.-#- . Copyright ##86 G.E.L.

Approximately 2,000 words

JACKIE KLAUS - COMMERICAL PILOT

Written by June Grayson

Photographed by Richard Gra#son

If Jackie K!aus seems happy enough to wa!k on air, it is only appropriate considering her profession. At the age of 50 she is doing just what she has always wanted to do. She is a commercial pilot.

Jackie cannot remember when she did not love flying. "My unc!e was a pi!ot in the o!d barn-storming days and I knew all about him even when I was a tood!er."

Jackie stil! remembers her first airplane ride. It was in a noisy DC-3 that flew round trip from Peoria, Illinois, to Chicago. "My parents promised me a trip if I made the honor roll. You can bet I was on that honor ro!! the next time and on that p!ane."

Flying had to wait unti! afte.r co!!ege at the University of I!linois, Champaign, where Jackie majored in business.

Her first job took her into flying as a TWA flight attendant.

But Bob Klaus, her co!lege sweetheart, then proposed marriage. "I guess he found out how much he missed me when I was out of town," Jackie says.

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Marriage and motherhood, however, did not diminish her love of flying. The desire was on!y postponed.

After their three children were in school ful!time,

Jackie started flying lessons in 1971 at the local airport.

"I

was glad she did," says Bob K!aus, "but I thought it wou!d be just another hobby like bridge or tennis."

"Even though I started flying just.for the fun of it," i

Jackie says, "after I achieved one goa! I was hooked and I never

quit. I was fortunate to have as my flight instructor another woman pilot from Peoria - Jean McLaugh!in, twleve years o!der than I am - and she became my ro!e mode!. In fact, we were copi!ots in the 1976 Powder Puff Derby. P!aced in the top ten, too, out of 40 entries."

Jackie has passed a!! of her ratings - private pi!ot, commercial instrument, and multi-engine. She has even been checked out to fly commercial seaplanes.

"I didn't do much commercial f!ying, though, unti! after the kids left for college,"says Jackie. "But once you start teaching other pi!ots, you can rea!ly rack up those flying hours.

She instructed their son, Scott, now 26, who recently earned his private pilot's license. "I signed him out to another instructor, though, for his solo flight. I was afraid that, !ike any proud mother, I might not be objective enough to find anything wrong with my son."

In the meantime, Bob Klaus had been busy for the past twenty years as president of the family business, Klaus Radio, headquartered in Peoria, Illinois. Klaus Radio is a franchised

distributor for electrical appliances and electronic components for much of Illinois and Iowa and services about 6,000 retail and industrial accounts.

Bob had never been interested in flying but used to re!y on commercial f!ights from Peoria for business trips. Gradua!1y, however, commercia! air service disappeared at these smaller air-

i ports and Bob had to travel many hours by car and sometimes stay

overnight to attend important business meetings.

"One day in 1975, I heard Bob bemoan the fact that he could not make an emergency meeting in Newton, Iowa, five hours away by car. I said,'why don't you !et me fly you there?' It was a beautiful day for f!ying, we rented a p!ane, and I f!ew him to and from his meeting with no problems at all," Jackie says.

"It was not until we were back home that same night and I was grilling our dinner steak," says Bob, "that I realized how convenient our flight had been. We had accomplished all of our goals, we were rested, and I wasn't even !ate for dinner."

It did not take Bob long to buy a company airp!ane. In fact, the company bought three planes the first year. Jackie is the official corporate pi!ot for Klaus Radio.

As the corporate pilot, she is responsible not only for the actual flying but a!so for schedu!ing the aircraft maintenance, for doing the paperwork for the company's aviation department, and for p!anning the comfort and convenience of the passengers on all flights. Their present aircraft is a Piper Seneca III with twin engines, six lush leather seats, and all the !atest flying gadgets that make flying safe and easy.

Jackie says that she has never experienced any discrim!nation because she is a woman. "If you have the skills and can do

the job, people will know it and you get the respect. I think that women can do anything we set our minds to, but I want to be respected because of what I can do, and because I earned that respect - not because I am a woman."

