is that it's a huge paycut. The good news is that he won't have to commute to New York and sit reserve in the "crashpad" apartment anymore!!! Unfortunately, a large number of his fellow pilots have been furloughed (laid off) as a result of the problems in the industry after 9/11, so Bob's problem isn't nearly as serious as many others are experiencing.
However, in the summer of 2003, Delta shut down the Delta Express operation and closed the Orlando pilot base. In August, September, and October Bob spent 7 weeks in a hotel on "Virginia Avenue" (where Delta's training facility is located, on the north side of the Atlanta airport) while undergoing training for his new job on the Boeing 767ER (the Extended Range international version of that aircraft).
Unfortunately, after only a couple months of flying internationally to Europe, South America, and Hawaii, Bob couldn't maintain his FAA First Class Medical, which is required for airline flying. Due to cataracts, PVDs (Post Vitreal Detachments), torn retinas, and floaters in each eye, and the start of ARMD (Age Related Macular Degeneration) in the left eye, Bob can't quite see the required 20/20 line on the chart anymore. He lost his medical certification for airline flying in November 2003, and has effectively been retired since that time. He finally reached FAA mandatory airline retirement age of 60 in March 2005, and officially retired. At this time, Bob's visual acuity is still better than the 20/40 required to exercise the Private Pilot priveleges of his pilot certificate, so he can still perform non-commercial flying in small airplanes.
November 22, 1947 when I was 2 years and 10 months old.
This is my Dad and me with one of his gas engine powered control-line models.
I remember going with him to the baseball diamond to fly the planes he made.
My Dad, Bob Sr., was an Armor Officer. He was a tanker in WWII, and this picture was taken at Ft. Knox, KY where he was stationed after the war and where I was born in March 1945. He celebrated his 89th birthday in September 2005. He still looks just about the same except for gray hair. I look a lot different!!
My Mother, Winky (real name Louise), wrote on the back of this picture:
"March, 1949, Yokohama, Japan 4 yrs. old".
4-1/2 years old in October 1949.
This was in Japan also, when we were stationed there after WWII. The plane was my Dad's latest creation. This was another one of his gas engine powered control-line model airplanes.
All grown up (well, almost!) and a Captain for Delta Air Lines
In March 2005, Bob turned 60, the mandatory retirement age for airline pilots. He officially retired from Delta on April 1st. He had always thought he would hate it when he had to retire from flying airliners, but with TSA security hassles and the turmoil in the airline industry, Bob was happy to leave the flying to the younger pilots.
Bob had a friend that was furloughed (laid off) from Delta who was a ground school instructor in a commercial pilot flight training program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona. In the summer of 2004 Bob was considering talking with the department that was doing that training, and while looking at the job postings on the Embry-Riddle website saw that there were also a couple of positions open for professors in the college programs at the university. They were looking for instructors with doctoral degrees, but said that a retired airline pilot with a master's degree would be considered. He sent in a resumé.
It wasn't until May of 2005 that they contacted him, but when they finally did they invited him to come in and interview for a professor position. After several interviews and a session where Bob taught a sample class, he was offered a position to begin in the fall semester as a Professor in the Department of Aeronautical Science in the College of Aviation.
Click the Embry-Riddle logo to view info on the university
(best done by "right clicking" and then selecting "Open in New Window")
Click on Bob's picture above to go to the Faculty Directory.
(again, best done by opening in a new window)
As it says in the last sentence of his entry in the Faculty Directory:
"[He] joined the faculty of the Aeronautical Science Department at the Daytona Beach Campus in the fall of 2005 to pass on aviation knowledge and his love of flying to future generations of aviation professionals".
After having been an Army Aviator flying helicopters, an Instructor Pilot for the U.S. Navy, a Coast Guard Search and Rescue and Law Enforcement pilot in airplanes and helicopters, a civilian flight instructor in airplanes and helicopters, a part-time charter pilot in turboprops and small jets, and an airline pilot for 2 different airlines, Bob has enjoyed his time as a flight and ground instructor and has found those to be the most rewarding jobs in his career. Unfortunately, being a CFI (Certificated Flight Instructor) is usually an entry level position on the aviation career ladder. As such, the pay is low and the benefits poor.
Now that he has retired from military and airline flying, Bob can continue to be associated with aviation as a teacher and, even after just one semester at ERAU, he can feel the satisfaction that comes from passing on some of his knowledge and passion for flying to his students.
