Mark Drake / B787 Captain / Hawaiian Airlines

Incredible conversation with Captain Mark covering his nearly 5 decades in the aviation industry, with a remarkable 39 years at Hawaiian Airlines. From the early days flying with his Dad around on TWA metal, to his current position as a Captain and Check Pilot on the B787, his aviation journey has been, in his own words...a fairly tale. Mahalo to Captain Drake for sharing his pilot life story with us!


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“The information provided in this video is for entertainment purposes only. This is a personal vlog and the opinions expressed are solely those of the participants and do not represent any associations or institutions they may or may not be affiliated with unless expressly stated

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Pilot Life, the show where we sit down with people who are passionate about aviation. My name is Brendan. I've been a commercial airline pilot for over 20 years, and in that time I've heard some incredible stories. This is the show, but I share those with you. Welcome aboard. Captain Drake. Captain Mark Drake, welcome back to the Pilot Life Podcast. This is a show for people who are interested in aviation. Maybe they're pilots, maybe they just love airplanes. Where did you fall when you were a kid? Were you gung-ho airplanes?

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Were you more I think uh when I was born, instead of mama and dada, I remember looking up the sky and going, airplane. I think that was the first problem right there. Yeah. So I I you know some people are predetermined to do this stuff, and some people just kind of fall into it later in life after education or trying different jobs and thinking, well, that might be kind of fun. No. I had one course I was gonna find my way. I don't know how I was gonna find my way, but that's how it started. Um my dad was a crew scheduler at TWA for 37 years.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Really? Back in the wind. This would give us like a time frame. Well, first of all, let me just say, as we find you right now. Yes. Today, we are in today is May 21st. 21st, 2026. And you are a 787 captain. Yes, sir. And tell us what you're doing this afternoon.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Wow. We get to do a milestone trip. Uh we get to take that beautiful 787 over to London for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Uh inaugurals are always fun, challenging, which makes it even more fun. Uh, we have an outstanding crew with us today. Uh, we have our promo team on board as well in the back of the airplane, which always makes us look good. Uh and so it's gonna be a great trip. We've done several milestones over the course of the career, and this will probably be one of my last. I only have a little over nine months to go. Okay. And so I've been extremely fortunate to be in this program from pretty much the beginning uh when the 787 was a thought at Hawaiian Airlines, uh, which then moved into Alaska Airlines. It's kind of morphing across the spectrum.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Yeah, we're in kind of the area right now, aren't we, where things are changing and we're kind of in that everything is getting used to some something new, right? Yes. Yeah. Yes. I'm going to start at at the end. Because you've been with Hawaiian Airlines for Coming up on 39 years, July 1st. 39 years. From that little baby who said airplane. Airplane. Yeah. Is it what you thought it was going to be?

SPEAKER_00 2:35

I could have never imagined uh the fairy tale that goes with this entire story. Um You know, they say you try to control your own destiny, and my destiny was to fly. But I would have never imagined I would be here today doing this with this airline, and even so much as doing something like this with you. Um so along the way I've had a couple of people that helped prove me wrong when they say, Do you control your own destiny? And I say, Well, of course you do. And nowadays I figured out that you just need to sit back, relax, open up your diaphragm, and the only thing you can control is your breathing. And follow that road along the way. And it has had some stumbling blocks, but for every action there's a reaction. And so for the stumbling block, it helped me fall into something else that was also part of the fairy tale that I had no idea that it would be coming.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Yeah. Where did you guys live when your dad was a you said that he was a dispatcher? He was a cruise scheduler. Okay, so where did you guys live when he was a cruise scheduler?

SPEAKER_00 3:38

So um at the time we lived in San Francisco. I was born and raised in San Francisco. San Francisco was a regional domicile of New York, interestingly enough, as was Los Angeles. Um it was interesting to go into the office and see and smell how the schedulers did things, meet the pilots. It was kind of the take your son to work day from time to time. Um I didn't know really what I was getting into, but I did know that he loved aviation. He wanted to fly. And it was only in his death that I found that he was actually a commercial pilot. I found his logbook. He used to fly at Luscombe, uh, which was like he never told me any of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

He never shared that with you.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

He never did. But he loved to um go to the airport, smell the jet fuel, um, go on trips. Uh, you know, we grew up in in uh a very modest household, and um, but somehow we were able to get on an airplane and fly to Los Angeles for lunch out of San Fran, or we'd fly to Denver uh for the day, or we'd go to Boston for the night, or we'd fly to London or Frankfurt or Zurich. Uh so one of my first memories of being on the airplane was him saying, You're not gonna get fed if you don't sit up straight, because the flight attendants go through and they count the empty seats and then they figure out how many people they have on the airplane and how many meals they need. So I was slumping down, reading a book, or just goofing off. He'd slap me on the forehead and go, sit up straight, because you need to be counted.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

So I'm like, oh okay. What kind of planes did did they have in those early days when he was working?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Uh they had Conver 880s. Oh, cool. The old 707, 100, and 300 series, the 300s, well, ooh, wow, they had the big HF antenna pointing on the tail there. Uh that was a big deal. Uh then they got uh the 747s, which uh the goal was to ride out the pass and ride in first class on a TWA 747. I remember sitting in the front row where you actually had three windows and it was nobody in front of you, which is nothing more than a closet up there. We were going to Frankfurt and everybody else was asleep. And this is where my career of not sleeping on airplanes started. I remember as sunrise would come up, I'd open the shade and I'd look outside and see all the colors coming up, and I thought to myself, I'm gonna do this. No matter what it takes, I'm gonna do that. And I was probably 10 years old at that point. So it was really kind of a romantic story at that point.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Did you ever get the chance to go up front of any of these airplanes that you were flying on? Because your dad had the inside. Were you ever able to go up and kind of you know that first meeting and seeing pilots up there working?

