[00:00:05] Speaker A: The Michael Hatfield ReMax team presents real Estate and More.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Bay Area real estate is different than all of America and why? What's up with home buyers? What's on sellers minds? How is the market? And much, much more.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: Now here's your host, Michael Hatfield.
[00:00:25] Speaker C: Well, welcome to the Real Estate and More show and I'm so glad you tuned in today. As a commercial pilot, I' always admired the pioneering airlines of the past. Pan Am, twa, Western Airlines. Today I am thrilled to have a very special guest to share stories from the golden age of aviation. Former Pan Am and a little bit later on Delta Captain, Captain Steven Van Gorder. Steve, welcome to the show.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Thank you, Mike.
[00:00:56] Speaker C: Let's just ask him a few of the questions to get the flavor of what it was like flying in the golden age.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: I sat next to some of the old flying boat captains in my early years who had transitioned from, through the life and transitioned to jets. And that was an interesting, the stories they had to say. One of the stories that I remember, I was sitting in the cockpit one day with one of these gentlemen and I got the first flew as a co pilot from New York to Bangkok and back. And I enjoyed those because it had so many days off and, and I had my 14 days, I think it was a 14 day trip going out to Bangkok and back with stops in Beirut and Karachi and Tehran and Bombay and all these places that I'd never been to before.
So he says, you know, the one important thing you have to remember, he says, I want you to always eat the best food that you can get. I thought to myself, now this is interesting. And he said the other thing he says, never brush your teeth in the water that comes out of the tap in any of the hotels. And of course, this is 1966. It was, it was unique. And he had seen it all. I mean, he's seen a tremendous amount. And I thought, now as I set my end of my career, I see the same projection where how things changed over those many years. It was 36 years I spent flying from A to B. And how he got there from point A to B was unique. But most of all was the camaraderie between the people doing a job. They, they weren't out for the money, they were doing the job for because they loved it. I mean, there was, there was money, there wasn't that much money.
You could go to work for Pan American. I went to work for 500amonth in 1966. So that was, I had to take a pay cut, so to speak, to Go to work for them because I was making more. And I had a wife and three children. So it was like, you know, it wasn't easy. I don't know why I would remember those numbers, but I remember them probably because I had to scratch every way I could to make all that, make it meet. The bills.
[00:03:07] Speaker C: Well, they were important back in the day. I mean, they're important now. People all have to pay attention to what they earn. And then sometimes we measure our value that way. But I have to agree with you, Steve. You know, it was doing the job and feeling good about what you did back in the day that made all the difference in the world. I think even Charles Lindbergh was involved with Pan Am for a while. I think he was the first guy there was a lot of first with that airline. First guy to use the radio communications between the airplane and the ground. And I know he was involved for, you know, several years doing that, too. Do you know any more to add on to that or should I roll on to the next one?
[00:03:46] Speaker A: I've spoken to Charles Lindbergh quite a few times. In fact, I already got to.
I think the first time I met him was on a flight from Lost from New York to Los Angeles. But he was on that flight and he had a routine that he always wanted. He wanted you to. He sat in the first row of economy class and there was a bulkhead there, petition, and he had economy seats and he sat in the middle one and have one on each side of him, one for his briefcase. And he had the table down and he was. And he had. He told the captain prior to the flight that he wanted nobody to stop and talk to him. If you had something to say, why just lay down a little note on the paper, but don't stop and talk to him. He continued to. Everybody sitting around him didn't know he was there. And he was on his way out this day, this particular trip, he was on his way out to California. We were going to la, and then he was going up to Seattle to speak with Boeing about the 747. So Bern Coley was the captain and I was the co pilot in the 707 that day. And so Byrne had put a little card in the. On it with his name and said, Mr. Lindbergh, you're welcome to come into the cockpit anytime you want. And he says, any climb? So he just had one of the flight attendants go by his chair and by his seat there and drop it on his table. And so he did. And I don't Know somewhere after climbing somewhere, let's say in Missouri or somewhere in that neighborhood, it was a nice day. And knock on the door and he opened the door, he had a key and walked in and there he was. And he sat down the jump seat and he was very, very easy to talk to. Vernon and I had this same flight about week and a half or ten days, two weeks later, I can't remember exactly.
