Wow, 50 years! Seems like yesterday. I left high school without a plan. Thought I wanted to be a musician and played at the Petroleum Club for a while with Karen Knott's (class of '61) dad and other gigs in OKC along with Johnny Johnson. It was fun but Vietnam had other ideas, which forced me to make a decision. I joined the Oklahoma Air Guard and was given an opportunity to become a pilot. Flying was my deepest desire but did not know how to get there but God showed me the way. I'd always dreamed of flying, that's why I was a diver on the NWC swimming team.
Since finishing pilot training I've logged over 18,000 hours of flying Air Force trainers, cargo aircraft (C97 and C124) Oklahoma City Air Guard, single seat fighters (F100 and A7 Corsairs) in the Tulsa Air Guard and a nice career with American Airlines where I flew Super 80, MD11, Boeing 757 and 767.
I've often said the government in their infinite wisdom had declared that at the age of 60 I could no longer fly the public and the common folk, but that I was only capable of flying the rich and the famous. Well, I now fly the rich and the famous and my current aircraft is the Lear 40 and the Lear 45.
I've been asked many times, mainly by my co-pilots, when I will retire? My answer: “ When the honey do list goes away, and I no longer enjoy flying.” Step aside Yeager I plan to beat your record.
I retired from American Airlines in August of 2001 just 30 days before 911. Just prior to my retirement I had commanded the flight from Boston to Los Angeles, the first plane to hit the towers. One of my flight attendants was on that ill-fated aircraft.
While in Air Force pilot training I got more than my wings. I met my wife of 41 years, and God gave us three wonderful children. Our first-born suffered from cerebral palsy and we lost him at age seven. There is a cerebral palsy center in Muskogee, Ok that bears his name “The Kelly B. Todd Cerebral Palsy Center”. Our other children , Valerie, lives in Seattle with our two wonderful grandchildren, and Waring lives in Tulsa.