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Oh, have I got a great story for you. Um those were the days where the cockpit door could be open. So I was uh young, I was probably eight, nine, ten years old. Uh we were up at altitude in a 707, cockpit door was open, and uh uh be because we bought a Radio Shack radio and we would get a deli sandwich every Sunday and go sit at the end of the runways in San Francisco and listen to the pilots, and he would say, Oh, this is Captain So-and-so, and there's first officer so-and-so. When we got up to altitude and I heard the voice on the PA, I knew who this captain was. And he said, Well, let's go up and see if we can say hi. So we walked up to the fight attendant. She said, Pure, come on up, they were expecting you. And here's this gray-haired, rotund, rah-rah, rah, rah, gruffy old captain. And uh he said, Hey, I I I gotta go to the bathroom, let the kid fly. I'm like, What? And so they actually put me in the left seat. I wasn't even tall enough to see over the glare shield. They put the hat on me and I grabbed onto the wheel, they turned the autopilot off, and I was doing this, and I can only imagine people in the back of the airplane going, Whoa, what's going on up there? You know. And uh they said, Okay, that's enough. And uh that was it.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

I just it was my one who's only flown in the post-9-11 world. I mean, because this is how aviation used to be. It was really I mean, it was open. Fly tents could come up during right? I mean, that's this is the stories, obviously. I I never flew in the airlines during that era. Mine was always post. But wow, incredible.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Yeah, it was it's a it was a whole different generation.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

So your first logbook time was about 30 seconds in a 707, you know.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Just couldn't even see over the glare shield, just going like this, going, what does all this mean? Anyway, it was a lot of fun. We look back, it's laughable memories.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

So it was in your your blood from early on. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever find out why why your your dad got his commercial, or did did he dream of going to the airlines, or was there something that happened you never uh found out in the addition?

SPEAKER_00 8:00

I only found out I only found his logbook and uh his his pilot certificate, which I still have. Um I think you learn more about sometimes you learn more about your parents in death than you do in life because they just don't either find the time or care to share it with you.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

That just hit me hard.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

I just lost my dad, as you know. Yeah. And I'm sorry for that. No, but I I've I I have found myself, I've learned so much about you just come to understand people better. Yeah. You know, sometimes those things that are too hard to talk about in person, sometimes you get to that point where you can still talk to that person afterwards and and really grow in that.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Well, thank you for that. Well, I think today, even what I do today, I still talk to him. I mean, he I he passed in 2012.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

But I I know how much he loved aviation. He loved to fly. And I think it would just blow his mind to see what we see when we fly and to see the simulators and see the training side of it and the relationships that you have with your colleagues and what you see out the window. I mean, every airplane's different, every crew's different, 300 people in the back are different. It's like a box of chocolates every time you go fly. Mother Nature's different. Um, the routes are different, dispatch is different. So when you come to work, if pivoting and uh figuring things out kind of on the fly sometimes is not your thing, then this ain't your gig. But if you like a challenge, then this is why we do what we do, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Do you ever have those moments flying that are very spiritual? Not to get off on some tangent, but when like you watch a sunrise or there's just those quiet moments where you It brings me back to being eight years old, looking out that 747 front window and going, here we are.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

It looks exactly the same. And it brings back those same feelings. And um you know, I don't know how I got here, as a lot of us say that. Part of it is luck, part of it is perseverance, because there's just more no's and there are yeses along the way sometimes. Um but I feel incredibly lucky, blessed, honored um to be surrounded by such great people and have such great opportunity. I don't know what I did to get here, but I'm thankful for it every day. Yeah, every day.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

What was what was your your first lesson?

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Um You remember that? Your like your first lifeline? Like it was yesterday. Um and that flight instructor actually ended up working for Hawaiian. And that in itself is an interesting story. Um we went up and we took off and this little Cesta 152 out of San Carlos, and after doing some reading, I knew I was supposed to push on the right rudder. I couldn't exactly explain P factor at that point, but I knew I was supposed to do that. And the first he just looked over at me and he said, How do you know to push on the rudder? I hadn't even told you that yet. And I said, I don't know, I read it in a book. And uh so um it was fun, and he was a an amazing instructor. Um he ended up going to he left that airport uh in San Carlos and he went to Hawaiian. And he is also one of the reasons I ended up at Hawaiian over there. He was in the Inner Island fleet forever. And so after the DC-8 years, uh when the DC eights in Hawaiian went away in the early 90s, uh, I was displaced into the DC nine and ended up flying with him. You know, twelve years later, I flew with him in the DC nine, and he taught me how to fly inner island and how to really fly this little rocket ship called a DC9. That was amazing. And then several years after that, uh, when I was involved in the DC-10 program, he came over to the DC 10, and uh I had the pleasure of teaching ground school with him, and then I was his first officer when he was done with his IOE, and he said, Okay, now tell me what I really need to know. And so we went and flew a couple of trips together. And so it was this magic little trip that we had been on for 20 years. Amazing. And I didn't even know it was gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Yeah. What is the goal here for a high school kid? Is it okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna go to an aviation and get a four-year bachelor's degree and like fly, or it what or is it gonna go into the military? What's your what's your vision here?

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Yeah, that was the big question. How do I do this? I got into San Jose State University and they had an aviation program. Seemed to be the closest one around I could get into. It seemed reasonable cost. I knew I was gonna have to work to do this. And so I was working at San Carlos Airport um behind the desk, scheduling airplanes, working with the other flight instructors. Um I tried to drum up some business uh by starting a flight social club for the owners, and we kind of made a little deal that if I could drum up some more business, they would help me along the way. I could fly airplanes and put money in an account and pay it off, and I could get uh when I had the money, which was great. So it was this hand-in-hand thing. So I was going to college, um, had no idea what I was supposed to take or how to get there. I thought pilots need a lot of math. So I did go toward the aviation program down there, which I really enjoyed. I started teaching when I was 20. Um, and then when I was 22, my senior year of college, um, there was the air ambulance company that was on the field, Air Ambulance International that was on the field. They flew 414s and and eventually got MU2s.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

