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     Tuesday, 16th October, 1979, found me in a suit and tie, sitting in the reception area of Two Crown Center, Suite 216, Kansas City, Missouri, admiring the clean, swept lines of an immense Boeing 707 model in SAUDIA livery.  It stood on a three-foot chrome stand – making my left testicle tingle with excitement.

     Some people know in their heart, dear reader, when they’re finally in the right place, doing the right thing.  My left testicle concurred.  But what on earth is Mrs. Chisholm’s pride and joy doing here in Kansas City?  So you don’t get bored – here’s the quick and dirty version:

     A week before I was to complete my probation, Air Florida dumped me, without ever giving me an adequate explanation.  Reading between the lines in retrospect, I feel they were just as uncomfortable with me as I was with them.  Air Florida’s management weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed – hence my lack of confidence in them making it as an airline.  Time would prove my lack of faith in them was correct.

     Farewell DC-9.

     After that, I got picked up by a new air-freight outfit out of Macon, Georgia, called Hawaiian Air Cargo, using obsolete, tired Lockheed L-188 Electras.  Following three months with this rodeo, my left testicle told me it was a dead-end job; they weren’t going to make it either.  Once again time proved my “feeling” was spot on.  Comparable to Willie Nelson, I was “On The Road Again.”

     It was also at this same period, Val decided to bail out on me, taking everything with her except my Honda and my clothes.  (Later, she even got my Honda.)  Having hit rock bottom, with no prospects, I really couldn’t blame her.  She was Western Airlines’ “Golden Girl” - whereas I was the millstone that no longer fit in with her career plans.

     Needing a change of scene, I headed for Minneapolis, and applied to Republic Airlines, which operated Convair 580s and DC-9s.  I actually got in to see the chief pilot, quite briefly, who told me he’d “call me” upon looking over my resume and application.

     My left testicle told me he was blowing smoke up my ass, dear reader.  True to form, I never did get that “call.”   

     In the meantime, I literally stumbled onto a pretty little airport outside of Minneapolis, in Spring Park, called Flying Cloud. 

     It was there I discovered BASCO (Business Aviation Services Corp.) which proved to be one truly “strange ranger.”

     First of all; it was the fleet verses the pilots.  BASCO had two Beechcraft Barons, four Beechcraft Queen Airs, one Sabreliner 40, one Westwind 1123, and one French Allouette II helicopter.

     Okay, dear reader, let’s break it down this way for you non-flyers: BASCO had six light twin-engine executive airplanes, two jet corporate aircraft and one jet helicopter.

     So bottom-line: BASCO had nine aircraft total - with a measly four pilots to fly them.  This was the first company I’d ever come across where the fleet outnumbered the pilots.  BASCO was also an FAA approved, FAR Part 135 Air Taxi – how on earth did they expect to make any money?

     Ah, dear reader, that was BASCO’s purpose; to lose money.

     BASCO was a small subsidiary of a much larger company called Advance Machine, which made millions and millions manufacturing and selling floor grinders and polishers for factories, hangars and offices.

     The President, and principal owner, Bob Pond, was addicted to aircraft and used BASCO as a tax write off – while satisfying his need for “flying toys.”

     Bob Pond.

     Don’t you just love rich people, dear reader?

     When I appeared on the scene, BASCO had been without a chief pilot for three months – making the FAA very unhappy with them - and who threatened to take away their FAR Part 135 Air Taxi Certificate.  Which meant no more tax write offs for Advance Machine.

     BASCO desperately needed someone with flight experience that could handle light twins, business jets, and especially the jet helicopter.  Few pilots have this type of background.  I’m one of the “few.”  The next thing I know, I’m getting checked out in the Allouette, plus a new FAA type-rating in the Saberliner (the Westwind was up for sale - so I skipped it), and my own office - at double the salary I was making as an airline pilot with Air Florida.  Being the chief pilot, I could pick and choose my trips, and the equipment I wanted to fly, while flying barely 40 hours per month – forty-five percent less than I was flying at Air Florida. 

     As Br’er Rabbit once said: “Pleeese don’t trow me in dat briar patch!”

     Alright, so that was the upside.  As in all things in life, aviation also has a downside.  My downside was Bob Pond.  I got along with him okay, still, God help me, I dreaded flying with him.  Why?  His ego always got in the way.  Usually when he flew the Sabreliner, I had to be his co-pilot, and saw firsthand what a danger he was.  In fact, the previous year before I arrived, he had already crashed a Sabreliner; under-shooting the approach, wiping out the landing gear, then bouncing up to the runway and sliding along on its belly.  The marvelous executive jet was completely totaled.

