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[[several newspaper articles affixed to page]]

Shortage of Pilots, Crews Threatens Airline Industry

By CHARLES NICODEMUS
Miami Herald-Chicago Daily News Wire

WASHINGTON - You're sitting in an airport terminal, waiting to fly off on vacation, to a business deal or on a honeymoon, when suddenly the loudspeaker blares out:
"Flight 702 to New York, San Francisco and East Podunk, originally scheduled to depart in 39 minutes, will be postponed indefinitely because we don't have a pilot available to fly the plane. Sor-ree."
Or how about this announcement:
"Flight 891 to Bermuda and the South Pole has been canceled because that aircraft's left outboard engine has developed trouble, and we have no mechanic available to fix it.
"Sor-ree. We suggest you take a train."
Not very likely, you say? Perhaps not today. But don't be so sure about tomorrow. 
Incredible though it may seem, that once-glamorous industry, aviation, will soon start running low on people to fly its planes and repair its aircraft. 
Even more incredible is the fact that two of the most important groups affected by the problem - the aviation industry itself and the federal government - are well aware of this growing shortage, yet are doing next to nothing about it. 
"There's no arguing the fact that a critical deficiency in commercial aviation manpower is growing, and has been for some time.
After burying its head in the sand for years, the Federal Aviation Agency last year finally ordered a survey of the problem.
To do the job, FAA Administrator Najeeb Halaby named a commission of nationally recognized experts, headed by Dan Kimball, former secretary of the Navy and now head of the prestigious Aerojet General Corp.
The FAA released the results of the study last September. 
It noted, among other things:
"COMPARATIVELY few people under 30 are learning to fly. Most new pilots are business people over 35 who are learning to fly for pleasure or business.
"OUT OF 33,000 student-pilot permits issued in 1963 to persons under 30, only 3,600 received a private pilot license. Another 823 received a commercial pilot certificate.
"ONLY A bare 15 qualified for an airline transport certificate."
What's the trouble? Said Kimball's group:
UNSTABLE JOB markets during the past years have made aviation seem an unattractive choice to many youths. (Quite a comedown for that glamor-pants profession).
"ENROLLMENT IN aviation courses has dwindled, and the number of schools offering aviation training is decreasing," the report said.
Most important was another disclosure. Formerly, a big source of aviation recruits had been pilots from the armed services, but now:
"Only a few military-trained airmen are seeking professional aviation careers," Kimball's group found.
The report urged the FAA and industry to hop to it, in a variety of ways:
To fire up motivation so that kids once more will be eager to get flying, the group urged a joint industry-government program to teach flight training in schools; to push for flight mechanic courses invocational programs; to launch a plan to lure more retiring military pilots into commercial aviation, and many other steps.

They seemed to make a lot of sense.
Yet almost one year later, virtually nothing substantial has been done to implement the report - even though the aviation industry is booming, with predictions that the years ahead will be even busier.
There's a national security element involved too: In time of crisis, it's nice to have a backlog of kids interested and capable in aviation. And there's another twist:
Every one of Russia's original cosmonaut group took part, as a youngster, in government-sponsored aviation programs or clubs.
Neither our government nor private industry has any such program specifically designed to kindle youthful interest.
In an air age, in an air-minded country, that is - as someone once said - a helluva way to run a railroad.

Pilot, 71, to Take Off in Replica of 1911 Plane
SAN MARCOS - Waldo Waterman, 71-year-old "Early Bird," will take off from Palomar Airport here today in a home-made replica of the 1911 model Curtiss pusher in which he learned to fly 54 years ago.
"I want to remind the public that the Early Birds of aviation laid the foundation of the Space Age," he said in explaining his nostalgic project.
Waterman said he chose today for his take-off because it will be the 56th anniversary of his 1909 first solo flight.
"But that wasn't a powered aircraft," he explained.
"I was 15 then, and I flew in a glider which I built in my back yard.
Waterman recalled that he launched the glider from the rim of a canyon not far from downtown San Diego. Glenn Curtiss taught him powered flight in exchange for odd jobs at Curtiss' North island flying school in San Diego Bay.
During his long career Waterman taught the theory of flight at the University of California at Berkeley, built airplanes in Santa Monica, operated airports at Ontario and Van Nuys and flew as a TWA pilot.
Waterman is a past president of the Early Birds, composed of pilots airborne earlier than World War I.

Future Men May See 125
MEMPHIS --(UPI)--A health expert predicted that Americans of the future will have a life expectancy of 125 years and families with five living generations.
Walter M. Beattie, director of services for the aging for the city of St. Louis, said aging is occurring at a slower rate because of improved hygiene, nutrition and medical care.
"People of a given age are [[obscured]]

Woman, 74 Flies Atlantic Alone
LONDON --(AP)-- Mrs. Marion Hart, a 74-year-old pilot from Washington, D.C., told Thursday of making a solo flight across the Atlantic.
Mrs. Hart said she flew from the United States in 11 hours and landed her single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza Wednesday at London Airport.
Mrs. Hart said she first flew the Atlantic in 1953 with a woman co-pilot and made the return flight in 1954.
"My friends in New York

100th Birday; He's Riding Jet
ALLENTOWN, Pa. --(AP)-- John H. Newhard will observe his 100th birthday Saturday - by taking a plane ride in a jet.
It won't upset his working routine because Saturday in his day off as manager and treasurer of Allentown's Greenwood Cemetery.
"I like to work," says Newhard. "It's healthy and it keeps me going. I couldn't be content sitting at home with nothing to [[obscured]]

Shelving Elderly Called Top U.S. Threat
By MARTY SCHRAM
Reporter of The Miami News
Veteran broadcaster Gabriel Heatter last night cited "the shelving of our elderly" - not nuclear war or the population explosion - as the greatest threat to America.

Speaking at the fourth annual Committee on the Total Employment dinner at the Dupont Plaza Hotel, Heatter said:
"As long as there are two powers in this world, nobody is going to get bombed ... and we can also handle our rapidly expanding population.
"But to put experienced people on the shelf and mark them 'finished' just because they are 50, 60 or 70 is one of the most tragic and terrible wastes ever. This is our greatest threat today."
The Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce sponsored the dinner, held to honor the county's oldest fulltime working people: 87-year-old tailor Phil Slutsky and 84-year-old nurse Mrs. Emma Cronk.
The 73-year-old Heatter praised his audience - manufacturers employing the elderly - as practitioners of "the true religion for (they) provide dignity and reverence of the individual."
He attacked mandatory retirement relations in many industries as "wandering in the wilderness" and as brushing off "the people who really built America: Today's elderly."
Slutsky and Mrs. Cronk were presented with a large number of gift certificates at the dinner. They were asked how they would spend them.
The little tailor said he'd buy himself a suit; the spry nurse, a new uniform -- "because I'll be nursing the rest of my life."
Several industries were honored for the "hire the handicapped and aged" policies.
Radio station WIOD and television station WCKT were hon-

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