She enjoys remembering one incident, however. "It was not so much discrimination as awe," Jackie relates. "Several

#years ago I flew some women friends from Peoria to Chicago for a

shopping trip on Michigan Avenue. We landed at Meigs Field just

south of the Chicago Loop in bad weather. When we got out of the plane and trai!ed through the f!ight room, there were all those male pilots batting the breeze about the weather and how bad it was out there. And here we all were in our good clothes without even one hair out of place. Their mouths just sort of fe!! open."

Jackie not only serves as corporate pi!ot for Klaus Radio _and a flight instructor at Mt. Haw!ey Airport, but she is on call

with the company plane as a charted pilot. In fact, on Tuesdays, she may hop in the plane before 6.00 am to fly to St. Louis to pick up a surgeon who wi!! spend the day operating at St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria. Then she flies him back to St. Louis when his surgery is over for the day.

Jackie does have a hobby that the male charter pi!ots do not have. She works on her needlepoint during the inevitab!e delays at the airport.

This may be the best of times for any woman who has a yen to fly. The expansion and deregu!ation of the air!ine industry has created an unprecedented demand for pilots that may take five years to fill.

"The cockpit is sex and color b!ind," according to Dave Husar, director of Aviation Training Enterprise, American F!yers'

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training faci!ity located in west suburban Chicago. "WOmen are almost 50% of the work force but only 6% of al! pilots are women, only 3% of all commercially rated pilots are women, and on!y .003% of all airline pilots are women. If you have the ski!!s, a woman will get a job in aviation today."

Neither is a college degree a prerequisite. To complete # the training for all ratings takes four to.five months of four

hours a day for five days a week. Total cost is $15,000 to $20,000. The only drawback is that no schoo| or scholarship# !oans are avai!able for aviation training. Most committed aviation students seek a personal bank loan or they work part time and train part time. After securing a mu!ti-engine rating, a pi|ot wil! have 230 loggab!e flight hours and 200 hours of ground education. The minimum age to get a commercial !icnese is 18 years.

Formerly, corporations would not consider hiring pi!ots until they had 500 hours of flight time. Now the demand for pi!ots is so great that United Air!ines, for examp!e, is interviewing pi!ots with a minimum of only 400 hours. Maximum age to start flying for the air!ines is 35 years but business corporations wi!! hire pi!ots in their forties and fifties if they have the right training and experience.

Husar says that women used to start f!ying because of their husbands. Now they continue flying in spite of their husbands. The husband may be too busy to continue flight training but the wife finds she !ikes f!ying so much that she continues on#to get additional ratings.

"Women sometimes make better students than men," Husar thinks,

"because there is no c!ash of male egos in the cockpit. They wi!! Iisten and obey their instructors better. Of course, that cou!d be a prob!em later on when the woman pilot has to assume the 'pilot in command' atti#ude. But if a woman has been cu!tura!ly conditioned to be subservient, she can a!so be oonditioned to take command," Husar contends.

The pilot in command attitude is no.problem for Jackie Klaus. "I've only made one suggestion to Jackie since we started flying and she came right back with -'Listen, are you going to fly this p!ane or am I?' I haven't opened my mouth since," laughs Bob Klaus.

Jackie has amassed over 6,000 flying hours during her fifteen year career and she has no intention of stopping now. She wants to compete in the 1987 International Air Classic Race, the successor to the Powder Puff Derby. Jackie is a member of the 99's, the sponsor of the race and the original flying organization for women started in 1929 by Amerlia Earhart and Jackie Cochraon together will 97 other famous women aviation pioneers.

A pressing concern of every pi!ot is passing the periodic physica! examination. #he Federa! Aviation Administration has set up rigid criteria to provide for the renewa! of a pi!ot's medical certification. So a pilot's career could end abruptly if for some reason he or she could not pass the physical.

Jackie nope that her perfect helath continues and that she never has to retire.

"As long as I have my medical, I will be out there f!ying."

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