Aviation Career, Begun as a Flight Attendant, Has Really Taken Off

Sally J. Bane taught in elementary school for five years and no doubt was one of those teachers who prompted fathers to remark, “Gee, they didn’t have teachers like that when I went to school.”

Now, passengers on jet planes are making those sorts of comments about pilots since Bane became one. She works for AirCal and is one of about 15 female flight captains nationwide working for a major airline.

“I love flying, and that’s the bottom line,” said Bane, 36, of Irvine, who left teaching in 1977 to become a flight attendant and a small-plane flight instructor, the first legs in her flying career. “At first I think I was happy flying what I was flying, and never dreamed I could become an airline captain. But then I reached the point where I felt I could, in fact, do it for a career.” Bane, who stays trim running six miles every other day, said that “once I get a picture in my mind about what I want to do, I become real determined. You achieve what you want first by knowing what your goals are and second by working hard for them.

“I’m not a women’s libber. The best way to make a statement is to do it, not to talk about it.”

Bane said that “being a female increases your visibility initially, but once you’re in there, you’re watched more closely than a man simply because you are different.”

Like other pilots, Bane gained flight captain status after years of flying cargo and working passenger flights on small airlines. Her becoming a flight captain (“it’s wonderful to be the boss”) and flying out of Orange County was new to everyone. “A lot of the guys I have flown with have never flown with a woman and at first didn’t know what to do,” Bane said. “I just shook their hand.”

Her work as a flight attendant, she said, makes her a more aware pilot. “I learned what passengers wanted to know ,” she said, “so I keep them informed when we’re delayed, tell them about the weather and point out interesting places on the ground.”

And her personal future? “I probably could be married, but it would have to be to someone who has great understanding,” she said. “I know people who juggle career and family . . . but raising children is a full-time job.”

Carl F. Prickett Jr., 65, of Placentia has a great affection for his father, Carl F. Prickett Sr., who lives in Atlanta, so he wrote President Reagan and asked him to invite his dad to lunch for his 100th birthday.

He didn’t get a reply so he wrote again, this time suggesting that the President not only invite his father but hold an annual mass banquet for everyone in the country who reaches 100. A White House aide wrote back saying they’d keep that in mind.

“I guess the government probably can’t afford to do all that what with the national debt,” Prickett Jr. said.

But Prickett Sr. had a nice birthday anyway. “Dad had dinner at church, and he liked that,” his son said.

A local version of television’s “Dating Game” plus an “Anniversary Game” will be held Oct. 26 at the Brea Civic Center’s Curtis Theatre, but the twist is that all contestants have to be 60 years old or older since the games are sponsored by the Brea Senior Citizen Club.

“We’ll invite the public to pay a nominal fee to watch the show” said center spokeswoman Kathleen Conrey,) who said four couples will be on the anniversary segment. “We probably could play the newlywed game, but we have some people who have been married 50 years and more.”

The dating segment will have a man making a choice among four women and a woman making a choice from four men. “If the contestant turnout is good we’ll do it several times,” Conrey said. “This is going to be fun.”

Today’s shoplifter can be a drug user, kleptomaniac or that friendly senior citizen, but no matter what, a small business should concentrate on prevention, says crime prevention specialist Vickie Raschke, 44, of Los Alamitos.

“If business people are going to survive,” said Raschke, who first learned her trade by nabbing shoplifters when she worked in a department store, “they better learn how to stop shoplifting before it starts.”

She points out in workshops at Orange Coast and Fullerton colleges that prevention is being used more now rather than the actual arrest. “If you prevent something from being stolen you can still sell it,” she said.

Acknowledgments--Dan Erickson, 17, of Santa Ana, son of Marine Sgt. Greg Erickson, was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout, the first in 22 years for the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station Boy Scout troop.