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and the smallest hours for the pilots. Of course, this causes a one-sided attitude on his part. He always argues from the point of view that if anything is awry, it can't ever be the pilot's fault--it is either the aircraft designer, management or someone else. He doesn't think of the financial concerns of management--just the pilots."

In criticizing him thus his critics are in one sense unwittingly paying him a tribute--they are saying that he is doing his job. For Dave Behncke's job is to look out for the interests of the pilots, something he does with a persistence that rivals the stick-to-it-iveness of Sinbad's Old Man of the sea and with the zeal of a Baptist preacher.

And if they have put their fingers on a weakness, the answer of his apologists is that he is no more zealous in his defense of the pilot than a management representative may be in defense of management's interests. Of course, there's give and take on both sides. For example, Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker is a management man who also is popular with his pilots and who personally goes to bat for them when they are charged with flying violations. It is beside the point that Rickenbacker and Behncke don't get along with each other.

Behncke himself shrugs off the charge that he has no eye for the

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