Pilots

Most airline pilots hang up their flying careers at age 60. Bob Perry's was only just beginning then. Before flying commercially, he had already spied on Iron Curtain countries as a Navy PB4Y-2 Privateer pilot, bailed out over the mountains of then French Morocco, and started his own manufacturing company. And for a few months prior to his last commercial flight at age 71, he was the country's oldest active FAR Part 135 airline captain.

Perry's logbook records his first flying lesson in May 1943. The airplane was an Ercoupe, and the flight kindled in the 15-year-old a desire for more. Two years later, with World War II entering its endgame, he joined the Navy wanting to become a pilot. Before he could begin flight training, though, the war ended and the Navy made other plans for him. He was sent to engineering school for 14 months, all the while hoping to get back to flying. That opportunity eventually came, and Perry was awarded his Naval aviator wings in the spring of 1948. He soon was thrust into another kind of conflict, the slowly simmering Cold War. He was sent to an air base in French Morocco, where he became an apprentice in the shadowy world of airborne spying.

Perry was dual-qualified as both a copilot and navigator aboard the Privateer, the Navy's version of the Consolidated B–24 Liberator. The modified four-engine patrol bomber aircraft carried a cockpit crew of three, plus as many as seven others whose jobs it was to monitor and record electronic emissions along the Iron Curtain and to photograph interesting sites for later analysis.

On one such mission a bolt attaching a push-pull rod to the aircraft's elevator failed, and the control surface began to oscillate rapidly in the slipstream. Perry, who was filling the navigator slot on this particular flight, recalls the yoke traveling forward and aft in a continuous blur "with about a foot of travel." Severely vibrating, the Privateer entered a dive. For lack of a better idea, the crew dropped the gear and lowered 15 degrees of flaps, which stopped the descent. But as they nursed the stricken aircraft back toward base, luck again ran the wrong way. When they tried to drop an auxiliary fuel tank in preparation for the emergency landing, it became wedged halfway out of the bomb bay. A safe touchdown was now impossible with the tank protruding below the belly.

"I was sent back to prepare the crew to bail out," recalls Perry. But all the parachutes were buried beneath mail sacks that were to be delivered to another base. "It took almost half an hour to dig them out and get everyone ready." Finally the crew exited the aircraft over the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Perry landed unscathed. Except for three broken legs among the others, all 10 survived the ordeal and were soon flying again.

After completing 50 Cold War missions, he left his Navy job in 1950 and joined the Naval Air Reserve. He continued to fly classic aircraft, including the R4D-5, the Navy's version of the DC–3, and the C–54, comparable to the DC–4. Perry, a third-generation graduate of the Phillips Exeter Academy, a prep school in New Hampshire, was accepted to study engineering physics at Harvard, paid for courtesy of Uncle Sam through the Naval Reserve.

With his education and solid aviation background, Perry was soon working in the aerospace industry. After stints at Boeing and General Electric (where he labored on an ill-fated program to develop a nuclear-powered aircraft engine) he eventually started his own precision parts manufacturing company. Retiring from the Naval Reserve in 1970, Perry devoted his energies to business. Unfortunately, the demands of running a company meant that flying fell by the wayside.

He eventually sold his business, then hired on briefly with another firm before deciding to retire at age 60. But after several months at his Cape Cod home, he knew it was time to do something else. On a whim, he interviewed in 1988 with Provincetown-Boston Airlines, a Cape Cod-based commuter airline. Despite having been largely out of the cockpit for 18 years, he was hired and began flying Cessna 402s between the Cape and the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Following a series of mergers, Perry ended up working for Continental Express, flying 30-seat Embraer 120 Brasilia turboprops.

By 1995 the FAA mandated that pilots flying for FAR Part 135 airlines must retire at age 60, just like FAR Part 121 pilots. However, the agency granted an exemption, allowing pilots already 60 or older to continue to fly 30-passenger-or-less aircraft until December 20, 1999. Perry was thus quite literally "grandfathered" and continued flying. His logbook records his final line flight in the Brasilia on December 17, 1999.

But Perry's professional flying career is not over yet. He was invited to become a simulator instructor and check airman for Continental Express. He also instructs in the airplane.

"I enjoy working with new first officers the most," concedes Perry. "There is so much to teach them about the airplane, and they are so eager to learn." He observes that pilots today are not very different than when he started. "They all really want to fly, and they want to do their best."

What does Perry think of being forced out of the cockpit because of his age? "The age 60 rule is easy for the FAA to administer," he says, "but I would prefer a system based on the health and ability of the individual pilot."

There is no arguing in his case that age has yet to slow him down.