John Classen:
CLASS OF 1952
Aviation High SchoolClass of 1952
Long island city, NY
Manhattan High School of Aviation TradesClass of 1952
New york, NY
John's Story
John's schools include Manhattan High School of Aviation Trades. I started after graduation with American Airlines as a cleaner, draft bait. Got my notice at the end of march of 53, I hot footed down to the Air Force recruiter, under the EL at 46th ST. Queens Blvd. Next Monday at six in the morning got on a bus for Sampson AFB upstate NY. After Basic went to Chanute AFB and jet engine school. Guess what, one day marching down a street another flight coming in the opposite direction and who do i see Mutt and Jeff, Roper in the first line and Smith in in the last, they were going to Prop school. After school reported to Langley AFB, VA and the 48th Fighter Interceptor Squadron F-94-C. Left the AF in March 57 as Staff Sargent and was one of two man Test Flight department.
Back to American Airlines, when I reported back down town and they heard that i was a Jet mechanic you would think that they were going to have a Baby. That did not help, the maintenance director at LaGuardia said no go back to being a cleaner and put in a transfer request for mechanic. Well a month later I see a bunch off mechanics pushing there tool boxes out the door and i go over to see what is going on. It seems that this maintenance director has added a midnight to the shift to the schedule, well these guys were not going to work an extra midnight shift and some of them had more than 10 years with American. So I thought what future do I have here and Seaboard & Western Airlines was hiring so I went with them. They had 1049 Constellations and it was good experience, but that lasted about about 24 months and two lay offs.
In the mean time the Air Force Reserves was looking for Flight Engineers in the Art Program so I applied. On the second lay off from Seaboard they excepted me. That was good work and steady days off and most week ends except on the reserve week ends.I became Squadron Stand Board Engineer. This was a great job but like all good things it must end. In March of 61 they closed Mitchel Field, I had a choice of McGuire N.J. or Steward in New Berg N.Y.. Well back then you did not no how long these bases would stay open so I took the Lay Off, as it turns out both base are still active today.
Well i took a six week vacation on unemployment. The unemployment office said after six weeks you look for a job or we cut off your benefits. So I looked in the news paper and Pan Am and Eastern were both hiring. i went to Pan Am and oh hum me, they offered a inspector job, or go back to a cleaner and wait for an opening to mechanic, well I had bin down that road before. Be sides I am not very good as an inspector, i like hands on work. Next i went across the street to Eastern an...Expand for more
d in less than an hour i had an appointment for a physical and was told after to report to the down town office and fill out the paper work, YOUR HIRED!!
Eastern had its problems mainly with the unions, of all the jobs i had i enjoyed the work there the most. I started doing Phase checks on Lockheed Electra for six months I learned a lot in that time. There was a graduate form the same CAA class and we were on same shift together, he became a supervisor and shortly after passed away from cancer. i moved on to the heavy maintenance, that is were i really enjoyed the work. Some of the tings i had to do i can not believe i did today, that is another story.
While i was at the the reserves i met an other Flight Engineer in the same Squadron who was a supervisor for Lufthansa Maintenance and he asked me to go down and apply for a job with them. I did and they were only taking people with passenger jet experience, that was a joke how many people had passenger jet experience in 1960.
Well one day this supervisor from the reserves came looking for me at Eastern. It seems that they had just let go a fellow class mate and there was a opening at Lufihansa. He asked me if I wanted to come work for them, I told him let me see there Union Contract to compare with Eastern.. there was no comparison, be sides Frank Borman just took over at Eastern and as you no that was the beginning of the end of Eastern. So I started a 34 year carrier with Lufthansa. .
I started with Luthansa on March 6, 1965 as a mechanic that was a very interesting year. First we had a engine change that we all most burned the hangar down. Every thing was going along smothly untill untill we pressure check the engine. They did a wet motoring I had never seen any thing like this be for or since in my entire life, they had fuel on the floor behind the engine all the way out to the blast fence and fuel running out off every drain and seam of the engine into a drip pan,there must have bin 20 galons in the drip pan. Any way this smart electrition steps up be hind the tail pipe and ask the guy in the cockpit for an ignition check, guess what the jerk in the cockpit gives it to him. Well you want to see somone eyes bug out of there sockets you should have seen this electrition, any way the first clake of the spark plug all i could see was fire dripping into that drip pan so i head for the drip pan and got it away from the engine, when i turned around sure enouph there was fire driping out of the drains but someone was there with a fire bottle putting it out. This was my frist experance with the ellet maintance of Lufthansa luckly it was the only bad one.
To be continued.
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