     Bob Pond totaling his Sabreliner.

     If the Pond should kill himself in an aircraft, have a stroke or heart attack (he was in the proper age group for that) the board of directors would get rid of BASCO and all the “flying toys.” 

     Not a lot of job security here, dear reader.  Therefore my continued pursuit of the dream: a major, international airline that would allow me to travel and see the world.

     One of my more unusual charters for BASCO occurred on 26^th October, 1979.  A feminist journalist, nationally recognized as a leader and media spokeswoman for the Women’s Liberation Movement, hired me to fly her around the state on a speaking junket.  I flew her to six different locations, in clear weather, where her speaking engagements were hosted by “Friends of Planned Parenthood.”  She proved to be a gracious, attractive 45-year-old, possessing a pleasantly quiet, controlled demeanor.  Evidently she got her start as a journalist, in 1963, by going “undercover” as a Playboy Bunny in New York. 

        Her subsequent article, “A Bunny’s Tale,” for Show magazine, placed her on the path to notoriety. 

     All went smoothly until reaching our fifth destination: Duluth, Minnesota – that frozen city hammered by the icy winds off Lake Superior. 

     Ice from wind off of Lake Superior.

     A Tanker trapped by ice on Lake Superior.

     The previous day it had snowed, and by now the snowplows had cleared off the runway and taxiways – landing would be a piece of cake. 

     I was operating a hugely, comfortable Beechcraft Queen Air 80 - with twin Lycoming engines - having a luxurious, executive-class seating capacity for six people.  “My feminist” had an entourage of three; allowing them plenty of room in the Queen Air’s spacious cabin.

     I made a perfect, “greasy” landing, at 2:56 P.M., helped along by the ice-covered runway.  I cut power, and all this perfection came to a stunning climax, when I went to apply the brakes.

     I had no fucking BRAKES!  How in hell can I get this tub of shit stopped, dear reader, zipping across all this ice?

     I was moving at a pretty good clip, so I immediately shut down the right engine – its propeller clanking to a halt – cutting my idle thrust by 50-percent which began to slow us down.  Then I allowed the aircraft to drift right – towards the runway’s edge - where the snowplows had stacked up snow in long drifts approximately two feet in height.  Allowing my right wheel to skim in and out of these snowdrifts – gradually slowed us to a snail’s pace. 

     Upon clearing the runway, I taxied snail-like to the parking ramp, where I discovered a three-foot pile of snow, courtesy of a snowplow, and carefully embedded my nose wheel in it.  It proved comparable to beaching a boat and, when I shut down the remaining left engine, the heavy, old Queen Air stayed put.  We didn’t roll off into the sunset – the snowdrift became an adequate parking brake.

     My passengers deplaned none the wiser.  Placing an emergency telephone call to BASCO, at the executive lounge, they flew in a replacement Queen Air with a mechanic.  The mechanic discovered my hydraulic brake reservoir had developed a fatigue crack - losing all the hydraulic fluid.

     Using the replacement Queen Air, I flew “my feminist” and her entourage on to the sixth, and last, speaking engagement.  They never learned of “our brake failure.”  When we returned to Flying Cloud Airport that night, “my feminist” kindly autographed the flight plan, writing the following: “To Clint – with gratitude for a long and safe day – Gloria Steinem.” (She was using my first name – Clinton.)

     Gloria Steinem.

      My autographed flight plan.

      How I felt attempting to survive a Minnesota winter!

     Prior to this above event, SAUDIA (Saudi Arabian Airlines) just happened to be expanding and hiring.  In response to my letter and application, they had invited me to Kansas City for an interview.

     So why Kansas City of all places, dear reader?

     In 1945, shortly before his death, U.S. President Roosevelt gave the King of Saudi Arabia a Douglas DC-3.

 

          1945, King Al Saud and FDR.

      FDR’s gift – the DC-3.

     The next year TWA came aboard and was contracted by the Saudi Ministry of Defense to build the nation’s flag carrier: SAUDIA.  Over several decades TWA provided everything a major airline would need: training, maintenance and pilots.  Even the Saudis’ PCA (Presidency of Civil Aviation) was modeled on the American FAA.