And I thought that was cool. And at the time I was fueling them, I was cleaning them, I was hanging around that group, doing anything I could to be included in all that. Uh right at the end of college, I thought, uh-oh, I had this epiphany. What if I get in an accident, I poke my eye out, and I can't do aviation anymore. I don't know how to do anything else. So my senior year of college, I I changed my major uh over into business and thought maybe it would be good to get a business degree. Well, as I changed my major and started my focus, um, air ambulance called me and said, We have a spot for you. Can you come fly for us? And it was like finish college or go to air ambulance. And I thought, well, it's all about a seniority number somewhere. So I came up just a few minutes short of graduating, and I went to fly for air ambulance. Uh so one of my goals in retirement is to actually go back and get that pig skin, which is something I want to do.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

There you go. Um So you go from flying small airports. Were you were you flying throughout this time? When when you say that you were teaching, were you working as a flight instructor? I was. You were, okay. Um I started flying the 414s. Yeah, fast, right? I mean faster than what you had been flying.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Uh well, we were flying. We had a we had a 310. Oh, you did? And we actually had A.J. Foyt's all old 320, which was a really fast slippery airplane.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Who's H.J. Foyt?

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Who's AJ Foyt? Are you not a race car fan at all?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

No, I don't know anything about race cars.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Yeah. So uh he was a famous race car doctor. Oh, he was, okay. Anyway, he owned his own little uh Cessna 320, which was slipperier than a 310.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

And the three 310 and 320, uh, with those great big tip tanks out there, you could always tell the junior 310 and 320 files, because they did this all day long, come with down final approach, which is where I got my first lesson in put the airplane where you want it and stop touching it. And I still use that today when I teach the big airplanes. It's a flight controlled computer. When it's going this way, stop touching it. Going into the 414 was actually really a natural progression. Um the progression into the MU-2, which is a missile with engines, um, was uh challenging and really fun because it's a really fast airplane. MU-2 is a high wing, right? It's a high-wing Mitsubishi. Uh uh it it had like old Merlin engines on it, uh 650 shaft aside. Uh it had less wing area on it, a 172. It had those great big tip tanks on it. Yeah. It just looks fast sitting there. And um, you know, the FAA put an intermediate 250 red line on that thing because they said something that weighs less than 12,500 pounds should not go more than 250 knots. But you could scream right up the tailpipe of DC9s going into San Francisco all day long, and they're like, What kind of airplane are you? you know. And then we eventually got lear jets. So taking a learjet in and out of 2,600 feet, uh a learjet without reversers, mind you.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

A learjet was that like a 25? A Lear 25. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Um So that's when I actually started doing some international flying.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

So um, and and what is your goal throughout all this? Is your eyesight on getting to the big boys, getting to go fly jets for the airlines, or is it are you just kind of building up time?

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Watching what was happening around me, some of the more senior flight instructors that I had learned from, they had gone to different airlines. And I thought, well, I'd like a career in a major airline. I want to be a number somewhere, and I want to fly those big airplanes because that's kind of what I was programmed to do from young, you know, T2B Away was probably not an option at that point. Um the problem is I didn't have the degree. So just being able to check the box in those days with a United or Delta or American, although I did interview an American, um, bought my first pair of wingtip shoes. Nice. Didn't break them in, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

You have to bring in a briefcase. Yeah, I do. I I still have that briefcase, as a matter of fact. I had to buy it and I used it once for one interview, and you walk in, you go click, click, and the little things flip up. Exactly right. You pull out your cover letter and you're we're so old. Jeez. So was you still have that briefcase? No. Oh so was this like late 70s, early 80s? Is that kind of the time frame? Uh who would have been flying then or hiring?

SPEAKER_00 17:03

I was uh UNMs. Mid-80s. Uh there was an opportunity to go to United uh when they went on strike, um, and everybody said, don't do that. You don't want to become a scab, whatever you do.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

A very popular well, this not pop this like a uh a very famous time in the airline industry was like that mid-80s strike, right? Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

And so I chose to not do that. I just kind of hung out. And even though I had gone and interviewed, I was sitting, this young kid, you know, mid-20s, I'm just kind of sitting there looking around, and there's all these military heavy aviation drivers and you know, other airline people, and I'm thinking, why am I even here? You know, my feet are bleeding in these wingtips, and and I'm so nervous that my palms are just glistening with sweat, which is the nurse said, Are you okay? You know, and I think it's probably one of the reasons I was shaking and I was sweaty and nervous. And anyway, I didn't I didn't go any farther than that with American Airlines.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

So you're going for jobs against this is post-uh Vietnam era, so lots of pilots. Yes, yes. Lots of time, lots of jet time, right? And you're thinking that I don't really stack up right with this pool of pilots. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

