Brent Landry ’69 hangs up his captain’s hat March 9 after 30 years of flying for Southwest Airlines. A Port Arthur native, Landry had his eyes on the skies from an early age. When he was 8, he caught John Wayne’s The High and the Mighty at the Port Theater. “I remember when he was flying that airplane and saying—and I can really remember this—I’m going to be a pilot when I grow up,” Landry said. “That’s pretty much how I decided what I was going to do.”
Getting from the theater seat to the left seat in a jet would take more than just wanting to, he realized. “I had to have a college degree to be an Air Force pilot,” the Thomas Jefferson High School graduate said. Lamar was the obvious choice, but choosing his major was less certain. “I knew that I needed a degree, but what degree really didn’t matter so far as the Air Force was concerned.” Landry went to the catalog and settled on business as a direct course.
“I was learning to fly at Jefferson County Airport, and I got to talking to some of these guys about starting a flying club,” Landry said. He’d fill his Saturdays mowing lawns to earn cash for flying.
Then a sophomore, Landry helped start the Lamar Tech Flying Club with faculty sponsors Sterling Crim, Luther Bailey and Arthur Stelley. Landry was chosen as the student-organization’s charter president and, with 18 initial members, the club arranged to take possession of a brand-new Piper Cherokee 140. Landry made the trip to Lake Charles, La., flying N391LT to its new home at Jefferson County Airport in May 1966 (the airplane is still flying in the St. Louis area).
After graduating Lamar with a B.B.A. in management, Landry headed to Officer Training School in San Antonio, then, as a newly commissioned second lieutenant, began 52 weeks of rigorous pilot training at Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio, progressing from the piston-engine T-41 Mescalero to the jet-powered T-37 and the sleek supersonic T-38 Talon. Of his entering class of 80 pilot candidates, only 40 earned their wings. When it came time to choose between flying fighters or larger aircraft, Landry opted for the “heavies” since it seemed a surer path to a career flying airliners.
“Vietnam was hot and heavy,” Landry said, “so I knew I’d end up there at some point.” He was selected to fly the four-engine EC-121 Warning Star (Lockheed Super Constellation) Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS). The aircraft’s two radar domes provided a view of the sky covering hundreds of square miles. Stationed in Sacramento, Calif., he pulled duty in Keflavick, Iceland; South Korea; and Florida. A tour in Southeast Asia in 1972-1973 included providing “top cover” for Air Force One as President Richard Nixon flew across Korea on his way to stun the world with his secret meeting with China’s Mao Zedong.
When the Vietnam War ended, Landry separated from the Air Force. Thousands of pilots left the service as well, and the airlines found themselves awash in highly qualified pilot applicants. “Great pilots were a dime a dozen,” he said, “so I went corporate for five years.” During that time, Landry flew the Gulfstream II, Lockheed JetStar, Hansa Jet, Sabreliner and the BAC 1-11 for Texaco; Northwest Pipeline of Salt Lake City, Utah (during the building of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System); and Beaumont’s Rogers brothers and Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, taking executives to business concerns around the country and overseas.
“When I turned 30, I thought I’d better get on with the airlines,” he said. “Back then, 30 was considered old.” Landry applied with United, Braniff, Delta, Texas International and the then-Texas-only Southwest Airlines. “I got an offer and a class date from Southwest,” Landry said. “I thought ‘I’ll stay on with this little ol’ airline for a while, and then I’ll get on with the big guys.’”
When Landry joined Southwest, it had 12 aircraft in its livery and 190 pilots to fly them. Today, Southwest serves more than 70 cities with 475 aircraft, flown by some 5,000 pilots. From its initial base at Love Field in Dallas, the airline has grown to have eight crew bases, including Houston, Dallas, Oakland, Phoenix, Chicago, Baltimore, Orlando, and, beginning next year, Las Vegas. Landry moved to the Houston base in 1984, putting him closer to family.
“Everyone used to make fun of that ugly orange airplane,” Landry said of his early days with the airline. “But Herb Kelleher (co-founder of Southwest Airlines with Texas businessman Rollin King) would always say ‘Yeah, but it turns green when it goes to the bank.’”
“I saved my first officer’s life one time,” Landry said. The “save” is credited not to an aerobatic maneuver, but to the Heimlich maneuver. “We were in Las Vegas at Caesars Palace during a layover in 1999 when Dave Locker, a retired lieutenant colonel who had played football for the University of Texas, began chocking on a piece of steak.”
While he takes great pride in his track record of safety in the air, he takes equal pride in working with the public.
In preparing for a flight shortly after 9/11, Landry noticed a young boy was greatly distressed and refusing to join his family on the airplane. “The little boy bolted out of the airplane and ran down the jetway until his older brother caught him and brought him back,” Landry said.
“He experienced an extreme panic attack, throwing things, screaming and shedding uncontrollable tears,” wrote his mother in a letter to Landry. “I had never seen him behave like that. It took all my strength to hold on to him for dear life because all he wanted to do was run … I was terrified that I would lose him.”
Landry arranged for seats at the front of the plane for the boys and their mother, then spent 10 minutes talking eye-to-eye with the little boy.
“His name was Myles,” Landry said. “He was sure the plane was going to fly into a building. I assured him it was not going to happen.” Landry then made young Myles an offer: Go on the flight, and he’d give him his captain’s hat. Wide-eyed, Myles agreed.
As Landry and his co-pilot prepared to run their checklists, he stepped out of the cockpit for a moment, cap in hand. Putting the cap on Myles, he said, “Myles, a deal is a deal. You’re doing great.” To this day, Landry gets Christmas cards from the family, thanking him for taking the time to quell a young child’s fear, and letting Landry know that the cap still rests on Myles’ bedpost.
“You have given him confidence that he can overcome anything,” his mother wrote. “I thank God you were flying our plane on Sept. 27.”
Responsibility is relative, Landry said. Recalling a conversation with two neighbors, one an attorney and one a doctor, Landry asked how many surgeries he might perform in a day—maybe four, he said—and how many a week—maybe six. After some quick calculations, Landry said that in typical day, an airline pilot would be responsible for at least 1,000 lives. That responsibility comes with exacting physical examinations every six months and “bust-that-and-you-loseyour-job” check rides in the aircraft and flight simulator twice a year as well. “It is a lot of pressure, but it has to be that way,” he said.
At 60, airline pilots must retire. “I’ve had a great career,” Landry said. “I’ve been blessed, made a good salary, met a lot of neat people. I’ve never hurt anybody or scratched an airplane in all the decisions I’ve made, so I’ve been very fortunate.”
His near-term plans include building a retirement home on Lake Conroe with his wife, Judy, and continuing his hobby of rebuilding ’50s and ’60s vintage Cushman scooters, like the kind he brings over to escort the Red Hussars Krewe, which his sister Beverley is a member of, at the Port Arthur Mardi Gras Parade each year.
Landry’s sister, Beverly Parks ’67, is a Lamar music graduate and earned a master’s degree in music from Lamar in 1978. Her late husband, George Parks, was on Lamar’s faculty from 1947 to 1985 and served as head of the music department.
“I’ve been flying since I was 16 and have over 25,000 hours of flying time,” Landry said. “I’ve about got it figured out.
“They don’t pay you to fly the airplane,” Landry said. “They pay you to get everyone back safely when something goes wrong.”
