MANAGEMENT IN AVIATION HISTORY BENCH MARKS
As Pan American Airways Airport Manager in Hawaii,
Van Zandt led the way for the famous Clipper fl eet, which fl ew from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor. Van Zandt also supervised the
construction of PAA’s refueling stations at Midway and Wake islands.
[Drawing of PAA “Yankee Clipper” by Dan Witkoff.]
out-buildings equipped with running water and electricity. Miles from the nearest townships, railhead, or smooth paved highway, Shaw’s construction crews transported materials by truck over crude dirt roads. Before Scenic’s aircraft were regularly fi lled with tourists
over the canyon Van Zandt took hunting parties, NPS employees and adventuresome travelers almost anywhere he could fi nd a fl at place to land his Stinson Detroiter. Van Zandt summarized his concept, construction, operation and ultimate Depression Era business losses in his Memoirs, written in 1984. At age 90, his backward glance was brief, but not without detail, “…In the spring of 1928, we bought two Tri-Motors at $85,000 apiece and started sight-seeing fl ights over the Grand Canyon and elsewhere in the Southwest. We carried “Hosteen” John Wetherill, noted guide and discoverer of Mesa Verde ruins, on one ninety minute fl ight over Rainbow Natural Bridge, and the Painted Desert, and landed him back in front of his home in Monument Valley. It had taken him, he said, two weeks by pack train, the last time he had covered that route!” Business was great all during the summer tourist season at the Canyon. In anticipation of the winter lull, we had set up a training school and built an airfi eld at Phoenix, Arizona. We named it Sky Harbor. We had ambitious plans to merge Scenic Airways with aviation operations elsewhere and raised twenty million dollars in pledges from Chicago and Detroit fi nanciers.” Van Zandt’s plan for air tours in other National Parks was
short-lived when Scenic became a casualty of the Great Depression in 1929. “Our promised funds vanished,” wrote Van Zandt. We sold Scenic Airways to a local operator; and I returned to Detroit.” Ford then shipped Van Zandt and a crew with a “knocked-down Tri-Motor” across the Atlantic.
BELLY-DANCERS AND SWORD-SWALLOWERS In 1929, Van Zandt, pilot Roy Manning, and mechanic, Carl Wenzel, exhibited the Tri-Motor in 21 countries. They sold
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a plane to the government of Czechoslovakia, and another to Spanish Airways. Just as Van Zandt began to train the Spanish aviators in their new aircraft, the Junkers Company, which also built metal airplanes, fi led a lawsuit against Ford. Although Ford eventually prevailed, he decided not to risk further problems and brought Van Zandt home. With his wanderlust temporarily satisfi ed, Van Zandt
moved to Chicago, Illinois, to be near relatives who were then working in high positions on the World’s Fair of 1933. Originally hired to organize automotive and aviation exhibits at the Fair, Van Zandt was sent to Europe and the Middle East to recruit foreign exhibitors. He brought back belly dancers, snake-charmers and sword-swallowers, who became the hit of the Midway. A year later Juan Trippe, President of Pan American Airways, hired Van Zandt as PAA’s fi rst Airport Manager in Hawaii. The rest of Van Zandt’s remarkable life includes his wife,
Lydia, by his side during adventures all over the world. He retired to become an active member of his California coastal community. In 1978 he visited the Grand Canyon where he met with air tour operators who had followed in his footsteps and considered him a living legend. J. Parker Van Zandt, the father of sight-seeing over the Grand Canyon died in 1990 at age 96. Today hundreds of air tours in both fi xed wing and helicopters carry thousands of passengers above the Colorado River and over the canyon’s landmarks. Noise abatements and other environmental concerns are now imposed, but for the most part air tourism over the Big Ditch is exactly as Van Zandt had envision.
Giacinta Bradley Koontz is an aviation historian, magazine columnist and author who has received the DAR History Medal and Honorable Mention from the New York Book Festival. She has appeared on the History Channel and in PBS documentaries. For more information, visit
www.GiaBKoontz.com.
DOMmagazine
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