One of my flight instructors I'd work with in San Carlos who was flying for uh Hawaiian said, why don't you come interview at Hawaiian? And I said, Who? And uh I thought to myself right off the bat, I don't want to fly around bouncing around Inner Island. Uh I I because I think that's all they do. I didn't know anything about the airline. Um I was I really loved international flying. I loved the challenge of learning. Yeah, all the nighttime, all the chop, chop, chop. We're in a medical environment, things have to happen right now. Um the pressures was fun. And so they said, you know, we actually do more than that. We fly big airplanes back and forth to the West Coast. And I went, okay, okay. So I uh those are the days we didn't have an application process. It was who you knew. You need to bring in your resume and you need to go and introduce yourself around. So I somehow managed to talk my way onto a jump seat as a 135 pilot with Hawaiian and said, Hey, is there any chance that I can jump seat out with you and and maybe meet some people? And I had a couple Hawaiian pilots introduce me around out there and hand out the resumes. And and um uh they said, Here's a a number to our company secretary in the flight department. If you can keep her on the phone for more than a minute, you got a job. And I was like, Okay. So uh I called this woman um and this woman knew everything about everything. I'm sure Alaska Airlines has those same people that have been around forever. And uh she was amazing. So I would call her up and what was her name? Her name was Judy Uding, and everybody in Hawaiian Airlines knows Judy Uding. You know, that's like Mama Judy. And uh I called Judy up Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you know. Hey Judy, it's Mark. Hi Mark, you know, anything going on? Nope, not this week. Okay, fine. Thank you very much. It's so nice to talk to you. How's your day? Great, Mark, gotta go. Quick, and that would be the end of that. So I called her up on a Friday after a couple months of doing this. And uh, anything going on? Nope. Okay, great. Uh, you know, I'll call you Monday. Okay. Monday morning. I'm hey Judy is Mark. Hey, we're interviewing today and tomorrow. Can you be here? And I'm like, uh-oh. Um the right answer. What's the right answer? Yes, I will be there. Okay, put me on the schedule for tomorrow, quick. So I talked to my boss and I said, Can I leave? Can I take the day off for the next couple days and go do that? And he said, get out of here, do what you gotta do. So again, back on the jump seat uh with a college roommate of mine. We were both working for um uh air ambulance at the time, and uh um we came out, interviewed, and met the director of training, and then uh we came back, didn't hear anything for a couple months, and then he got hired. And so I ended up What was the uh what was the uh interview like?

SPEAKER_01 20:41

The um process? Was it a sim ride? Was it just a sit down and chat?

SPEAKER_00 20:47

What was uh You know, there was a first of all it was just uh let's go over your resume, you know, why do you want to come to Hawaii? Um do you know anything about Hawaii? Do you know anything about Hawaiian?

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Um Had you done any amount of like research, you know, like try to find out what's of course this is the mid-80s, it's not like there's the internet, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:04

There was not. But we had AOPA, um I don't remember the organization I used to actually do a little bit of research, did some reading, went to the library, uh talked to friends. Yeah. I guess friends were the the first generation of the internet, you know. Yeah. Um and then went out and uh they said, well, we're gonna put you through a little bit of a sim ride, which was in one of those little Fraska trainer things, you know.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Yeah, nemesis. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

And so we flew this little instrument pattern, we did a holding pattern, we came in and we landed, and you know, try not to rem try not to forget to put the gear down because it was a multi-engine airplane, you know. Uh so that went okay. And then we went into the psychological interview with uh a guy who was about 110 years old, who when you walk in, he has a piece of paper, a pen, a stopwatch. And um you went through that whole thing. And you know, you walk in, you say, How's it going? He goes, Fine, take your jacket off. I'm thinking to myself, what does it mean if you take your jacket off? What if you don't take your jacket? Your jacket off. You know, you're going through all this in your mind, right? It's a psych interview, you know. So he throws up, throws out a bunch of blocks, and uh, some are all white, some are all red, some are diagonal red and white, and he shows me a picture. He goes, Can you make this picture? I said, So I make the first couple of them, and then the third one gets a little bit more complicated. And I was so nervous. Just to break the tension, I laughed and I said, I don't think you gave me enough blocks. And he goes, Huh? And he starts doing that. And I'm like, oh no. Okay, no jokes, can't do that. Anyway, got through the interview and um went back home. And then um they called a couple months later and said, Hey, we have a class date for you. Can you show up? And I was just elated. And but I again I didn't know much about it. Uh when I came to Hawaiian, um, the training was in an old Quantet hut on the other side of the airport, an old World War II Quantet hut. Uh there was no trim on the inside of the walls, we had freight train air conditioners, um, and there was a member of Mensa with a handlebar mustache who is a professional engineer, uh, who was going to teach us how to be DC8 engineers. And he goes, You guys can bid whatever you want, but you're gonna be a DC8 engineer. And you're gonna go over the world to places they don't even know aviation exists. So if you don't know how to fix it, much less operate it, it's all on you, buddy. So pay attention. So we had a single overhead projector projector with those clear slides, right? Yeah. So he puts that clear slide on there, and the first slide he turns on, excuse me, yeah, is um the DC8 electrical system. And he points to it and he goes, All right, you assholes, you're gonna be able to draw this by tomorrow by heart. And I look up and I'm like, you know, but having flown jet airplanes, you know, in concept they're all kind of the same. And by the way he explained it, once again, here's another one of these really stellar instructors. He's a brilliant individual, but he's super down to earth in just how succinctly he would explain things. We could have drawn it by heart an hour later, much less the next day. So we all ran out to Long's drugs uh in Alamo and we bought those, get this micro cassette recorders. Do you remember those? Oh yeah. So we we tiny little tapes. Tiny little tapes, right? But it's yeah. So the next day there's 22 micro cassette recorders uh because we're all staying in the same hotel. We had to pay for our own hotels, and we're you know, six deep in one hotel room. And and uh because we didn't want to miss any word, because it was so good. So we went through that entire DC8 uh flight manual, and we knew that airplane left, right, up, down, sideways. And it back in the days when you needed to know how to fix things, it was important that you saw schematics and you read paragraphs and you practiced. Um in today's world, you have to you know progressively back yourself out of that because you're more of an operator than you are a fixer. Um and I was even when the GTC was not the GTC, it was the old Boeing building. We did our 767 training there. Um I was carted off to security jail at the Boeing facility because a friend of mine and I were caught one night trying to break into a uh uh hall closet that actually had schematics on the 767 because we were like, we need to know this stuff. And he said, You don't need to know this stuff, you just need to know how to operate the airplane. And so we were trying to jimmy a lock, and here comes a security guy, you two, come over here with me, you know.

