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Paul Bertorelli |
This interview first appeared in the March 1992 issue of IFR MAGAZINE and appears by permission of Belvoir Publications.
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As much as we might like to carp about the occasional circuitous
routing or ground delay, this much is certain: The U.S. air traffic
system is arguably the best in the world. What's less certain
is how it got that way. How did we advance from the tenuous airmail
routes of the early 1930s to the sophisticated IFR system that
we take for granted today? Whose idea was it, anyway?
Obviously, no one person can claim all the credit; it was and
continues to be a collective effort. Still, a few names stand
out and among them, one stands foremost: Captain Elrey Borge Jeppesen,
who died in late November at the age of 89. (This interview first
appeared in the March 1992 issue of IFR.)
Captain Jepp is instantly recognizable as the founder of Jeppesen
& Co. but even among pilots, he is less well known for his
pioneering work in inventing the actual procedures his charts
depict. As did many of his generation, Jepp became hooked on flying
at a young age, after paying $5 for a ride in Jenny in 1921. He
bought his first airplane — a $500 Jenny — in 1927 and went
barnstorming through the western states. When his travels took
him to Dallas, Jepp took a job with Fairchild, doing aerial survey
work in Louisiana and eventually in Mexico. Later, he signed on
with a Portland airmail operator for his first tour as a mail
pilot. He was never sure if his Fairchild experience piqued his
interest in chartmaking but by 1930, Jepp had begun to compile
detailed notes on the airmail routes he was flying, including
fixes along the way and airport diagrams. These notes became
the basis for his famous "little black book" and represented
the prototypes for what have become modern instrument approaches.
Jepp and his wife, Nadine, operated the growing chart business
from various basements around the country, while Jepp continued
his flying career with United Air Lines, the successor to Boeing
Air Transport, an early mail and passenger line.
Jeppesen & Co. established itself (and it remains)
the dominant commercial maker of aeronautical charts. Jepp flew
the line with United until 1954 and ran the business full time
until 1961, when he sold the company to Times Mirror Co.
Jepp and Nadine settled in the Denver suburb of Englewood,
Colorado. On December 17th, 1991 — First Flight Day, appropriately
enough — Captain Jepp graciously invited us for a visit. We spent
a fascinating afternoon in his office discussing the early days
of instrument flying.
By the late 1920s, you'd done quite a bit of barnstorming and
flown with Tex Rankin's Flying Circus out of Portland and that
led to a job doing aerial photography for Fairchild. How did you
start flying the mail?
Well, after Fairchild, I'd flown for Varney out of Portland. That
was in April 1930. After that, I went with Boeing Air Transport
but I didn't fly much. They hadn't any work in those days, just
no openings. There was only one or two airplanes going everyday
between Oakland and Chicago and that was the trans-continental
in those days. That was all single-engine airplanes, the Boeing
40-Bs. And they had an experimental Tri-Motor Boeing they were
playing with.When the Depression came along, I went back with
Fairchild up in St. Paul, flying a run over to Duluth and Eau
Claire. Fairchild wanted me to go back to New York and I said
no, I'm going to Cheyenne and try to get my airmail job back.
And I got hired on.
With the airmail contracts, there must have been a lot of pressure
to fly, no matter what the weather.
Well, there was. You didn't have very much in the way of weather
reporting. They had a few farmers around some of the towns and
they'd spot for us and maybe call the sheriff's department with
a report. I remember up near Laramie, they stationed a crew
about 50 or 60 miles north of the airport to catch cold fronts
coming down into Cheyenne. That worked pretty well. Most of time,
we didn't know what to expect.
Whether to go or not was pretty much up to the pilot. If you didn't
get the mail through, you might get canned. If you got it through
in conditions that were a little too hard, why, you might get
yourself knocked off. I know back in the early days, some of the
post office people used to say we had to fly, no matter what.
One of the pilots, Ham Lee, wouldn't go, so they fired him. They
picked the next pilot and told him to go and the fellow said if
Ham won't go, I'm not gonna go. I guess if we hadn't straightened
it out, they'd have fired us all.
