The Sunnyvale Sun

Cover Story

Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer

Ralph Robinson (left) and Jim Long, with a Cessna 172 Skyhawk in the background, are founding members of the Sundance Flying Club, based at the Palo Alto Airport.

Master Pilots

Two Sunnyvale pilots are honored for 50-plus years of safe flying

By JOANNE GRIFFITH DOMINGUE

Jim Long and Ralph Robinson love to fly. For these two longtime Sunnyvale pilots, there is nothing more exhilarating than piloting a plane.

For Long, 78, "having just climbed through the grungy overcast, and breaking out into the sun and the whole bay, nothing is more beautiful."

Robinson, 83, loves "the ability to look down on the ground with a different perspective." On Jan. 1, 2000, Robinson and his wife, Madeleine, flew early in the morning to greet the new century. "When we broke out of the clouds, it was all gold, a new day of the new millennium," Madeleine Robinson said.

Robinson has logged 65 consecutive years as a pilot and Long, 57 years. Recently, each received the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award presented by the National Transportation Safety Board of the Federal Aviation Administration for more than 50 years of safe flying.

To be eligible for this award, the two men had to have:

* an FAA pilot certificate with at least 50 consecutive years of experience

* completed a flight review in the previous 24 months verifying each is currently a pilot

* maintained 50 or more years of safe flight operations

* been a U.S. citizen 50 years or more.

"Hey! That's us," Long said to his friend Robinson in 2003, when he first learned of the award. They set about completing the paperwork, getting their three letters of recommendation--which included each writing a letter recommending the other--and waiting. A few weeks ago they received their awards at a ceremony at the San Jose Airport.

A half-century of flying

This is a rare honor. Of the 600,000 pilots in the United States, only about 650 have received the Master Pilot Award. According to a Nov. 5, 2005, list on the FAA Web site, 47 of these are from California. Five are from the Bay Area, but none from Silicon Valley.

That changed this spring when Robinson, Long and four others from this area were named Master Pilots.

This is a "prestigious award," said Tony Chavez, the manager at the Sundance Flying Club in Palo Alto where Long and Robinson are members. "It means you've been flying a long time with a clean record. ... But it's not just about the 50 years. You must also be healthy and still flying."

Janet Hitt calls it a "safety award, a recognition of safe flying." Hitt, who retired in 2003 after 29 years with the FAA as an operations inspector, 13 of them in San Jose, received the Master Pilot Award herself last year for her 57 years of safe flying.

The FAA had in place a safety award for mechanics, said Keith Ballenger, FAA safety team manager for the Western Pacific Region. About five years ago, it began the Master Pilot Award to recognize pilot safety.

Hitt wants people to know "aviation is very safe." This award proves "you can fly your whole life. Human beings make flying safe. The human factor is very important."

Robinson and Long, with their exemplary records, showcase all that the award stands for.

"I would go anywhere with these two men," Madeleine Robinson said. "Their judgment is impeccable."

That doesn't mean they've never had a close call. "Experience comes from close calls you live through," Long said.

"Sometimes you think, 'I won't try that again,' " Robinson said. Sometimes problems develop when pilots have "get-home-itus, and they press on into bad weather."

"Keep in perspective," Long said, "how few accidents there are and the thousands and thousands flying without accidents. ... We follow the rules."

Robinson said, "There are old pilots, there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots."

In his blood

For Ralph Robinson, his connection with flying goes back before birth. His father, while in high school, worked for Wilbur and Orville Wright in their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. Later Robinson's father became a machinist/mechanic and worked for the Wright brothers building engines for the first airplanes they sold to the Army.

His parents moved to California, where Robinson was born in 1922 in Encino.

When he was 6, his father took him for his first plane ride, "sitting on one of those old wicker passenger seats, out of the Glendale, Calif., airport." When he was in high school, Robinson said he would "sneak" on his bicycle down a dirt street to the Van Nuys airport where he would take an airplane ride. When he learned he could obtain instruction for the same price as a ride, he thought, "Boy, I'll have some of that."

