Summer 1972

The United Airlines Boeing 727 taxied up to the gate at Walker Field in Grand Junction having just arrived from Denver.  Our flight would take us to Los Angeles International with a brief stop-over in Las Vegas.  As we boarded the aircraft I asked if I could get a tour of the cockpit but due to the lateness of our flight I was turned down.

This was my first ride in a jet and I was excited to put it mildly.  Our trip was for the kids in my family to go to California and spend a week with the Cunninghams and Varians.  The four of us would be traveling without our parents on board. Our hosts had lots planned for us to do including a few nights in Newport Beach where they had rented a house on Lido Island.  We would even be going out on the Laura Scudder Family yacht.  The Scudder family was known for their potato chips, peanut butter and mayonnaise.  Her son was a friend of the Cunningham’s and offered to take us out for an evening cruise around the harbor.  We waved good-bye to our parents and were off to California.  The flight to Las Vegas was fun but uneventful. 

While we were at the gate in Las Vegas a flight attendant came and got me, asking if I wanted to see the cockpit now.  I sat in the cockpit the entire time we were on the ground.  This 727 was new to United’s fleet and it had all of the latest technology.  Having never been aboard a jet before, all of the dials, gauges and knobs seemed like too much for these three pilots to manage.  There were separate dials and knobs for each engine and the man at “the desk” in the back of the cockpit tried to explain what everything on his panel did. 

When it was time for us to push back I got up to leave and was offered the chance to ride up front as we taxied out.  As we moved away from the terminal a lot was going on in the cockpit so I just sat quietly (that was a real test for me) and watched.  We taxied out to the end of the runway and came to a stop.  At that point the captain asked me to go ahead and return to my seat.

Just a few steps from the cockpit, the aircraft began its take-off roll.  By the time I was halfway back to my seat the nose of the plane was already lifting off the ground as the center isle got steeper and steeper.  I practically fell into my sister’s lap as I got to our row near the rear of the plane. 

The week went by and soon we were returning back to Colorado.  The following winter we reciprocated by having the Varians and Cunninghams out for a week to ski with us.  My experience in the cockpit is something that my children will never experience; the world is a different place now.