unknown 25:16

Oop.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

And off we went.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

So it would be amazing if you still had those tapes somewhere. That would be incredible to hear what I actually might have those. Yes. What was for someone who I don't know what the airline looked like at that time, what was the pilot size, what was the fleet size, what was the airline flying? This was what, in 85? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Okay. Uh 87, actually, I got hired in 1987. Okay, 87. 25 years old. Um they had four different kinds of DC nines, tens, thirties, fifties, and a couple of power by hour eighties. They had the Haviland Dash 7s, and they were doing all the inner island work. They had Elton 11s with Seattle, San Fran, and LA bases, and they were going back and forth with a three-man crew, so they were only working seven, eight, or nine days a month because you could turn it, which was amazing.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Um, and then they had the DC eight operation, which was the you know, throw the bag over your back and you never even know where you're gonna end up for the next two weeks. Um, and that's where most of us young junkies ended up into them. I call it the Sky Pirate Group, which I'm kind of surrounded by today.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

Um, so it was uh a real education. Uh and I was really at home because one, it was technical and I loved reading technical manuals. Um, I was surrounded by some great people. We were going to destinations where you had no idea where you're gonna go. So they would call up one day and said, You're gonna fly from Fiji to Charjah. And we went, Awesome. And we all look at each other and we go, Where's Charjah? You know, I think it's the last point on the flight plan, and your political clearance is right there, ready, go. And we go, awesome. And we jump in the airplane and off we go with these great big bags of Jepsons. And and uh we were all less than 25 years old. I remember flying with a captain who didn't even look old enough to shave. And uh I thought, how fun is this gonna be? And it really took all three of us to get from point A to point B and not land in a wrong airport, not violate an FAR, not bend anything, or not hurt anybody. And somehow we managed to pull that off, all of it. Um and had a great safety record doing it, and we just saw some crazy stuff.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Yeah. Um who were like the the big dogs of the airline when you came in? Because I'm sure there were guys that had flown in the 50s and 60s, probably.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Yeah. Well, you know, the Hawaiian Airlines by heart was an Inner Island airline. Yeah. So most of the super seniors were flying around Inner Island most of the time. It's a great job. You get to fly this little rocket ship to these different airports. Umce you get 12 miles offshore, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clock, clack, clack, clack, all the way across, right? The more senior pilots uh that were not flying inner island started to fly the L 1011. They moved to the West Coast, based on the West Coast. They took off at 9 a.m. They arrived back home at 9 p.m. They did it seven, eight, nine days a month. What a life, right? Yeah. Um they were home with their families and their kids. Um the DC 8 operation, unfortunately, it wasn't like that. It was kind of hard to start a family at that point. And uh, you know, through the years, be it the right decision or not, my heart has always been in the international flying. My heart has always been teaching. I I though I was hired in 87, and I was so amazed by this gentleman that was teaching us, that I followed him around like a puppy dog, and he would call up on the weekends and say, Hey, we're gonna go climb in a fuel tank, or we're gonna go look up the landing gear well, and we're gonna do this, that, and the other with the mechanics. That um I was inducted into the training department in 1988, and I was an engineer instructor. So over the years, doing all the worldwide flying, gaining all the knowledge, working with your your colleagues, learning about them and how much what their learning curves are and how much you don't know, and and uh it it has been a great opportunity to kind of work my way through the training department um through the different airplanes. The only one I didn't train on, because I was only on the DC9 for eight months, um, my running joke with everybody is if you ask me to get a big airplane anywhere on the planet, um I can get you within three feet pretty easily. If you get if you ask me to go to Hilo from Honolulu, I'm like because you know, I didn't do much of that for nine months back in the early nineties.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Right. What was your first flying position? Where did you move to the right seat of that plane?

SPEAKER_00 29:24

I did not. I spent um I spent five years in the back of the DC eight.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

And then uh I went to the DC nine for eight months and then got furloughed for uh several months, then came back to the Did you go over as a first officer or captain to the DC nine? Uh I went over as a first officer.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Just they shut down the DC eight operation, which was from 1984 to about 1991.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

So when the uh conflict with um Iran uh and we went through the conflict with Iran, then we went through Desert Shield, Desert Storm. When all that was done, um they retired the DC eight.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Got it.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

And they put us back in the DC nine. We shrank. Pilot group was to your question, we were 280 pilots. Really? Yeah. I mean, when I got hired, we were big. Uh in 1984, they had a hundred inter island pilots. They started hiring in 1984 through July of 1987. I was number 381 out of 382, and they stopped hiring. The guy below me in my class was a uh nepotist at United. So within the year, his dad pulled him over and he went to United. So I'm like that cat hanging in the tree in that 1970s poster of like hang in there, baby. You know?

SPEAKER_01 30:33

You know, every train needs a booth, right? Exactly. Every ship needs its anchor, right? So I mean you kind of rooted, you were that kind of structure for the air for the uh pilot group then. Well, I was somebody had to bring up the rear. It's kind of like first class, just the opposite side. Right. Um, so then we're gonna trunk.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Yeah, so we we had our first bankruptcy of 1992. Was this war, oil, all that stuff kind of exactly, all of it. And um So you get furloughed. Yes. I go back to San Francisco where my family was. Okay. And um I get hired at that point by Reno.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Are are they a 737 operator that eventually merged with Southwest?