At that time — about 1930 — there weren't any navaids, other
than the lighted airway beacons. Were you able to fly the 40-B
on instruments?
I did a little of it. But I'd say 80 percent of the pilots didn't
fly any instruments at all. You weren't really equipped to fly
instruments. The 40-B had a turn and bank, a compass and an altimeter
and that's about it. At first, there was no electrical system.
The gyro (turn and bank) was a vacuum-driven deal with that
thing sticking out the side of the airplane. It would ice up
and wouldn't do you a damn bit of good.
Then you'd get a little ice on the wings and those wires would
start to vibrate and they'd pop just like a rifle. It kind of
shook you up a little bit. The Tri-Motor Boeing was a little better.
It had a horizon in it but you couldn't rely on it.
You couldn't use it for a straight-ahead climb. You'd bring the
nose up and this thing would only hold the pitch for three or
four minutes and then it would sink down. Can you imagine trying
to fly instruments with something like that?
Flying in IMC was possible. But there must have been no way
to navigate, other than dead reckoning?
That's about right. Sometimes you could get on top of a low overcast
or a fogged-in condition and fly over that. If you got stuck on
top, you'd better find a hole or find someplace you could let
down.
Down in Mexico, with Fairchild, I used to fly on instruments between
Mexico City and Tampico. I didn't have to worry about the letdown
because I had the whole Gulf to shoot at. I'd just fly over the
inland until I was pretty certain I was over the flat area or
the water. If I was over the water, I'd come back and run a landfall,
then up the coast to Tampico.
How about the Rockies, where you did most of your flying? It
must have been doubly difficult to navigate near high terrain.
Actually, I think weather flying was a little easier over the
mountains than it was over there in Cleveland or New York. Out
here, you've got all the mountains and valleys and you could usually
find a place to get down. Over there, as I understand it, everything
would get fogged in for miles. Of course, I never flew out east.
Fellows going into Portland, for instance, they'd line up with
Mount St. Helen's and Mount Hood poking up through the clouds
and sort of spiral down. But you had to have pretty good ceilings
to do that.
When did you begin to realize that commercial aviation would
have to be built around instrument flying?
I'm not sure I ever really did realize it. You know at the time
I started, I was just a kid. These older guys had been flying
for eight or ten years. I didn't really think much about a system
or publishing it. I really did it just to save my own hide.
I remember making notes and trying to remember as much as I could
by getting it down in writing so I could rehearse it. Then I'd
have it some day when I really needed it. It's hard to believe
now, but back then, we didn't have much to go on at all. You'd
come chugging along there at night...there aren't any lights to
speak of around the airport, except for a beacon...you hoped.
The fact that I was so young helped some, I guess. One day they'd
send me in this direction and one day another. Maybe the next
day, somebody would get hurt or killed or something. That happened
a lot, you know. Well, they'd say send Jepp over there and let
him fly the route instead of sending a family man. All he's got
is a suitcase. And that's about right, too, that's all I had.
Is it true that some of the veteran pilots weren't enthusiastic
about IFR flying?
Looking back, it's hard to believe, but a lot of pilots, a lot
of the old timers never did adapt to IFR. I remember once, after
the Tri-Motor Boeing came in, this was about 1930, the government
decided we had to have a radio license. So they picked us up in
a Tri-Motor and we all went to San Francisco to get a radio
license. We had eight or nine pilots on that Boeing, from Cheyenne
and Salt Lake. We landed in Sacramento, trying to get to Reno.
We would fly up the hills, down the canyons, all around, looking
for holes. Finally, we got back on the ground in Sacramento
about 5 o'clock.
Well, the fellows got to drinking a little and I casually mentioned
that one of these days, we were going to be able to fly through
that weather or fly up over it. Old Ray Little, God, he
got mad. He started poking me in the chest with two fingers
and he says, "I know every rock, every river and every
pebble on that mountain between here and Reno," he says,
"and I tell you, we'll never do that." I finally
snuck away. But Ray called the chief pilot and said, "You
better watch that Jeppesen. He's got some strange ideas about
flying."
