78 Jahre in der Luftfahrt...

[N5528P]

78-year career not just flight of fancy

Clayton "Scotty" Scott piloted a Twin Aerostar from Renton Municipal Airport to Boeing Field yesterday morning. The short hop was routine. The reason was memorable.

Scott, a Mercer Island resident, flew himself to his 100th birthday party at the Museum of Flight.

And this time, unlike his first landing at Boeing Field in 1928, the airport was open. Back then, Scott and two passengers departed in a 1927 biplane from Gorst Field, less than a mile from the newly constructed King County Airport. When they returned from the $10 sight-seeing trip, winds prevented Scott from landing, so he put the plane down on the new and unopened runway.

He went back to the county airport at 5:30 a.m. the next day and flew away before anyone else arrived at the airstrip.

Scott was the first pilot to fly across the Gulf of Alaska. He survived several mishaps there and elsewhere, including losing an engine over the Cascades and fuel-line problems in British Columbia. He kept control of his airplanes throughout a number of emergencies, and he and his passengers always walked away from accidents — though a couple of the planes didn't survive.

Such prudent decisions have sustained Scott's 78-year flying career.

For a while, he worked as Bill Boeing's personal pilot and was gutsy enough to complain to his high-powered boss that the Boeing Boat, a plane that could land and take off on land and water, performed poorly. When told to pick out a better plane, Scott picked a competitor's product — a Douglas Dolphin.

Bill Boeing bought one. Later, also on Scott's advice, Boeing purchased a second Douglas plane, a DC-5, for his personal use on cross-country flights. On one trip to Los Angeles for Boeing, it was arranged for Scott to fly Howard Hughes to a lunch date. Ginger Rogers accompanied Hughes when he arrived at the Glendale Airport.

Scott also worked as a United Airlines pilot and still laughs over his first experience. In a video produced by the Museum of Flight, he describes starting work for the airline in Portland on a Friday morning. His first flight was that night as co-pilot on a flight to Salt Lake City. A few minutes after the Boeing 247 departed, the pilot — saying he wanted a cup of coffee — turned the plane over to Scott as they were flying up the Columbia River Gorge.

"I thought, 'This is a great way to run an airline,' " Scott said.

Within a year, he was working as a test pilot for the Boeing company. He logged more than 1,000 flights in B-17s during World War II and still describes the B-52 as the Cadillac of Boeing bombers.

When he retired from Boeing in 1966, he opened a shop in Renton, modifying and rebuilding float planes. (He still works two to three days a week.) His first contract was with Boeing, to build a replica of the company's first plane. He then flew the model around the country before it went on display in the Museum of Flight.

Scott was smitten with airplanes as a teenager. One night he slipped into the cockpit of an OX-5 Jenny used by a barnstormer and played with the controls, dreaming of flying.

He took his first flight in 1922 — borrowing $3 from his girlfriend so the two could afford the $10 ride at Seaside, Ore. During his senior year of high school in Portland, he took courses at an aviation and auto-mechanic school.

Through his job as a bank clerk, he met Vern Gorst, who hired him as a station attendant for the entrepreneur's newly launched Pacific Air Transport, which had won the airmail contract between Seattle and Los Angeles. During their downtime, the pilots taught Scott how to fly.

He soloed Feb. 27, 1927. His pilot's license is No. 2155.

"He's the oldest active pilot, with the lowest-number license," said Douglas Murphy, regional administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Murphy was part of Scott's birthday celebration yesterday, presenting him with the FAA's Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award. It is given to pilots who have demonstrated exceptional competence and commitment to excellence for 50 or more years, and Murphy estimates only 18 people on the West Coast have ever received it.

"I've never presented one before," he said.

His presentation followed an announcement by Marcie Palmer of the Renton City Council that Renton Municipal Airport will now carry a secondary designation as Clayton Scott Field.

At one point yesterday, Scott posed in front of a 1928 biplane on display to commemorate his first landing at Boeing Field.

He looked at the plane and instantly recognized it — as the wrong plane.

"This isn't it," he said. "This is a later model."

Murphy shook his head in amazement.

"He looks and acts like he's 70. He's quite a guy," Murphy said.

Sherry Grindeland: 206-515-5633 or sgrindeland@seattletimes.com

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