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Selected articles from our TARPA TOPICS magazine are posted in this section. This article is from our July 2000 edition about Captain Ted Hereford.
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CAPTAIN
TED HEREFORD - A PILOT LEGEND! Captain
Ted Hereford, age 90, living in Sun City, California, and who today looks
no more than 70 at most, is believed to be the last of the original TWA
pilots still living. Born on Nov. 14, 1909, in Tucson, Arizona, then a
territory, he started his long airline pilot career with Western Air
Express on April 6, 1930, being hired by Jack Frye, a Vice-President with
WAE, which had Ted
soloed in a WWI Jenny with an OX5 90 h.p. engine in December 1925, in five
to six hours. He hadn't been interested in planes until visiting the
Tucson airport with a friend. He talked a passing barn-stormer, Charley
Mayse, with pilot license #352, into teaching him to fly. Lessons were $35
per hour, and he sold his motorcycle to help pay for them. After
logging 50 hours, he persuaded Mayse to hire him as an instructor. He had
decided to stay in Tucson, flying passengers and instructing. Later, Ted
ran a small flying school until joining WAE with approximately 1000 hours.
He got his mechanics license in 1927. Possessing that probably helped him
get his copilot job, Ted believes, since sometimes they were drafted for
emergency mechanical repair. Ted maintained a lifetime friendship with,
and respect for Frye, whom he met in 1928 in Los Angeles. He
sought a job with Standard but could not afford to pay $200 a month for
the copilot position, which was demanded, for the value of the "big
plane" experience! Bill Dowling, also later a WAIE and TWA pilot,
paid for the opportunity. Dowling
checked out as captain before Ted on WAE, although junior in employment,
because of experience gained on Standard and possibly because Ted was
younger. Ted became a Captain on April 20, 1931, barely age 21, just over
a year after employment. Seniority then was based on captain checkout, not
date of hire. Other
pilots Ted regarded highly, were airline pioneers Paul Richter, Walt
Hamilton, Lee Flanagan, John Coilings, Larry Fritz and Pat Gallup, all
pilots except Hamilton, who was a maintenance expert. Ted was also was a
close friend of Harlan Hull, who was chief pilot for TWA when he was
killed in a Boeing 307 (Stratoliner) crash on a test flight in the late
1930's. On
that catastrophic flight, Harlan was in the cockpit as an observer, when
one wing broke off from overstress. It had a stiff wing, and that was when
designers learned a wing had to be able to flex in rough air Ted met Hull
in1927, at an air show in Flagstarf, Arizona, and they later became close
buddies and handball opponents when both were with TWA. Hull
was one of three Navy pilots who performed at the Flagstarf airport
opening ceremonies. The airport was so ill sited near a mountain, it later
closed. Ted and Mayse were there to take up passengers for 10 minute local
flights. The cost was $10, but the downdrafts were so bad, they barely
managed one flight in their low powered craft. The Navy made it ok with
their more powerful fighters. Harlan
accused me of sometimes being contrary, Ted mentioned, when talking about
Hull. When I was 3 days short of 27, he called me to say I had better
behave from now on. The reason he gave was that most airlines no longer
employed any pilot who was 27 or older, so I would sure be out of luck now
if he fired me! Ted's
first trip as copilot on WAE (and they doubled as flight attendants) was
on a Fokker Tri-Motor, which is the only plane he flew on WALE. He said
copilots served the box meals and cleaned up the mess. They flew low then,
where the air was rough, and airsickness was very common! His all-time
favorite aircraft were the Ford Tri-motor, the Northrop Alpha & Delta,
and the Convair 880. His
last trip as captain was piloting an 880, on November 11, 1969, into San
Francisco, his final domicile. One of the flight attendants was his
daughter, Maria, based in LAX, who was especially assigned to the flight.
He obviously was surprised when greeted by a large group of pilots,
including Bill Townsend, retired SFO chief pilot, and being congratulated
enroute from Chicago by each ATC sector, which had been arranged with ATC.