But not everyone was like that. Some of the old timers turned
out to be pretty fair instrument pilots. They went on to fly
the Boeing 247 and the DC-3.
When did radio navigation become practical for IFR?
They were putting in the radio beams, the old four-legged radio
ranges, as early as 1930, I think. The stations were kind
of spotted across the country, not really what you could call
an airway system, nothing at all like you have now.
But they weren't using them. They had no procedures for them,
no charts, just nothing at all. In fact, they never even published
the frequencies for quite a long while. You couldn't even find
out where the legs ran. I guess the government didn't want us
fooling around with them.
But you did anyway?
Oh, yes. I used to take the chief pilot's airplane, the 40-B
that he checked everybody out in, and go over to work letdown
procedures. We had dug some of the frequencies out of the Department
of Commerce by then. Anyway, I'd fly over to Laramie or Rock
Springs and various places trying to figure out how you could
use the ranges to get down under a ceiling of maybe 500 or 600
feet. I'd do it in visual conditions, of course, and then I'd
write it all down so I'd have it for a bad night.
I probably worked out most of the procedures between Chicago
and Oakland that way, between 1932 or 1933. Lots of other fellows,
the younger ones, were trying to do the same thing. And they
would pass the information on to me.
Did you work things out on the fly or did you have some government
topo charts to work from?
I never did see any government charts in those days. We didn't
have much of anything, really. Rand McNally wasn't making aeronautical
charts. Guys going cross country kind of felt their way along
the highways or maybe a river or railroad. You were really on
your own.
So for the letdowns, I'd do most of it visually. I'd go out and
fly a five or ten mile circle and take a look. Then I'd figure
that the logical way to do it was to come in on this beam or that
beam, get the cone of silence and then turn ten degrees this way
or thirty that way. Then I'd figure 30 seconds later or a minute,
you'd have to pull up if you didn't see the airport.
How about elevations and distances and all the other technical
detail that goes into plates and charts?
Even then, the survey information wasn't very good. You'd be surprised.
There was one peak out east of Salt Lake, they had no elevation
on it. It's
about 9200 feet, but they had no elevation.
Later on, during the war, when the Japanese were moving into the
Aleutian Islands, they locked us updown here in the bank building
and had us make instrument charts for Alaska. Some of those mountains
had seven elevations for the same one and they'd vary two or
three thousand feet. I'd just take the highest one and put a
plus or minus on it, which meant the elevation was uncertain.
The best information I got was from the engineering department
at the Union Pacific in Omaha. But a lot of it, why, I'd just
go out and get myself. I'd maybe drive or fly out there and try
to get an elevation at the base and an estimate for the top.
Some of them I climbed up with an altimeter, which seemed
like a pretty antiquated way of doing it, but it was all I had.
I'd get a lot from pilots, too. I used to send these things out
[a form with courses, elevations, distances, etc.]. The pilot
could sketch in the information then we'd have to go back and
survey it.
What sort of minimums did you have on those early approaches
and how did you determine them?
Oh, if you got a good clear signal, you could go down to 200 feet.
Maybe a little lower. But we really didn't have minimums the way
you do now. It was really up to the pilot. The procedures weren't
standard then.
You mean everyone would fly an approach differently?
Yes, that's right. You see, in 1930 and 1931, we had no air traffic
control of any kind. We did have radios so we could call down
to the dispatcher and
tell him where we were and maybe that we were starting our procedure
at Salt Lake, but that was it.
In fact, that's an interesting point. When I first started selling
the Airway Manual, every airline had their own procedures. United,
Western, American, and so on. I'd go down and see the chief pilot
and he'd say "Jepp, what can you do for me?" And
I'd explain the Airway Manual. Then he'd say something like
"Well, if I want to change the altitude of this procedure
turn or some such, I can just call in the office girl there and
have her do it and make a bunch of mimeograph copies for the
pilots."
So what I did was to set up a tailored service and a standard
service. I could see that it was going to become standard some
day, with all of the traffic we were getting. But when I came
to sell you a manual, I'd tailor it just the way you wanted it.
