The Master of One

Doyle Grout was my co-captain on Twin Beech N5854C. It felt good to get back in Texas and assigned to a Twin Beech with Doyle. He had been Jim Sneed's co-pilot at first, and then his co-captain, just before being transferred to Houston from Denver. Because we had learned most of what we knew about executive flying from the same person, I knew that we would be able to work together real well. That certainly proved to be the case.

We spent every Monday night in New Orleans and both enjoyed the good Cajun food available there. We also enjoyed going to the French Quarter and watching and listening to Al Hurt and Pete Fountain at the Bateau Lounge on Bourbon Street. The music was loud, but solid "Dixieland". On one occasion we took Lois and Doyle's wife, Donna, with us and ate at Arnaud's Restaurant. Even though Lois did not like to fly, she enjoyed the trip, the food, and getting out of Houston for at least one night.

When we first came to Houston, we had stayed in the Helena Motel until we rented a house in Genoa. We rented until we could find a house to buy. We found a house we could afford at 511 Roper St. in, Freeway Manor Subdivision, just out of the city limits of South Houston. Our payments would be forty-nine dollars a month, at four and one half- percent interest, for twenty-five years. It had three bedrooms, a single bath, and a single car garage with central heat, but no central air conditioning. We moved in, and Mother came to live with us.

One Friday evening we invited the Grout family to come over for broiled steaks. As usual we checked with the dispatcher in Tulsa before making any plans. He said we had nothing scheduled and he did not expect us to have any flights before Monday. Guess what; just as we put the steaks on the charcoal grill, the phone rang and the dispatcher said he had just received a call from Joe Kennedy, one of the vice presidents of Sinclair Oil and Gas, and Joe wanted to go somewhere, but Dean, the dispatcher, could not tell us where. Needless to say, that went over just like a lead balloon with both families.

When Doyle and I arrived at the airport fog had started to roll in from the Gulf. Since we had no idea where we were going or how many people would be going we delayed gassing the airplane until the passengers arrived. Too much gas and a full load of people would exceed the gross weight of the airplane, and should an engine fail or some emergency arise requiring an engine to be feathered, a crash could result. Besides, we did not know our destination yet and could not file a flight plan. A check of the weather showed low ceilings and poor visibility all along the Texas and Louisiana coasts, but it was clear in Dallas, El Paso, and Tulsa.

When Joe arrived, he was barely able to get out of the taxicab and into the airplane. He had been drinking heavily and was very upset because we were not ready to go. After calming him down, I learned he wanted to go to Las Vegas, Nevada. I called the gas truck while Doyle filed an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan to El Paso, the first planned stop. With only one passenger we could fill all the tanks without being over loaded.

A thorough ground check and engine run up at the end of the runway showed everything to be normal as far as the airplane was concerned. I called the tower for clearance and they cleared us to the El Paso airport via Austin, San Angelo, and Midland, as filed. When we received clearance to take off, Doyle pulled into position on the runway, applied power, lifted off as we reached flying speed, and made a climbing left turn out of the traffic pattern. We were in the clouds by the time he had finished his one hundred and eighty degree turn and all we could see was the glow of the lights of Houston below us, the flames coming out the exhaust stacks, and the red and green lights on the wing tips. Everything seemed normal.

Suddenly, as we climbed through two thousand feet, a red light flashed on the instrument panel and the engine fire-warning bell began to ring loud and clear. By all indications the number two, or right engine, was on fire. We had left the cabin door open and Joe came staggering up to the cockpit and asked what all that noise was. Doyle told him to get back in his seat and put his seat belt on, we had an engine on fire. In the mean time I had called the Houston tower and declared an emergency and asked for landing instructions. They responded immediately advising me that they had us in radar contact and gave us a heading to fly to Runway 13 for a radar vectored landing. I looked the right engine over as best I could and could see no sign of a fire, but the light continued to flash and the bell continued to ring. The engine continued to give power and Doyle left it running. Doyle started his descent and shortly broke out of the clouds with the runway in sight. He made a smooth landing and we taxied back to our base at Business Aircraft with the bell still ringing in our ears.

Joe was cold sober by the time we got back to the hangar and had decided that he really didn't want to go to Las Vegas after all. A close examination of the wiring to the fire warning system on the right engine revealed a frayed wire, which was shorted out on the cowling. We had not had a fire after all. Unfortunately our steaks were cold when we got back to them, but we did not get a call for another trip that weekend.

We were kept busy flying and maintaining the Twin Beech. All of Sinclair's pilots were required to have Airframe and Engine Mechanic Licenses, and we did all of the maintenance required on the airplane we were assigned to. If we did not have a trip, we were required to spend at least eight hours at the shop either working on our airplane, or preparing for our next flight. We would take the airplane to Tulsa sometimes for major repair and annual inspections, but most of the repair was done at our home base.

Doyle and I flew an employee and his wife to Philadelphia one day and dropped them off. We had to leave early in the morning and Doyle was not feeling well when we started back home. Since we had no passengers, he asked me if I minded him going back into the cabin and taking a nap on the couch. I agreed and about thirty minutes later ran into instrument conditions and had to file an instrument flight plan. When I was asked to switch my radio to the Indianapolis Air Traffic Control Center frequency, and reported my position to them, they advised me there were icing conditions reported at my altitude ahead and asked me to report any ice I encountered. A few minutes later ice started to build on the leading edge of the wings and radio antenna visible from the cockpit. I reported the conditions to the center and they cleared me to a lower altitude. Rather than reduce power and air speed to descend, I rolled the trim tab forward and let the airplane build up air speed as I descended at about five hundred feet per minute. Just as I reached an indicated air speed of two hundred miles per hour, a chunk of ice broke loose from the antenna and skipped along the top of the fuselage making a terrible noise. At that same moment, the propellers shed some ice against the sides of the cabin. Poor Doyle was awakened to all this noise, looked out the window and could not see anything but clouds, and came running to the cockpit to see the air speed over two hundred miles per hour. When he had l aid down there was not a cloud to be seen anywhere. He stayed awake the rest of the way home; he said he just wasn't sleepy any more.

