AIRWAYS INTERVIEW do it again , as I was struggling with managing the maintenance department . But I taxied the aircraft on a very important occasion , on the evening of the inaugural flight on January 21 , 1970 , sitting in the Captain ’ s seat .
This was a big event , they had a lot of dignitaries there — even Charles Lindbergh was there , nobody knew it , but he was on the flight . Just before the inaugural , our people in Seattle pushed for the second airplane to be delivered . About 12 hours before the intended departure of the inaugural flight , the second Pan Am 747 came into JFK from Seattle . That is what we call the cover airplane .
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It was December , it was windy , very cold , and there were some blowing flurries . We taxied back in late afternoon , with a cavalry of managers waiting for us at the hangar . As we were approaching , all of a sudden , an engine flamed out ; number three or four . There was black smoke coming from the exhaust in the back , we looked down , and the engine had stopped .
We pulled the fire extinguisher bottle . The fire alarm never went off because , as the fire was contained within the engine , nothing was burning outside , but melting inside it . We approached the hangar on three engines , eventually shutting them down .
Was it as bad as it sounds ? When we had a look at the flamed-out engine , the turbine with the blades had melted . And the certification flight was only going to be two days later ! We had a spare engine there , but we hadn ’ t thought we ’ d need to change a 747 engine for about two years to come .
But we then completed the engine change in about two days and , afterwards , taxied the aircraft out to the gate again , a mere six hours before the certification flight , which took place then as planned . And it went well , as the aircraft was certified .
After that , it flew around for a few weeks , also to Washington DC , to be christened by First Lady Patricia Nixon .
Did you keep taxiing 747s on the ground for some time ? No , just half a dozen times and , after that , I didn ’ t
And that proved to be of essential importance that night . Why ? When the first 747 turned back from its attempted takeoff full of passengers after an engine flameout , needing an engine change , we went back and picked up the second aircraft that had just come in on that day . Otherwise , there would have been no inaugural flight that night .
It was kind of a clandestine operation when we covertly stenciled the name of the original airplane , Clipper Young America , on the nose of the second aircraft , which was actually Clipper Victor . When I got back to the hangar , these guys had just finished applying that name .
I and my two associates were the only people in the world , apart from the Pilots , who had ever taxied a 747 . So we brought the new aircraft for the inaugural back to the gate at the Pan Am Worldport , taxiing this freaking nose right up to the edge of the building . I occasionally look back at that now and marvel at what we did then . It wasn ’ t towed , we taxied it under its own power . It was quite an event in aviation history .
Once production got under way , how many 747s did Pan Am get in the beginning ? In the first year of 747 operations , Boeing delivered a hundred of them , a number it never managed again in one year , and Pan Am received 25 of those . Everybody else only had a few . And then we had eight additional ones delivered the second year . At one point , we had about a third of all the 747s in the world .
Did you ever have doubts that Pan Am could pull this whole 747 thing off ? At my young age , and due to the fact Pan Am had ordered and invested in the aircraft , I never had a
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