Jim Bair and flying

Jim started dreaming of flying Air Force fighters as a small child but his flying then was limited to kites and model airplanes.  In 1971 he started his aviation career by taking AFROTC in college.  The Air Force offered tuition and expense money and the opportunity to obtain 25 hours of training toward a Private License in the student's senior year.  Pilot training was to begin soon after college but when he graduated in 1975 he got his first life lesson in cyclical economics.  The Viet Nam war was just over, the Arab oil embargo had pushed fuel prices to new highs, and the airlines were laying off pilots.  The Air Force did not need new pilots, so he did the next best thing and moved to Las Vegas to start a glamorous career pushing a lawn mower and trying not to cut off sprinkler heads by accident.  This short career as a gardener was followed by an even shorter one scrubbing out test tubes in a Dept of Agriculture lab for a few weeks before moving on to selling insurance door to door.  (Asking a girl to dance and facing the always possible "No" would never seem like a big deal again after this experience.)

        
(Skydiving photos from around 1975.  Jim is in the middle.)

  When it was discovered that the Navy was now hiring pilots again he jumped at the second chance to fly military airplanes.  It had been a great year skydiving with friends, but he signed up immediately and went to Aviation Officer Candidate School in June of 1976.  (For any who have seen the movie "An Officer and a Gentleman" starring Richard Gere, that's AOCS, after you delete Debra Winger and the rest of the Hollywood depicted social life, of course.  They did, however, get the yelling and PT depicted pretty well.)

           
(From long haired free spirit skydiver to really stylin' boxers and folding a uniform overnight.)

By that fall he was flying a T-28 in Whiting Field, FL

(The Navy used the T-28 instead of the T-34 for a short time.)

and by early 1977 he was enroute to Kingsville, TX for jet training. 

(The T-2 Buckeye.  The Navy primary jet trainer.)

He received his Navy wings in January of 1978 and moved back to Florida to learn to fly the A-7 Corsair. 

He was assigned to Attack Squadron 66 and flew off of the USS Dwight D Eisenhower (CVN-69) for the next 3 years making deployments to the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and the North Atlantic

(The view rolling out on final)

and became the first pilot to make 400 landings (around 150 of which were at night) on the "Ike", his only claim to fame in the Navy, earning him a patch and a cake to share with his squadron mates.   (In the Navy, every spectacular event such as this was celebrated with a cake.  With luck, someone in the squadron would have some cake deserving event every week.  Promotions, for example, earned a cake, and more importantly, a pay raise.) 

Operating from an aircraft carrier was a very demanding and unforgiving environment and a great experience.   In the Naval Aviation environment, somewhat spectacular events occurred often enough to provide a moment of excitement for the pilot involved and an "opportunity to learn something" for all the other pilots on board.   Having the opportunity to witness some of these events from close up made it immediately obvious that being a witness to an event was much preferable to being the star * of an event.   Some of the lessons learned by having the opportunity to operate in this environment of a very small and crowded airfield and watch thousands of landings would influence his philosophy on aviation and aeronautical decision making (go around, or not go around, for example.  PS.  The videos are not Jim.  They just provided the opportunity to learn from others.) for the rest of his life.     

*Note to self:  As a pilot, you really don't want to make the 6 o'clock news.  They never choose pilots who have had average, successful flights for the lead story. 

After his sea duty tour was over he moved back to Texas to instruct in the TA-4 for his final year in the Navy. 

In the fall of 1982 his 6 year commitment to the Navy was finished and he left to fly for the Air National Guard and pursue a career with the airlines. 

Once again, his timing was a bit off and he discovered that the country was in a recession and all the airlines had pilots laid off.  (*Note: This seems to be a recurring theme in this industry.)  After 18 months working as a part time pilot with the Des Moines Air National Guard he found a job in Great Falls, MT flying the F-106 as an alert pilot.  (*Note: Alert pilots have a better bunk setup than Navy pilots living on an aircraft carrier.)

In 1987 the squadron converted to the F-16 and by 1991 acquired a C-26 which he flew as well.  During this time he fulfilled his dream of buying some land and building a runway, hangar, and a house.  In attempting to make grass grow on a runway in a dry climate like Montana, he was reminded of his earlier stint as a gardener in Las Vegas, however this time there were no sprinkler heads to mow off. 

In 1992 he finally decided it was time to try the airlines again and was hired by United Airlines.  He started as a second officer in a 727 where he was reminded by the rest of the crew that there were only 2 seats in the 727 that pointed sideways, and the other one was the toilet.  He moved up to first officer on the 727 a couple of years later and enjoyed the view out the front much more.  The airline didn't mark such occasions with a cake, but provided a pay raise instead.  (Which is a great trade.)  By then, he was flying the C-26 and the F-16 as well as the 727 and living in Wisconsin and commuting back to Montana to work at the Guard.  This left very few days off so although it had been a great career and a great experience with some great guys and flying some great airplanes, it was finally time to stop flying the F-16.  It was 1996 and he had 20 years in the military and over 4000 hours in tactical jets. 

By 1997 he had been without an airplane of his own for a couple of years and was beginning to suffer withdrawal.  He  became interested in ultralight aviation and trikes in particular and after his first ride with Mike Blyth

(Mike Blyth with the Bair boys at Oshkosh 2003)

at Sun and Fun in 1998 he had to have one.  He loved the feel of flying a totally open machine and it provided a purer sense of truly flying than any other powered aircraft he had ever flown.  

(The DTA Voyageur II, the ultimate view from a flying machine.)

Around this time he upgraded to first officer on the Airbus 320 and found it to be fun to fly and somewhat like an overweight version of the F-16.  (OK, a really overweight version.)   By 2000 the opportunity to fly a larger airplane and the experience of international flying took him to the Boeing 777. 

   
(The 777 engine is the same diameter as a 737 fuselage, and the cockpit has more room to eat a meal than in the F16.)

Then in 2000 the downward part of the business cycle that seems to be a necessary part of life began and that combined with 9/11/01 gave him the opportunity to take some time off from work and finish an experimental homebuilt airplane he and his kids had started in the spring of 2001.  At the same time the AirCam (an incredible short take off and landing airplane powered by two Rotax 912S engines) was completed in the spring of 2002, things were stabilizing a bit with the airline and he was back to work again. 

In 2000 he finally finished the glider rating he started in 1977.  Some things take time. 

Unfortunately for his glider career, he started hang gliding about the same time and decided he could always go back to flying gliders when he was too old to land on his feet.  

   

             He's still flying hang gliders and ultralight trikes (now known as Light Sport Weight Shift Control Aircraft), and forever in search of a better bunk, he switched to the Boeing 747-400.

 

                                                 He's still enjoying the occasional loop and roll in a Super Decathlon,

   
(Matt, the fearless pilot, and his Dad, the terrified passenger.)

and has added a Robinson R22 to the inventory.

 

       

(This has provided a unique opportunity to scare the dog.  Yes, he looks calm, but in reality he more terrified than I am when I'm flying with Matt.)

       is active in his local EAA Chapter 1323 and is an active flight instructor, and an FAA Designated Pilot Examiner.