His copilot revealed Ted was At
that time I was the SFO chief pilot and when he deplaned Hereford told me
that he had finally accepted that this flight marked his last time at the
controls of an airliner. He stepped off with a big smile, looking very
chipper. He was even wearing his hat, which a doctor told him years ago to
avoid, as it could cause him to lose his bountiful head of blond, wavy
hair! (See Bob Buck's Aviation
took a giant leap forward during the time frame encompassed by Captain
Hereford's distinguished flying career, which covered approximately 45
years! He logged over 30,000 hours on single-engines to jets, including
the DC-l, 2, and 3, and flew as captain for 38.5 years, very possibly a
record! Most persons think the DC-1 was never used on scheduled flights,
but Ted flew it several times when it was substituted for a DC-2. "It
wasn't very comfortable, so TWA He
was piloting a DC-2 during a blizzard on the route between Kansas City and
Wichita one stormy winter night in the mid thirties, when the nose cone
and propeller suddenly flew off the right engine. The cone had shattered,
and an intense fire flared up. The extinguisher quickly smothered the
blaze, and they landed safely at Wichita during a heavy snow after a range
approach. Following an exhaustive search, the non-feathering, two position
prop wasn't found The
CAA originally, in spite of Ted's description of events, insisted to
Operations Vice-President Paul Richter, which he never believed, that
Captain Hereford must have been flying too close to the ground in order to
stay under the overcast, and hit something to knock off the prop, since it
was an uncommon failure. It was a ridiculous theory, and not long after
Ted's experience, a DC-2 lost a prop in the same manner at Pittsburgh
right after touchdown. After It
is surprising that Ted chose to be a pilot. His father, at age 21, was a
deputy sheriff in Pima County, and lived in Tombstone, Arizona. He went on
to become a leading lawyer who declined nomination for governor, and had
the honorary title of Chancellor of the University of Arizona, before his
death at age 67. Ted's grandfather, Ben Hereford, was equally well known.
He was Considering
the accomplishment of his illustrious forefathers, TWA and the piloting
profession are fortunate that he chose airplanes. He was never interested
in a desk job. His long time employer, Transcontinental and Western Air,
called TWA from the start, was formed on October 1, 1930, through a merger
of Western Air Express, T.A.T. Maddux, and Pittsburgh Aviation Industries. The
new airline was forced into being by the Postmaster General to reduce the
number of routes and cost of airmail. WAE's pilots were given the choice
of staying with their sized-down airline or transferring to TWA. Ted took
TWA, feeling its future looked better, and he was right. Seniority lists
were more or less merged, he recollects, and he went from #21 on WAE to
#41 on Ted
had many Domiciles at one time or another; Los Angeles, San Francisco,
Amarillo, Kansas City, St. Louis, Columbus, Newark, and New York, quite
impressive, compared to TWA's two Domiciles today. Unfortunately,
we don't have the space to more than touch on Ted Hereford's life, and he
probably will object to even this much. Perhaps it is appropriate then, to
end this chronicle with some reminiscences from another renowned senior
pilot, who also retired after a distinguished career with TWA, and who was
also a close friend of Hereford's. I
refer to Robert N. Buck, former system chief pilot, weather researcher,
one time junior transcontinental speed record holder, and noted aviation
writer, who joined TWA as a copilot on August 24, 1937 (8 months after
this reporter was hired as a ticket agent in KC) and retired in 1974. He
is working now on his 7th book, a memoir, and he says there is quite a bit
in it about his flying with Hereford. Following
are excerpts from information Bob Buck contributed to this article
honoring retired Captain Edgar T. Hereford: "Ted Hereford was a
superb pilot and flying with him was always fun, and he gave lots of left
seat time, which most old timers didn't. I think a few hours warm-up in a
simulator today, and he'd probably be right back in form. As a new
copilot, I flew a lot with Ted, both on the West Coast out of San Fran,
and later Kansas City. Flying with him, I always "He
told me of landing a Northrop, a forced landing, and hitting a railroad
track. Did damage to the plane, but not to him." (WAD: Asked about
this, Ted added that he had five engine failures on the single-engine
Northrop Alpha out of a total of ten on the whole airline in the early
years of TWA. "I must have been jinxed," Ted claims.) None of
the other emergencies caused more than superficial damage to the aircraft
or him. Luckily, he never had to use his "He
was of great benefit in shaping my airline flying ability". Buck
continues. In those days copilots got very little flying. I flew with one
old timer on and off over a six month period and he only let me land once.
But Ted gave lots of flying, and it was always interesting, with bets on
landing quality, touch down spots and such. He made flying a game of fun.
All copilots benefited from his guidance, and unorthodox ways! "Ted
never wore a captain's hat because he didn't want to lose any hair."
(WAD: He was well known to a lot of pilots, and flight attendants, for his
thick, wavy, blond hair.)."He also didn't like paper work. As we
walked out to a DC-2 flight at Fresno, I reminded him that he had
forgotten to sign the clearance." "What! That's your job! So
most times after that I'd sign for him." "He
was a wonderful person to know and fly with. I look back with great thanks
to Ted for getting me off on the right path of the honorable profession we
were all a part of, and for the creation of a friendship which has lasted
through all the years." (WAD: Ted well remembers his old friend, Bob
Buck, and said it was obvious from the beginning that he was a superior
pilot and individual.) Another
former TWA Captain of note, Floyd Hall, who left TWA in 1963, as Senior
Vice-President and System General Manager to join Eastern Airlines as
President and CEO, said that though he did not know Ted especially well,
he remembers him well enough to say that he was a real gentleman. Ted Hereford certainly qualifies in every respect as a TWA pilot legend. |
