Francis T. Fox; Former L.A. Airports Chief

Francis T. Fox, the former manager of the Los Angeles Department of Airports who is credited with moving the city into the jet age, has died. He was 73.

Fox, who retired in 1983 as city manager of San Jose, died there Monday of a heart attack.

Hired as Los Angeles’ assistant airports manager in 1958, Fox became the manager May 1, 1959, and supervised the development and opening of Los Angeles International Airport in 1961.

As planes began landing at the vast complex, Fox told The Times: “We’ve done what was planned--provide Los Angeles with the foundation for the finest air terminal in the world. . . . But there is no such thing as a completed airport.”

Fox also spearheaded the master plan to develop Los Angeles regional airports, and began implementing that plan in 1967 by acquiring Ontario International Airport.

Many of the forward-thinking manager’s visions did not come to fruition--such as developing Union Station into a major convention center and terminal for a high-speed monorail moving commuters to LAX. He also forecast development of the ill-fated Palmdale International Airport and championed the Supersonic Transport, which has never been in regular service within the United States.

Another Fox proposal was to convert the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station into a satellite commercial airport for LAX. “Somehow,” he predicted a few years too early, “it will become available between 1980 and 1985 as manned aircraft needs diminish.”

Fox was so appreciated by the city that the Airport Commission in 1961 authorized a $10,000 pay raise, boosting his annual salary from $25,000 to $35,000 when the Federal Aviation Agency threatened to lure him away. Fox stayed, earning $10,000 more than Mayor Sam Yorty and vying for years with the head of the other self-sustaining city agency, the Department of Water and Power, for highest-paid city official.

He held the top pay rank when he left his position in 1968 to head airline, airport and related aviation development for reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes.

He left his Los Angeles airport post “with great regret,” he said, but added: “The opportunity and challenge of working with the Hughes organization, led by one of the great pioneers of aviation, is too much to resist.”

Fox later moved to San Jose as manager of airports there and subsequently became city manager.

His fascination with aviation began in childhood.

“I was 7 when Lindbergh flew to Paris. . . . He was my hero,” Fox told The Times in 1959. “As soon as I was old enough and could earn the money, I took flying lessons.”

Growing up in Worcester, Mass., Fox studied business administration at the College of the Holy Cross there and earned his commercial pilot’s license in the government’s prewar civilian pilot training program.

In 1941, the Marine Air Corps snagged him as a flight instructor specializing in acrobatics. He remained active in the Marine Reserves and rose to the rank of major.

After the war, Fox became manager of the airport in Worcester, and simultaneously took aviation law classes at Northeastern University Law School in Boston and aeronautics and meteorology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He also covered aviation for the Worcester Telegram.

He later worked for airports in Boston, Cleveland, Denver and Philadelphia.

Fox is survived by one son, Francis T. Jr., and four daughters, Patricia, Mary, Colleen and Susan.