oral history transcript: Captain John W. Minor, Jr.

 

Interview conducted by Mauree Jane Perry on March 19, 1999. This interview describes Captain John Minor’s career as a co-pilot, pilot, and check pilot with Pan American World Airways from 1941 until his retirement in 1979; his training in the Army Air Corps at Randolph and Kelly Airfields and from Pan American; instrument and navigation training; mechanic’s school; flying the Sikorsky S-42, S-40, S-38, Consolidated PB2Y-3, Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, 707, 747, Douglas DC-3, DC-4, and DC-7, Lockheed Constellation; detailed descriptions of flight operations on some aircraft; Latin American Division routes from Miami to Havana, Barranquilla (Colombia), Belem (Brazil), Panama, New Orleans, and Guatemala; Atlantic Division routes from New York to Bermuda, the Azores, Casablanca, San Juan, Caracas, Trinidad, London, Rome, and Paris; Pacific Division routes from San Francisco to Honolulu, Sydney, Auckland, Bangkok, Manila, Tokyo, Wake Island, Fiji, Guatemala, and Panama; Paris to Casablanca, Rome, Cairo, Calcutta, and Habaniya (Iraq); and the round-the-world routes; Treasure Island terminal 1942 to 1944; transfer to Mills Field Airport (now San Francisco International Airport / SFO); description of the terminal buildings in both places; Air Line Pilots’ Association (ALPA) Union Chairman 1958-1959 and 1973-1974; revision of the pilot seniority system in 1946, the “ocean” and “coastwise” divisions among pilots, and the relationship between ALPA and the operations teams in San Francisco and New York; changes at Pan American through his career, introduction of female flight attendants in the 1940s, and the end of the company’s cargo business.

https://collection.sfomuseum.org/objects/1746755627/

https://collection.sfomuseum.org/objects/1746755627/qr/