He. We got into LA and then we flew the same trip, come to la, back to New York. And he was on that flight. And he came up in the cockpit after a small amount of time, we were still on the ground. And he handed us both two pictures that he'd signed. And one of them was the SST and that Boeing was proposing. And the other one is the first flight that he made from Key west to Cuba with his wife. And he signed them both and put in. It was 1968 is the exact year it was. I got dated here, but I've still got those pictures. And he gave me those two pictures of the sst which was never built and. But they were trying to. And then he.
He came back to New York with us. Went after he. Given that I. I've chatted with him a few times after that when I've seen Pan Am, whatever.
[00:06:35] Speaker C: Fascinating guy, Fascinating guy.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: He was really interesting and very open to everything. A very. But always the biggest thing I. I remember about him, he was always inquisitive about everything and why it was being done and how it was being done. In other words, he was always thinking about things like that. And so I don't know, it was. I've seen him two or three times after that.
He died shortly after that. Not. I don't know what year it was. He died now, I've forgotten.
[00:07:04] Speaker C: But yeah, he started on the 707.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: Yes, 707. We had the 707, 300 and then we had the 707, 100, which was a unusual airplane. The one of them the Pan Am got at that time was one that was being built by Boeing for Fidel Castro. Pan Am ended up with it. Boeing wouldn't sell it to Cuba, so they ended up selling it to Pan American.
And those times were unique.
Everything was changing so fast. And I remember the things that changed the fastest probably was the navigation.
We periscopic sections of the airplane if we needed, but we never used them except on certain routes where we could over more than 700 miles away from land. It was actually just a little door that went shut. It went shut like a Slam like a piece of wood or piece of steel that went over aluminum over the hole and just shut like a, oh, like a guillotine, only sideways.
And it just went shut. And you take the periscopic section up and stick it up in the top of the thing and it stuck out about, about 12, 14 inches above the top of the airplane. So there was always a noise. So invariably when the flight attendants heard that noise, they had to come in and see what was going on.
[00:08:27] Speaker D: We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back.
[00:08:33] Speaker E: The real estate minute with ReMax expert Michael Hatfield. Bay Area housing markets are always changing. What should we think of that, Michael?
[00:08:41] Speaker F: You know, Mark Twain said, I seldom saw an opportunity until it ceased to be one. We live in the great housing market and the nation. But careful thought should be given each time one buys or sells a home. A good agent can help you grasp a great opportunity.
[00:08:56] Speaker E: Tell us about discount agents, Michael.
[00:08:58] Speaker F: Discount agents can list your home, but without telling my secrets, they're unlikely to do all we do for clients. It's an unnecessary risk to save a few thousand by hiring a junior agent and lose tens of thousands through a poorly done transaction. You don't know what you don't know. It's wise to hire someone who does.
[00:09:16] Speaker E: If you or someone you know is interested in buying or selling a home, call the Michael Hatfield ReMax team at 925-322-7775 or go to michaelhatfieldhomes.com get those what ifs answered. T R E 01493761 now back to our show.
[00:09:37] Speaker C: Well, so essentially, and I never used a sexton in my entire career, but was used primarily for navigating, utilizing the stars and triangulating off stars to help on the route that you would have to go from point A to point B. It was a big part of it. It was a problem though if you had cloud cover over top of you.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Well, yes, we used it primarily, although there's really much drift was primarily across the North Atlantic.
They use loran mostly and that was to check the lorans every once in a while. The other place we used it somewhat was between.
Well down around Santa Ram across the Amazon in South America from New York to LA and New York to Rio and New York to Buenos Aires. Wow.
[00:10:29] Speaker C: You know, some of the first that we've talked about earlier is the around the world air service schedule. Service began like in 1947 when with Pan Am running that service and wow, it was done with a DC4 and an old Lockheed Constellation, pretty ambitious for the time, 1947, just after World War II. And that was their first. And then we catch up with Steve, who started in the jet age. He was the, you know, he was flying the 707. And I guess in the 60s Pan Am began flying that. And they were flying all over the place. Once you had get jet power to it and you flew only the Atlantic, Steve.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: I think twice I went around the world all the way to San Francisco. Yeah.
[00:11:17] Speaker C: And also, you know, Pan Am was the first airline that actually introduced their own reservation system. And then along came, I guess it was sabre by American. And they really improved the ability of passengers to book their flights. And Pan Am had some of the most premier routes ever going around the world. It was such a premier airline in the golden age. Now Pan Am's headquarters was actually in Manhattan, I believe they had that whole building there that said Pan Am on it. Later changed, I think, to. To MetLife. And that one had helicopter service on top of it.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: That came to an end after the one accident. So the city of New York stopped it all. Yeah, that was a problem because the, those great old helicopters were really fantastic. I mean, they made hundreds of trips a day, I mean a week. But I think they had a trip about every hour, Kennedy to Manhattan.