SPEAKER_00 31:15

We were DC Nines. Oh, okay. Going up and down the coast. DC Nines. And I thought, I really don't want to fly DC Nines, but I gotta feed the family, and unemployment's gonna run out. Um so I was on my way to Reno, and the assistant chief pilot calls and he says, Bad news. That slot that we got down in Santa Ana, we lost the slot, we're not gonna get the airplane, we're not gonna have the class, we're gonna put you back in the pool. Sorry, we'll call you later. I'm like, oof. So uh I go back home and explain that one to my wife, and she's pulling her hair out because she hates this airline life, you know, uh of the family who was in San Francisco and I was commuting to Honolulu while running the crash pad. Um a friend of mine called, who was one of the engineers, the DC engineers, who had been flying for an aircraft ferry friend. Um they were flying 737s all over the planet. And he was an American airline, he was actually an America West pilot who was a first officer who had started his own aircraft ferry business. And uh this Hawaiian pilot called and goes, Hey, um, this friend of mine has taken a 737 from Oklahoma City to Singapore. Really nice guy, and if why don't you just go to Oak City and meet him and fly with him? And you know, if if it doesn't work out, he'll pay you and you just walk away. And I thought, and my wife's over there. You're doing this. I said, okay. And it's international, and I thought, okay, I can do that. So I flew down to Oak City, I met up with this character, and he's a super great guy. Uh as a matter of fact, I think he's one of the base chief pilots over at American Airlines as we speak. He handed me the 737 book. And I've been flying the DC9, right? So I looked at the 737 book and I had one night to kind of go over the limitations and learn a little bit about it. And what, you know, starting the EPU on that airplane versus the DC9, it's it's pretty much the same on every airplane. Um so a couple days later, uh, we actually flew this airplane that was out of maintenance that had been repoed somewhere, and then we're gonna fly it over to San Jose, and then eventually it was gonna go over to Singapore Aerospace. So we laughed and Googled our way all the way over to San Jose, and he goes, What do you think? You know, do you want to do this? And I said, I think this would be fantastic. It's a great opportunity. So the longest uh stretch, obviously, for the 737-200, no ferry tanks, was out to Honolulu, you know, and I didn't know anything about ETOPs really in a two-engine airplane. So that was a learning experience. Um the next one was we went down from Honolulu to Majuro, and then from Majoro all the way to Singapore. And I kept trying to tell him, is there any way we can stop in the PI and get some gas? Because when I'm running all these calculations over here, he goes, eh, we're gonna be fine, right? And I'm watching the weather move into Changgy Airport over in Singapore, and uh, you know, our alternate is like six feet away from Changgy, and I'm like, this is not good, and we're gonna get engulfed in this storm and our fuel's down on almost empty. And he goes, Ah, we're gonna be fine. And when we push the airplane over to descend, we got the aft pump lights in the 7-3. And uh when we got there, I looked over at him and I said, I'm really glad we made it. But if you want me to do this again, I'm smart enough to know that you're gonna stop in the PI because I don't want to pay the pesos. I go, well then find somebody else, you know. So from that point forward, we actually did from the other airplanes that we ferried.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

Um but it was really uh uh it was fun, it was exciting, it was different, it was challenging to do that kind of flying. And then um eight months later, um it's one of these weird stories. You know, I had interviewed at Evergreen, I got hired at Evergreen, I got a letter in the general mail, here's your class data at Evergreen, and I'm like, oh, groovy. And then the ferry uh captain said, I want you to go to 7-3 school and I want you to get your 7-3 type so you can do this on your own. I'm like, okay. Um two hours later, there's a knock at the door, and it was the postman. He goes, Here's a postmark letter uh from uh Hawaiian Airlines, you're recalled.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

So you got recalled after eight months? After eight months. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

And then as I'm looking at the recall letter, the phone rings, and it's uh uh the assistant chief pilot at Reno Airlines. We got the slot, we got the airplane, can you be here? So, in a period of two hours, after eight months, you have these three things laying in front of you, you know. And um I start shivering, and my wife's like, What's the matter with you? You know. Um I said, I I I don't know where to go, I don't know what to do here. And um we kind of talked it over and decided you have a seniority number at Hawaiian Airlines, you have part of a retirement already in Hawaiian Airlines. Um, you know, they have a worldwide operation flying around with the DC tens nowadays, so if you want to do that. So I went back to Hawaiian. So there was the second time that was Yeah, kind of this fork in the road.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Yeah, exactly. You had to choose to choose. Yeah. And they had been around Hawaiian, what, founded like in 2020?

SPEAKER_00 35:40

1929.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

They've got that going for them, right? Like they've they have that longevity where maybe like a Reno Air or Evergreen doesn't have that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Similar to Alaska. I mean, they've been to that same road. It's what a long road that's been.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

Not that that guarantees you that you're ever gonna in this business at all. Yeah. So you get recalled back to the DC nine? Yes. Okay. First officer.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Excuse me. I get recalled back to the DC 10 engineer position. Oh, okay. So I went through the program there and then spent another five years in the backseat of a DC 10. I am the proud owner of 8,700 hours of engineer time at Hawaiian Airlines. I can rotate a knob, flip a switch, chase down a drop of anything wet or a spurious signal better than anybody you know.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Fill up coffee. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Because when things went wrong as a captain with a three-pilot crew, there was a bang and something happened. They'd go, why? Right. You know, and you're back there doing this, trying to figure out why and opening panels and pulling breakers and doing whatever you had to do, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:40

Was it a fairly easy switch then after spending that much time on the panel to go up to be a first officer and a captain?

