AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2020 - 20

PROFICIENT PILOT

Name-dropping

BY BARRY SCHIFF

Memorable passengers for the books

BARRY SCHIFF'S

favorite cockpit
guest was actor
John Wayne, who
rode in the jump
seat of his Boeing
727 between
Amarillo and
Wichita in 1970.

20 | AOPA PILOT January 2020

MY NOVEMBER COLUMN about pilot logbooks
attracted the attention of reader Dudley H. Johnston,
who has flown enough to fill 15 of his own. He wrote
to say that his logbooks contain all of the requisite
signatures plus those of his two most famous passengers, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, autographs
obtained on separate flights. Johnston says that each
of the former presidents added a "nice note," which
made for "really special entries."
What a great idea, I thought. Highlighting one's
logbooks with autographs of those we meet along
the way certainly would make them even more
meaningful.
I began my career with TWA in 1964. This was
during the era of the jet-setter, when celebrities
rode first-generation jetliners. It was before business jets evolved and lured them away from airline
travel. It was when preflight and dispatch paperwork
included a list of VIPs who would be riding on our
flights-there were always some.
I was a co-pilot in TWA's International Division
in 1967. We were en route to Paris somewhere over
the Atlantic during the middle of an April night.
The captain adjusted his tie, slid his seat back, and
announced that he was going for a walk, something
that airline pilots were allowed and even encouraged to do in those days. We called it the cabin tour.
Passengers seemed to enjoy seeing their pilot, and
it was almost impossible to get to the tail without
some of them asking who was flying the airplane.
Upon his return, the captain told me that he
had had a nice chat with an elderly gentleman in
2-B. While later taxiing to the gate, a flight attendant entered the cockpit and handed the captain
a folded piece of TWA's in-flight stationery. It
was from 2-B, some sort of strange drawing of our
Boeing 707 that had been signed by a Mr. Pablo
Picasso. I've thought many times over the years
how nice it would have been to have had his autograph in my logbook (along with a small sketch, if
you don't mind, please).
That same captain collected the autographs of
many of his famous passengers. Years later when he
was flying the Boeing 747, he was informed that the
entire upper deck of first-class seats on his flight
from London to Los Angeles had been reserved for
only two passengers who obviously cherished their

privacy. The captain received a note from Elizabeth
Taylor and Richard Burton thanking him for his
"hospitality." This note obviously found its way into
his logbook.
Shortly after earning my fourth stripe in 1968, I
was told by a flight attendant that one of our passengers was a visibly distressed fearful flyer. She asked
if I'd go aft to offer him some words of comfort. I
found Charles Boyer, the famed French-American
actor, fingering beads and in obvious discomfort. We
chatted for a while, and he did seem to calm down
somewhat. He later sent a note of thanks to the cockpit, but I regrettably failed to keep it.
During 1975, I spent two weeks in Binghamton,
New York, getting trained in the Link Division of
Singer's first Lockheed L-1011 simulator. During my
days off, I drove to nearby Elmira to do some soaring. While in a long line of pilots waiting patiently in
their sailplanes to be towed aloft, I noticed the pilot
ahead of me growing weary of the wait. He climbed
out of his cockpit, wiped his brow, took a swig of bottled water, and walked toward me to pass the time
and chat about soaring. I only wish that I had had
the presence of mind to ask for this glider pilot's
autograph. I would have liked to have had rocket
pioneer Wernher von Braun's signature in my soaring logbook.
It's probably a bit late now to think about adding
autographs to my logbooks, but it sure would have
been nice to have had my logbooks signed by many
of the greats I have been blessed to meet. These
included Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle,
Neil Armstrong, Donald Douglas, Bill Lear, Pappy
Boyington, and many others.
I couldn't have obtained the autographs of all of
my memorable passengers, though. Some were live
lobsters that I was bringing home from Boston and
that I allowed to claw around freely on the cockpit
floor, patiently awaiting the first unsuspecting flight
attendant to step onto the flight deck and issue forth
a blood-curdling scream.
Irrespective of whose autographs I could have
collected, the most important signature would
always belong to Steve Occhipinti, the CFI who had
the courage to proclaim in writing on June 23, 1954,
that I was safe for solo.
AOPA
barryschiff.com

http://www.barryschiff.com

AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2020