Before long, the letdowns were standard and I didn't have to
do as much tailoring.
Your early manuals show approaches built on the low-frequency
ranges. What was it like to fly them?
We did pretty well with it but at the time it was kind of an uncertain
thing. You'd listen for an A on one side of the course and N on
the other, then a more or less constant tone between.
Pretty soon, it'd just fade out for a little while and you'd pick
it up on the other side and you'd know you had gone over
the station, through the cone of silence. Lots of times, though,
you couldn't hear much because of snow static and so forth.
Ice, too.
One night I lost most of my antennas down there in the Laramie
Valley. They iced up and broke off. I didn't hear anything at
all until all the way past Elko. I just climbed up to 14,000 feet.
I came out three or four miles north of the airway, past Elko.
By then, the clouds were breaking up and I could just start to
pick up the lights.
Even in the DC-3, we still had to dead reckon. For instance, you'd
come out of Cheyenne and you'd cross this beam and you'd take
your time and when you'd cross the next beam, it'd give you some
idea of the kind of wind you were bucking, headwind or tailwind.
There was no other way to tell how far out on the range leg you
were and that could get confusing. I remember the east leg of
the Salt Lake range, you'd fly north and south across it and get
20 or 25 on-course signals because the thing would bounce around
between those peaks.
Even when you knew where you were on the approach, it wasn't easy.
You had to be careful around those mountains.
The manager there at Salt Lake had a phone put in at the far corner
of the field to get way from all the noise, then he'd listen for
you and give you a position report. "Yeah, I hear you, Jepp,
over to the northwest, blurp your engine." At least then
you knew you were past the mountains so you'd go back to the range
station and work a letdown.
At the time, were you the only one making charts or were there
others, too?
Oh, there must have been seven or eight fellows trying to get
into the business. They never really got anywhere with it. I've
got one of them around here somewhere by a fellow who was a dispatcher
at Braniff. He was under a handicap, because he was doing it
from the ground. I was doing it from the cockpit.
I never could understand why none of the big companies like Rand
McNally got into it. I guess they were making so much money in
the road map business they couldn't see aviation coming.
I know I was told that every time Rand McNally checked up on me,
they thought I was going broke. I guess I had them fooled. I
think they thought the government was going to take it over.
The government eventually did start making charts but not until
about 1938, I think.
Your first published charts were in these small binders, about
the size of the original black book?
Yes. I had been talking to United Airlines and they wanted the
manuals so I printed up 50 procedures and letthem have those.
I just kept enlarging it from there. I had the whole United States
charted like this when the war broke out. Eventually...must have
been before the war, we went to the larger size plates that you
have now. Fred Kelly at Western wanted the thing in the small
size so it would fit in a coat pocket. He paid the printing bill.
But they were too small to read so we went back to the larger
size.
When Nadine and I got married in 1936, we ran the chart business
out of the basement at Salt Lake. At that time, getting the charts
out on time wasn't easy. I'd go see a printer and he'd say "Well,
I can get that out in ten days." Of course, I needed it in
two hours.
I didn't know anything about printing but I learned quick. Learned
about paper, too. Grain, crackle, burst, that sort of thing. Over
the years, we've done a lot of things that you wouldn't think
would make a difference.
During the war, I had to go see Forrestal (Secretary of the Navy)
to get a barrel of titanium so the paper would be opaque enough
to print on both sides without showing through.
Look at this binder, with seven rings. It had to have seven because
the paper's so light it would rip too easy with fewer rings. Then
we put the lock
booster on the rings so the binder wouldn't open up and spill
everything all over the cockpit. Then we figured out that putting
round corners on the plates would keep them from getting dog-eared
after a month or two. Little
things like that really made a difference, I think.
Looking back on those early procedures and plates, would you
have changed anything if you had all to do over again?
I've wondered about that a lot. If you just woke up and you'd
never seen nor heard of an airway system, what would the charts
look like? The one I built had the frequency at the top, with
the letdown in the middle, and the pull-up down here, then the
minimums below that. It hasn't changed in 50-some years. I think
it worked out pretty good.
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