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Uh getting back into the flying thing was tough. Um You know, I think somewhere along the way, um we all who do this job, you gotta have some talent to fly, right? If you're 100% talented to fly, but your bookwork is horrible, you make a horrible pilot. If you're incredibly smart but you can't fly, you make a horrible pilot. So somewhere in the you gotta come over in that 80% in the middle, right? A combination of. And so I I think I feel blessed, lucky enough that like driving a car, I I had enough talent to get back up in the front and not have too much trouble. Um I made all the mistakes that people usually do after not flying for 10 years with a small break in between. And uh somehow got through the program and really enjoyed it, right? Um because again, we're going, we're doing a bunch of international stuff as well as domestic. Uh so it was fun. So uh once we got through the DC-10s and got those retired, we got a bunch of 767s. And now we went from that three-pilot crew to the two-pilot crew, and they were such a wonderful airplane. You know, the DC-10, it was like a tank. It would do anything, it would go anywhere. Um, if you kind of look back on the history of it, you know, here was this beautiful L1011 made by McDonnell Douglas. It was so far ahead of its time, it was fast, it was elegant. You know, the lines just look really nice, you know, and the McDonnell Douglas was falling behind, looking around with all their guys with the glasses on in there, trying to write all this out. And they went, this is great. The DC 10 was supposed to be a two-pilot airplane or two two-engine airplane, right? And then they figured out that that it needs to compete with the L10, so they went, hmm, we need an engine. Throw one up there, ah, we'll put it on the tail, right? But in order to get it up on the tail, now we need oh, how are we gonna get the fluids up there? Ah, pumps. We need lots of pumps, so we need reversible, non-reversible pumps. It was a mess, right? So trying to teach people how to pre-flight a DC-10 with all this, but it would go anywhere, it was heavy, you could go like this, and it would very gently take its time. And energy management became a real thing with that great big lumbering airplane. She was a real sweetheart once you learned how to do it. So moving into the 7-6, it was a hot rod. Um you'd put the power to that, it would go zinging down that runway, it would climb right up to the higher 30s, and the power would come way back and it would just loaf along at about 8.0, 8.2, and it would just stay up there for hours and hours and hours, effortlessly, right? And it would land beautifully. It wasn't like a DC 10, which also landed nicely, but took a little bit more of a trick. So that was really fun. Um, I was nothing more than uh just an international fam captain at that point. Which is which is which is what? It's not it's not a Czech airman, it's not necessarily an instructor. It was just a line captain where they would put new people uh initially in a jump seat to go with you to see international operations, and then they finally figured out it was too costly to keep them in the jump seat, so we're gonna put them in the right seat with you. They'll be qualified pilots, but they're right out of IOE, and we're gonna pay you a little bit more and have you kind of teach them the ropes. And so I spent a portion of my uh time in the airplane as one of those international fam captains, which was really fun.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

Didn't we go from the 7-6 to the A330? Yes. Oh, you did? Yes. Captain to captain C or instructor to instructor.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Uh I went from captain to captain. Yep. And then flew for um several years uh as uh a captain and still doing the international fam flying, and then was finally interviewed and inducted into the training department as an instructor in the 330.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

How was that switch going from Boeing with yoke control column to the side stick and kind of the hands-off? How did how did you manage that going going through it?

SPEAKER_00 40:31

You know, tactile, it it was uh it was just off the radar. It's like how how do you do that? You know? It's uh how does this thing work? What do you what do you do here? You know, how much do you touch it? How much do you uh because uh it just it didn't seem natural at the time. Um after about a year, you you kind of really get the hang of that thing. Um you know, landing was just a it was really nice. You had to learn how to manipulate the airplane. It was just finger touches, you know. If you grab onto this thing just like grabbing onto a yoke somewhere, you're gonna overcontrol it. So it was all about finger touches. Uh and the less you touch it, the better it flies, right? So uh uh little concepts like uh in every other airplane you've flown in a crosswind landing, you get down somewhere near a flare, you kick a rudder, you drop a wing, you add a little bit of power to overcome the drag, and you touch that upwind wheel down and you do one of those, right? And the Airbus, not so much. I mean, you come down, you get into the flare, you're in a crab, and you kick the rudder and just don't let the upwind wing come up. So that's a little backwards, right? And you end up landing, catching the upwind wheel, and just kind of letting it weather vane right into it. So um that took some time to learn how to do that. Um now we're transitioning back out to the 787. So now I have a whole bunch of aircraft operators that are coming in, and we have to turn them into a pilot again because the Boeing will allow you to do things that the Airbus won't allow you to do in the normal law uh situations. So uh and so it's been a transition back to this again. You know, again, the uh uh the the 767 was 30 pounds ago, so the distance from here to the control was a lot smaller. And so where where does the meal go now? Not really sure, you know. So I do miss the table. Yeah. Um it was a uh the Airbus was a very comfortable airplane, it was quiet.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

What do you do when you're flying to an airport that you've never been to? Like what is your prep for that?

SPEAKER_00 42:24

There's a lot of reading. There's a lot of study, uh, there's a lot of collaboration between uh pilots and instructors. Um we go through all the flight deck pro reference pages. Uh we will go through some of the local documents to the the airport that itself. Every reference page, every note, look at every star, uh, every approach plate, every SID, read every note. I'm a huge notes guy because when you start flying internationally, um, though the chartology with JEP looks the same, it's not. There's a whole they hide a lot of things in there that are very different.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

I want to ask you a little bit about merger, and because we've just kind of kind of kind of gone through that. How have you personally kind of processed that whole merger announcement? And I mean, here you are now the last nine months of your flying. You've been with the airline for 39 years, and now we're colleagues. Yeah. We work for the same airline now. Yeah. How how have you personally gone through all that?

SPEAKER_00 43:22

It's a lot to take in. Um there's always gonna be a little bit of stress and strain just because there's a lot of change. There's a book I read many years ago. It's called Who Moved My Cheese, right? And damn it, somebody's moved my cheese, you know, in my last year of flying, which I just think is riotous. Um one of my favorite sayings is I read the book and I look up and I go, we're gonna do what? You know, and we're gonna change it to how? You know, okay, so it but that's kind of the nature of the beast. Uh even going back to something as simple as like the DC 10 FCOM, they'd been flying this airplane for 40 years, but yet there were still revisions in the FCOM. What Could you possibly change after 40 years, right? Well, the lucky thing is we have kind of sort of a similar mentality between these two carriers. If there were two carriers that were really meant to match up because of the local root behavior, uh, the beginnings of of Alaska and the local roots with Hawaiian, I think we we all understand history, we all appreciate the history. Um I think we're all feeling fortunate that we have these jobs. Hawaiian is going to meld into this expanding root structure. There will be more opportunities for our pilots. So though there have been stumbling blocks along the way, I think it has led me into staying with Hawaiian Airlines, which I ended up being a captain a lot earlier than my colleagues, though I did not I did not graduate and check that box and get on with American United or Delta. Um I've been able to do a lot more international flying. I've flown the big airplanes, I've been able to teach, and um quite frankly, just been feeling, you know, every pilot at Hawaiian, every employee at Hawaiian was kind of a big fish in a small pond. Everybody had a really big part, right? And though the pond has gotten bigger, um, I still think that there's the opportunity to affect change, you know, in what we're doing, and even something as simple as what we're doing today, right? It's helping set a standard to go forward in where this carrier as a we are now gonna go.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

Uh so anyway.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Well, we got to fly to Scotland together, which was a hoot, which is a total hoot. Uh working on some training stuff. You were getting some pilots checked out. I was doing some filming for some of our um training products out there. What I noticed about you and what really kind of stood out was your passion for instructing. Because here I was watching you, and I'm like, this guy's in this last. No one would question him if he just said, you know what, I'm good. I've been doing it for 39 years for the last eight, eight months. I'm just gonna go fly the line. But you were actively engaged in that process, um, challenging, instructing, pushing, trying to meld this training product for the 787 pilots to be the best that I possibly could. What still drives you to do that even at the very end of your flying career here?