     However, in 1979 SAUDIA was beginning to stand on its own feet: gradually phasing out its dependence on TWA.  One of the first things to go was the new-hire pilot interview system run by TWA, which had been hiring all-American boys for SAUDIA - fresh out of the military - who couldn’t deal with the Arab culture shock.  After three to six months on the job, these new-hires simply bailed out when operating a flight to London, Rome or Paris, and would hot-foot it back to the States.  TWA had such a stick up their ass, when it came to hiring pilots, they couldn’t appreciate that this job didn’t call for “officers and gentlemen,” it demanded hard-core flying mercenaries who could adapt to the “culture shock.”  Bottom line they needed “air-whores.”

     SAUDIA got so fed up with what TWA was sending them; they decided to take over the interview process themselves, and set up offices for this purpose across the street from the TWA Training Facility in Kansas City.

     It’s strange, dear reader, how fate sometimes rolls the dice in one’s favor.  I didn’t have the college, the military flight time, the wife and the 2.3 kids – hence TWA wouldn’t consider me because I lacked “the right stuff.”  But with the Saudis...was it possible I had a real shot?

     SAUDIA’s fleet was expanding to ten Gulfstream GIIs (for VIP operations), twenty Boeing 737s, six Boeing 707s, Eleven Airbus 300s, twenty Lockheed L-1011 TriStars and ten Boeing 747s.

      Gulfstream GII

      Boeing 737

      Boeing 707

      Airbus 300

      Lockheed L-1011

     Boeing 747    

     As I ran my covetous, beady-blues, over the slippery lines of the B-707 model bearing the Saudi flag, I began to wonder, dear reader.  Is this the international flag-carrier I’ve been hunting for?  Will it convert the world to my personal oyster?

     “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is His Messenger.”

     The pretty young receptionist answered her phone and, following a short exchange, hung up.  Flashing me a smile, she said, “You may go in, Mr. Chisholm.”

     So far this had been the strangest interview I’d ever experienced.  First of all, it was three days in length.  Yesterday I had attended an “orientation briefing,” run by two attractive ladies – an American and an Egyptian – that had been teachers in Saudi Arabia.  They thoroughly briefed us on the Arab culture shock angle – taking it in stages - afterwards singling us out and asking pointed questions on each stage; getting our individual, honest reactions.  It turns out they were grading our reactions in secret.  I had accidentally spotted the grade sheets on each of us behind the podium – making me wonder if I had “passed.”

     Today was my “big interview” – not having a clue as to what waited for me behind that door.

     Tomorrow was my “big physical” – spending the entire day at a local major hospital – where they’d prod, poke, and test my body’s limits; while drawing numerous samples of bodily fluids as though I were an astronaut on the Space Shuttle.  It proved to be the most thorough physical I would ever have in my life.

     As I said before, dear reader, this was turning out to be one of my stranger aviation episodes.  When I stepped through that door...it got even stranger.

     I entered a vacant room with a banquet table bent in the shape of a huge “V.”  In the notch of the “V” was a lone, empty chair.  Therefore, without a word being spoken, I sat in it.

     To my right - on the other side of the table - sat four Saudi Captains.  To my left sat three more Saudi Captains, and the only other White face in the room: Mr. Winston Hile, SAUDIA’s Area Personnel Manager.  Everyone was in a suit, neatly groomed, with ages running from late thirties to early forties. 

     For a very long, pregnant moment, I sat there with my flight case at my side full of documents, letters of recommendation, log books, certificates and photos; cocked and primed for the first question that would launch me into my dog and pony show.  Alas, it never came.

     Instead, everybody nervously shuffled papers from the file they already had on me, and cleared their throats – not once looking up at me or introducing themselves. 

     That’s when my left testicle switched on the red warning light in my brain, dear reader.  If I don’t do something right now to break the ice and get these guys to relax...I’m dead in the water! 

     So I took my balls in both hands, and said, “G-Gentlemen...I’d like to make an announcement.”

     All eight men froze – glancing up at me from their papers – with a sort of stunned expression.

     I then continued, “Today is my birthday.  And if you gentlemen should choose to give me a really special birthday present...you’ll p-pass me on this interview.”

     Winston Hile still appeared stunned, but all the Saudi Captains broke-up in genuine laughter.

     Two important events occurred that day, dear reader. 

     Firstly: I owned that room – running a top-notch show.  When I packed up to leave, one of the Saudi Captain’s commented at how well my interview went. 

     Secondly: I turned 37.

     Lawrence of Arabia here I come!  Let the great adventure begin!

     On 15th March, 1980, I reported for work as a first officer on the Boeing 707 in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.