He wrote his first entry in his first logbook on June 24, 1939. He was 16. Nine more entries followed, for 15- or 30-minute flights, until Sept. 15, 1940. Then his mother found out and put a stop to his flying. His family did take him back to the airport to see Charles Lindbergh make a presentation and demonstration flight. But Robinson didn't give up his love of flying.

Military flight time

After earning an AA degree in aeronautical engineering, Robinson began pilot training in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1943. A year later, he graduated with his wings and 221 hours of military flight time.

Meanwhile, he married his childhood sweetheart, Madeleine. Sixty-four years later, she still enjoys doing the navigating. "She helps me stay on course," Robinson said.

When World War II ended, Robinson had 1,297 hours of flying. He became an instructor in Southern California and flew eight to 10 hours per day, six days a week, with a different student every hour.

"At first it was fun," Robinson said.,"but it soon became quite a drag. When we had flown 100 hours in the month, we were encouraged to 'get going' " and start earning a bonus for additional hours.

Robinson joined the Air National Guard, continued instructing and began working for Lockheed.

In 1964, Lockheed transferred him to Sunnyvale, where he flew out of San José Municipal Airport, obtained updated training and his instrument instructor's rating. In 1980 Robinson became a charter member of Sundance Flying Club in Palo Alto airport.

Robinson, wearing polished brown ankle boots and a brown-leather flight jacket, said he has flown with students ages 17 to 80, including Tony Chavez. "He was always patient with me," Chavez said. "We went up and flew and before I knew it, I was flying." Chavez learned to fly after retiring from Hitachi where he was director of administration.

The path taken

Jim Long, lean and tan with silver hair cropped short, also learned to fly in the military. He, too, was interested in airplanes and flying from an early age in Allentown, Pa.

As a kid, "All I earned delivering papers and mowing lawns went to buy models," Long said. After he graduated from high school, he spent two years in college. Then he wanted to begin flight training with the Navy. But he needed his parents' consent for the Navy to accept him.

His father, a minister with the United Church of Christ, told his son, "I won't consent, but I will concede." The Rev. Long wanted his son to be a minister. "I wanted to fly," Long said.

He began Navy flight training at Pensacola, Fla., in 1949. Later that year he received his FAA private license. In the early 1950s he flew planes from aircraft carriers. He made 172 carrier landings with no accidents or incidents.

Before returning to college in 1954 to finish his undergraduate degree in physics, he married Isabelle in 1953. He joined the Navy Reserve and in 1955 went to work for Martin Marietta in Baltimore as a flight test engineer.

In 1975, after some years in Colorado, the Longs moved to Sunnyvale. He joined several flight clubs and continued to instruct. He retired in 1989 but still flies and teaches flying. "It has been a great 'ride' from the highlight Navy carrier pilot career through the flight test period and culminating in the civilian flight instructing as a 'major paying hobby,' " Long said.

Master pilot

"Nothing is more satisfying than getting in the back seat with a student you have taught and he's doing it right," Long said. Robinson, also, is still teaching and flying.

There is a minimum requirement of 40 hours of flying time to qualify for a private pilot's license. Most students spend $6,000 to $8,000 learning to fly. That includes the instructor's time and use of a plane.

On average, the men said, people are taking 60 hours to get a license in this area because the Bay Area is a "complex air space."

Long has logged 10,882 hours as a pilot. That is equivalent to flying for five years and three months of 40-hour weeks, 52 weeks a year, with no vacation. He is now on his 12th logbook; he has flown 40 kinds of planes and taught 120 people to fly.

Robinson has logged 8,557 hours, is working on his eighth logbook, has flown 62 different types of planes and has taught "several hundred" people to fly.

All of this with not a single mishap, with both men doing what they love to do. "A flight is a great example of instant success," Long said. "If you get a job or start a business, success is down the road. But with a flight, you have completion."