SPEAKER_00 46:18

Well, anybody who knows me, and as I'm sure you've figured out at this point, I love to hear myself talk. So I'm gonna talk whether I get paid or not, right? So I might as well get paid for it. Um, you know, the thing of it is that um I I feel like I've been doing it so long now, and it's so rewarding for me. It's not about the money, it's not about anything other than the fact that I I remember being that younger junior pilot learning with these mentors that would explain things. I would just go, that's really cool. I'll never forget that. Um whether I will ever attain that to anybody, I don't know. But what I do love to see is the light bulb go on during training. And they go from struggling to, oh, that makes sense, and then they perform it and they walk out and they go, that was awesome. I I'm so happy we got to do that. I go home that night and I have myself a nice little meal and a nice glass of wine and they go, today was success a successful day. Same thing in the airplane. When they finally go, Oh my god, I can actually land the airplane, I go, see, it wasn't that bad. Um so when those light bulbs go on, it gives me a lot of warmth on the inside to know that you can be somewhat of a guiding light to somebody. And we have so many really talented people on both sides of the fence that have this passion and the drive. It has provided opportunities such as our Scotland trip, meeting new people. Um I learned a lot from everybody who was on board that day of uh some great input from you and Dave and Nick, which I value uh greatly. And uh the people that are flying with, you know, we had Keenan on board, we had Mark Naval, who who leads the charge in our training department, uh who's just an amazing man who never sleeps, by the way. Now I did have dinner with Mark last night um and uh you know the head of training, and I said February and March of next year, those my last 45 days, I'm gonna call it quits, and I'm just gonna sail on about my business and uh just kind of enjoy it at that point. And I hope my last trip will be Rome, because that's such a cool trip, you know. Or where of, I don't know. You don't even know where we're gonna be going. We're not even going, yeah. So who knows what the opportunities are gonna present between now and then? You know, it sounds like there's some other stuff on the plate. Of course, we're always the last to know. They just say, by the way, you're gonna take this airplane to there and it's gonna happen next Tuesday, and we're like, we're gonna do what?

SPEAKER_01 48:38

You're like that kid back in uh the DC8, gonna go, well, where's that exactly? I think you'll probably know where these places are, though. Um what do you think that your feelings will be on your last flight?

SPEAKER_00 48:48

You know, Brandon, I I gotta be honest. Um it's gonna be elation. I think it has been a fairy tale career. If I can end my career on um the fact that we've never been in an airplane, landed at a wrong airport, we've never hurt anybody, uh, we've transported, you know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people, uh if not millions over the years, you know. Um I just feel gratitude. And um I I have things outside of the airline that I really want to do. I've there's a whole chapter in my life that I've missed because I've I've I've dedicated myself to this job. And um I will say, for the people that are watching this, that you just gotta keep your nose to the grindstone. You know, you just don't take no for an answer. You just gotta keep and you just gotta volunteer and you gotta get out of that comfort zone. And just because you don't know it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, you know. So when you take on a union position or you take on a teaching position, you will learn it. I mean, if you dedicate the time. So the harder you work. So I'm a product of I've just kept my focus, I've kept my nose to the grindstone, I've tried to stay out of trouble for the most part, and just get here, right? Now, there has been some collateral damage along the way. You know, I I talked to my kids, I've got uh adult 31-year-old girl twins, and I asked them along the way, would you ever want to fly? And they said, No. And I said, Well, why don't you want to fly? It's such an amazing career. And they said, Dad, you were never home. I said, But I was. I commuted home, and when I was home, I was home home. I would be home for 10 days at a time or 12 days at a time. But dad, you missed the birthdays and the parties and the celebrations and the this, that, and the other. And now they're adults, they look back and and um they understand a little bit more. Um, but I've got a lot of catching up to do with that side of the the the family side of it. Um thankfully they're vol they're very receptive to all that. Um there's some been some relationship failures along the way, too, that they just couldn't take it anymore, which I don't blame them. Commuter relationships are very difficult. Um and uh interestingly enough, I found another passion, which is the riding big touring motorcycles. And that actually came about because back in 2010 we were doing some insurance negotiations and the little gal actuary, it was for the for ALPA on property, and the little actuary gal said, you know, all you people are scheduled to die two years after retire. And I went, Whoa, gal girl, you said a whole lot of stuff in that one sentence. Can we talk about who is all you people? And she said, Anyone who throws their circadian rhythm to the wind, you know, for 10, 20, 30, 40 years, um uh emergency surgeons, trauma ER folks, uh you got firemen, you got policemen, you got flight attendants, you got pilots. Um we have all the data. You're gonna die two years after retire. And I'm like, uh how do you mitigate that? And she said, get a hobby. And that was the light bulb for me. That one conversation was, you know, I've always wanted to ride around the country on a big motorcycle. I thought I think that would be really fun. You know, bugs in the teeth and sweating and everything that goes with it, right? Maybe even become a writing instructor would be kind of fun, right? Yeah. So why stop talking?

SPEAKER_01 51:58

Never stop talking. Uh-oh. Battery's dead. Too much talking. Thank you so much. Thank you, Brandon. Appreciate you. And thank you everyone for checking out the podcast. And uh until next time, take care.