Now they have the same thing, but they have it down on the riverfront.
[00:12:24] Speaker C: You know, the 747. Did you ever get to fly that airplane, Steve?
[00:12:28] Speaker A: Yeah, for 14 years only.
[00:12:33] Speaker C: You know, the 7 4, I guess it was like 1970. It came in correct when it was purchased around that. And it was the first.
They had an SP version, which is.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: That was later though.
[00:12:46] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Friend of mine that was actually one of my mentors. When I started flying, I really enjoyed the man a lot was involved with Pan Am and he was part of that around the world SP flight that they made. Took him a long time to do it. I don't know if I'd want to sit there that long.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Well, they went around the poles one time too.
That's around the world. Went around the world vertically. So I think my mind lines of longitude rather than lines of latitude. But it was a unique time. And when I first started, I flew the 707 New York to Fairbanks and Fairbanks to Tokyo. It was unique in a lot of ways because they didn't have really good weather projection in the North Pacific a lot of times. And we would get the jet stream and sometimes we dispatched to. With the 747, we dispatched a token and one of the most interesting sites I've ever seen was on a flight like that was we're all somewhere around Shimiya going down towards Tokyo. And. And we saw about. I was. We counted them, but in one flight after another of Russian bear bombers in formation at about 20,000ft. We were at 40,000ft in the 747sp or somewhere higher. And at that time. But we watched these bears like 20, 25,000ft going up below us, coming from the Pacific, from the. From the south, going across into the bases and the Kuro Islands. And we counted and all of us come. There's over 200 airplanes.
[00:14:23] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: That the Russians had going through there. It was unique. That was another experience. I saw where they were moving all the Russian airplanes across. And for whatever reason, I don't know where they're moving from, but maybe they went out at night and came back when we were there during the day. I don't know.
[00:14:39] Speaker C: Well, you know, interesting. You mentioned Shimia, which is virtually an island that is made up of one thing and one thing only, and that's Runway. And many people have not been able to see Shimia on the northern Pacific routes. People meaning pilots. And I had the opportunity once flying Hong Kong to look down and there it was. And man, it was nothing but large Runway. The issue with Shimia, it's like an alternate airport in case there's some kind of an issue with the airplane on that route. But the interesting thing about it is that airport is always socked in with weather. So if you're going to have to go in there, the weather's likely to be, you know, pretty bad. Had you ever seen it?
[00:15:23] Speaker A: No, I've only seen it from the air. Yeah. But I do know that I checked. I had to check. One of the objects that I'd always did was check the crosswind. And I never saw it down the Runway. It was like 30 or 40 knots crosswind. Besides being if in the wintertime, of course it was icy and what have you, but which is unique. I mean, there was a lot of different experiences like that. And it seems like. And that's what I really miss in life as far as not flying anymore, is being able to see those experiences that you have working and. And seeing all the things that happen. Being Christmas with my kids here, I got to thinking about this. One Christmas I bid trips. Well, there was three, two and a half trips, I think Tokyo on the line. And so this was 707 days.
[00:16:08] Speaker D: We're going to take a short break.
[00:16:10] Speaker C: We'll be right back the ReMax.
[00:16:15] Speaker F: The.
[00:16:15] Speaker E: Real Estate Minute with RE MAX expert Michael Hatfield Bay Area housing markets are always changing. What should we think of that, Michael?
[00:16:23] Speaker F: You know, Mark Twain said, I seldom saw an opportunity until it ceased to be one. We live in the greatest housing market in the nation, but careful thought should be given each time one buys or sells a home. A good agent can help you grasp a great opportunity.
[00:16:38] Speaker E: Tell us about discount agents, Michael.
[00:16:40] Speaker F: Discount agents can list your home but without telling my secrets, unlikely to do all we do for clients. It's an unnecessary risk to save a few thousand by hiring a junior agent and lose tens of thousands through a poorly done transaction. You don't know what you don't know. It's wise to hire someone who does.
[00:16:58] Speaker E: If you or someone you know is interested in buying or selling a home, call the Michael Hatfield ReMax team at 925-322-7775 or go to michaelhatfieldhomes.com when your real estate needs are beyond the standard and you demand more than the status quo, look no further than the Michael Hatfield ReMax Accord team with offices in Danville and nine more Bay Area locations. Here's Michael Hatfield to tell us more.