Mother became weaker by the day and took on an ashen look and then began to turn yellow indicating the cancer had spread to her liver. We knew the end was drawing close. Lois was at her side day and night. I got permission to stay at home when we did not have a trip scheduled, and spent as much time with her as I could. Dr. McKinley brought morphine and some needles to the house, showed me how to give her shots, and left them with me to administer the shots. In her final hours she lapsed into a very merciful coma, and finally just stopped breathing.

I looked at the clock in hall when Aunt Lillie Gazzaway came out of Mother's room and told me she was dead. It was ten minutes after eight in the evening of November 27, 1958 - Thanksgiving Day. We called Dr. McKinley and he had a funeral home come and take her body for transfer to Groesbeck where the funeral would be held. Loraine was next door at the Vickery's and I went to get her. I told her that her Grandmother, that she loved so much had gone to be with God, but she did not understand until she opened the door to her Grandmother's room and saw the empty bed. I will never forget her scream when she realized what had happened. She was five years old and would remember very little about Grandma Gazzaway when she grew up.

None of us slept well that night in spite of the fact that the doctor had given us all sleeping pills. I did not notice that the clock did not strike. After we had been up for a while the next morning I looked at the clock and it showed ten minutes after eight; I realized it was stopped. I remembered then about my mother telling me how that it had stopped at the exact minute her father had died. It had been Grandpa Jordan's clock and it had been fully wound when he died and again when Mother died. It is on the wall in our den now, and runs when we want it to.

We laid Mother to rest in the Thornton Cemetery next to Daddy. Grandpa and Grandma Gazzaway, Uncle Henry and Aunt Mattie and their daughter, Willie Mae Gazzaway rests nearby. They are just to the right of the west entrance to the cemetery and have, at their heads, monuments with their names, date of birth, and date of death inscribed in the marble.

Although I did not always take heed to her council, I miss my mother even to this day, twenty-eight years after her death. I miss her ever present love, care, affection, encouragement, and wise council. I miss her fellowship and friendship. She inspired me to set my sights on a star and told me, "If you shoot for a star and get only half way there, you will be much farther along than if you aim at something lower, and only get half way." Her attitude was always positive, her role always honest, and her loyalty sure. I miss her.

Larry Ryan was transferred to Houston to fly with me when Doyle quit Sinclair and took a pilot position with Brinkerhoff Oil Co. in Denver. I only saw Doyle once after he left Houston, and was shocked to hear a few years later, he had died in his sleep at a motel in Wyoming while on a trip for his company. He was forty-three years old when he died.

Larry was an Irish Catholic and lived life to its fullest. He loved good food and cold beer, both of which were plentiful in New Orleans, where we still spent each Monday night. Pitarri's on South Claiborne Street had an extra fine salad, topped with chopped ham, shredded chicken, and blue cheese. We went there often for the salad and seafood, which was the specialty of the house. We were there on a Friday night this one particular time and when they brought the salad out Larry started eating the ham on top. I asked, "Isn't this Friday, Larry, and aren't you Catholic?" He shoved the salad away and glaring at me said, "Meddlesome Methodist, I could have eaten it and gotten away with it if you hadn't told me it was Friday."

I have always believed that any job worth doing is worth doing well. I also believe if you are going to do a good job you need to know all you possibly can about what you are doing. Because of these convictions, I began studying for an Airline Transport Pilot License. An ATR, as it is called, is in aviation what a doctorate is in education. The title it carries is Captain.

I took the written part of the examination and made ninety six percent. I considered that to be the hard part, but started to get all the instrument practice and actual instrument experience I could, in preparation for the flight test. Thanks to Larry Ryan, Jim Sneed, and Howard Bradley, I learned all of the flight procedures I would need to know and practiced them to absolute perfection.

It was a beautiful day when I took my flight test and everything fell into place. I could not believe I did not blow one single element of it. When we returned to the FAA office, the examiner told his boss, "Meet Captain Gazzaway"; I had passed. Chief Pilot Lacy with Sinclair was not pleased, he told me that I had made all the other pilots look bad. He told me he would never fly with me because he was not going to be second in command to anyone he flew with. If he had, he would have been, because the highest rated pilot aboard is in command of the airplane.

Larry and Nattalie bought an old house at Brookside, just west of Pearland and remodeled it. They spent long hours and put lots of hard work into fixing up the old place. It was beautiful when they finished it and of course Sinclair transferred them just as they completed the job. They never really had a chance to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

When Larry and I were told that we were going to be transferred to New Orleans, I started looking at housing there and found out that everything was much higher than in Houston. We would not be able to buy a house there and I was told that I would not get a pay increase with the move. That was the straw that broke the camel's back; I resigned. Joe Lacy, the Chief Pilot, told me I should have stayed on for at least three more years so that I could have gotten a three-week vacation each year, as if that were any great incentive to stay.

I had been doing some charter flying for Business Aircraft and Marvin DeWoody, the general manager, offered me the chief pilot job with them. The company belonged to Lyndon Johnson, John Meacom, Monte Carbone, and Pat Corley. I accepted.

I felt that if I were ever to be the master of a trade, I had achieved that goal. I had shot for a star and reached at least half way.