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say, "I haven't seen him since we were flying together hopping passengers on Sunday afternoons - he's sure a good guy." I've been at the ramp and heard Joe comment, "Well, what do you know, there's Bill - a Captain already. He deserves it, I've known him a long time and he's a good guy! That's what it takes to be a good pilot."
The fellowship and team spirit of the pilots of days gone by - even since the Wright Brothers - has been the spark that has kept aviation progress in a fast climb. I am proud to be a pilot myself, and I'm proud that some of the best friends I've ever had were pilots. Every day there are many new pilots coming into the fold - and there will be many, many more. It is up to us to lead them in such a way as to assure the continuance of that dream of Orville and Wilbur - the ever increasing development and use of the airplane for peaceful purposes. 

Andrew B. Shea
President, Panagra

During the twenty-three years that I have been associated with Panagra it has been and is my strong conviction that our pilot personnel is the back-bone of our airline. 
Our operation started in 1928 in Peru. Over the next two years it was extended north to Panama and south to Chili and the Argentine. Radio facilities, meteorological facilities and navigational aids as we know them today were then practically nonexistent. Our pilots of those early years,some of whom are today at the controls of our DC-6 and DC-6B aircraft, were pioneers in the true sense of that oft-misused word. 
The flight over the Andes between Santiago and Buenos Aires in a single engine Fairchild under flight conditions and at altitudes never before known to any scheduled operation, demanded skill and courage.
The flight between the Canal Zone and Guayaquil, a dawn to dusk operation, through uncharted tropical storms and with only rudimentary navigational facilities was equally exacting. 
The entry upon a pilot's career in those early days required vision and faith in the future of aviation.
Commercial aviation has come a long way in the intervening years. Today the Captain of the modern, long-range airliners uses many new tools with which science has provided him but he must also be the master of a far more complex airplane and of far more intricate aids to the art of flight than were available to his pioneering brethren. With the greatly increased and steadily increasing number of human beings in the cabin his responsibility has grown and continues to grow. His enthusiasm for his airline, his interest in its progress in all respects as a public service enterprise, his pride in his profession and his proficiency are among the most important of the yardsticks by which the success and prosperity of any airline may be measured. 
The requirements of the pilot's profession are exacting. He must live up to rigid standards of personal qualification and of conduct both on and off the job.
I appreciate this opportunity to salute the flight personnel of Panagra and of the industry as a whole and to congratulate them on their splendid professional performance which has placed U.S. commercial aviation in the leading position which it holds in the world today at the end of the first fifty years of powered flight. 

Affairs of State: Date With Destiny
[[Image 1]]
These were the crews of the PAA Presidential Clipper and the escort plane which flew President Roosevelt to the historic World War II "unconditional surrender" conferences at Casablanca in 1943.

The National Defense: Airlift to Korea
[[Image 2]]
Troops and supplies were airlifted in an uninterrupted flow into Korea by air lines under contract to Military Air Transport Service. The scene: Fairfield-Suisan Airbase, Calif., 1950.

DECEMBER, 1953 
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