[00:17:24] Speaker G: Do you have a housing problem such as you live in a three bedroom home with three children and need one more bedroom?
[00:17:30] Speaker F: You want better schools or your kids.
[00:17:32] Speaker G: Grown up, moved out and your home is just too large? Our team is a five star agent who serves our clients housing needs as our number one priority. Call us for a free buyer consultation to start working on your housing problem now. Let us help you to solve your housing issue, whatever your need may be.
[00:17:49] Speaker E: Call 925-322-7775 to partner buyer or seller needs with the Michael Hatfield Re Maxaccord team. That's 9253-227757-25925-322-7775. Come discover a new level of excellence Excellence in real estate with the Michael Hatfield RE Max Accord team.
[00:18:10] Speaker H: Working with Michael and Nancy I was a first time home buyer and I was very nervous about the process. I didn't really know what to expect. Michael and Nancy were able to take that fear away from me and answered all of my questions. They were right by my side the entire time and they really helped me find the perfect home for me and I'm so thankful.
[00:18:29] Speaker I: Experience to the whole home buying process. He was very professional and both Michael and Nancy went way above and beyond to help us and to help us achieve the house of our dreams.
[00:18:40] Speaker D: When experience is important to you in Buying or selling your home? Call the Michael Hatfield ReMax team at 925-322-7775. When buying or selling real estate, let us help you. Go to michaelhatfieldhomes.com when experience matters to you, call 925-322-7775.
[00:19:02] Speaker G: Now back to our show.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: We landed at Fairbanks and it was cold. The little man who worked in the ground crew with us also was a mechanic. He's a mechanic for Pan Am, but he's also a mechanic for the taxicab company in Fairbanks.
So on his days when he didn't have to be at the airport, why, he took care of taxicabs and he come on the cockpit and he says, you guys coming in here the rest of the month? Are you going to be here around Christmas time? And we said, yeah, as a matter of fact, we're going to be here Christmas Eve.
So he said, well, good. He says, I'll let you know. But he says, plan on coming up to my place and we'll have dinner at my place. The whole crew, I said, okay, captain, I agreed. So the whole crew, there was six flight attendants and four pilots. And at that time, or five pilots, two engineers and three pilots. And so. Okay, fine. And so we landed that day. And he got out and he says he come up in the cockpit when coming back Christmas Eve, that Christmas Eve. And he said all of us got together. We had their mukluks and our parkas and all this stuff and we went out. Here's the two cars. So we all piled in the two cars and got the direction. We drove up to the up where he said it was up the northeast part of Fairbanks, up on a bluff probably, I don't know, 1500-2500ft above the valley. And on this bluff you could see out clear across the valley. Well, you see all these little houses and there was no full moon, kind of. It was dark, of course, and the only thing it was light enough, you could see this smoke curling up in all the little chimneys down there in the valley. And it was absolutely picturesque. So we park here and all of a sudden we hear a snowmobile. So here comes a snowmobile with three sleds behind it. And so we all piled onto the sleds and we went through the woods with that Highness snowmobile and we come upon this clearing and here's this fantastic log cabin and the door opens and here's his wife and three children all in stair steps, you know, like 6, 8 and 10 or in that neighborhood. And open the door. Here they are, all dressed up, like, in little red outfits. And they went in. We had the finest dinner I've ever had in my life. A whole crew at his house.
We had elk, we had moose. We had all kinds of food that I hadn't seen much of before in my life. I've always remembered that Christmas more than any other Christmas I think, that I ever flew on the line. It was unique. And we got our little sled, they took us back down the car, and we back home after. After dinner and singing Christmas carols and what have you. But that was the most unique. And the great thing about that, in my mind, was the fact that he gave this time to us to do that. And that's the way Pan Am was. If you were an employee with Pan Am, you took care of the other employees, you did something with them. I mean, it was always an attitude, the same, you know, we can do anything. There's nothing we can't do. And so that was kind of the attitude that they had. And that was the attitude that I enjoyed. And that was. To me, that was Pan American. That was because he had two jobs. He was busy, had kids, but he still had time to think about us a month in advance. Really.
[00:22:22] Speaker C: Is that not cool or whatever? Just some of those stories that we recall from the flying was just amazing. And then there was the lockerbie accident in 1988, and that was one of the things that took the airline down financially. And then I believe that's when I was gifted an opportunity, opportunity to fly with Captain Van Gorder. He came over to Delta, who had purchased some of the routes and got some of their great people. And that was the. The time that I got to fly with, with Steve here. And it was one of those good times. Steve was one of the good guys that you find a plus by his name in the locker room, you know, and that was one of the coolest things ever. And I don't know if Delta. If you found some people at Delta that would even compare with Pan Am, but I think people being nice to people is what the airline business would use to bring people that would work for the airline. And even if the pay wasn't that great, they would do it because they liked working with nice people.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Oh, yes. That is probably the biggest item that I see that's changed.
In other words, you have a lot of people working for the dollar and which every. All of us wanted some money, of course, for what we were doing, but to be honest with you, we'd have done it for a lot less than we probably.
[00:23:48] Speaker C: Well, Steve, what were your favorite destinations and routes that you flew?
[00:23:53] Speaker A: Well, I think my favorite time was in Berlin. I BW Berlin from 84 to 91. In fact, I buried the last 727 back from Berlin on April 10, 1991.
It was a time. It was a time when it was just unique. And of course, the wall coming down. I remember we were there when the Wall came down. Well, we were out there by the wall by the. When they started this whole thing. I was there two nights before they came in. Then the night they all the guards walked away and more or less let everybody go where they wanted up on the Wall. And there were people jumping up on the Wall and back and forth and, and, and then all of a sudden, I don't know why, everybody started celebrating and hollering and singing and what have you. And then they started throwing firecrackers up in the air. They light them and throw them over here. Well, what they did, they didn't have a short fuse. They went off after they came down to the ground and among your feet. They didn't go off up in the air.
So everybody. But didn't seem to bother anybody. But you were out.
[00:24:54] Speaker C: This is when the Wall came. This was when the Wall came down between east and West Germany back in the days of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, I believe.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:25:04] Speaker C: Well, Steve, our time is getting a little short if you have any final thoughts for audience today. Captain, as we conclude, it's a fantastic.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: Life, and it was a fantastic airline because I was originally hired by Delta for a February 14th class in 1965. And I turned around and turned them down to go to work for Pan America because you don't want to fly between Atlanta and Chicago all your life. You want to fly internationally. And so I said, okay. So anyway, I went to work for Pan America. The interesting thing is in that interview, they asked me, well, what do you think about Pan American? I said, well, I think Pan American's treated me fantastic. They have some problems they need to work through. And I said, I don't think they're going to. But. And what I, what I see now, he says, well, would you like, would you ever been offered a job at Delta? I said, well, yes, I have. And I swear, Mike, he knew that already knew the answer to that.
[00:25:59] Speaker C: He knew the answer to it.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: So, you know, and he asked me and he said, I said, yes, I did. I turned him down in 1965 or 66. So it was interesting. I. And they, so they said, okay. And I, I said, and if I go to work for Delta, I said, I'll be glad to. And Delta's treated me fantastic. They were really great. I don't know, I mean, I, I came over in the A310. So as a three year fence agreement, when I came over in A310, we had, that's the Airbus. Yeah, I had a fence agreement. I flew with Pan American and I, what date it was, but it was in November sometime, I think. I flew to Helsinki with a white hat on and came back with a black hat on and nothing changed.
[00:26:40] Speaker C: Well, I was actually a white airline hat where Delta had a black one. And that's what he was referring to on that. Well, a big thank you to my good friend, fellow captain Steven Van Gorder, formerly of Pan Am World Airways and Delta Airlines, generously shared his thoughts and his stories on the golden age of aviation. And you know, Pan Am had so many firsts in the industry that they flew, you know, the mail. Then they turned around and they had some of the first oceanic flights. They flew, flew some of the first flying boats. They, they did so much the first reservation system. They had Charles Lindbergh involved. I mean, everyone was very aware during the ages of Pan Am's tenure about how groundbreaking that airline was. And Steve, you've been so wonderful today. Thank you so much for, for sharing with us.
[00:27:35] Speaker A: I wish you to come say hello here in Florida sometime if you got time.
[00:27:40] Speaker C: I might, might just do that. Don't keep that, keep that spare bedroom unoccupied.
Even listening to the real estate and more show. Please go to our YouTube channel at my real talk show, that's at my real Talk show at YouTube. And touch the subscribe button, then the like button. We'll be back in a moment with our next special guest. Stay tuned.
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