One Lucky Man
By Capt. Stephen Brillaud (FedEx Express, ret.)
Capt. Stephen Brillaud waves good-bye from the cockpit window.
My final pairing on the B-777 began with a nice afternoon departure to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport on March 11. In the first officer seat was Caitlin Baldwin, hired by FedEx Express only a few years earlier. Initially we were all business; but once things settled down in cruise, Caitlin asked me what I was going to do in retirement. And the memories of my career started to float in.…
My father spent 32 years as a pilot for Colonial Airlines and later with Eastern Air Lines. I remember going with him to Idlewild Airport to pick up his paycheck. Back in the 1960s, you had to physically go and get your check from your locker. On one trip, I met a man who I later learned was Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker!
I worked summers at a small airport in upstate New York before joining the U.S. Air Force, gaining valuable maintenance experience. That experience provided the background to obtain my A&P license, something that helped me throughout the rest of my career. When I separated from the Air Force, I was hired at Beechcraft, both working on and flying corporate airplanes. To this day, I love to work on and repair aircraft.
In 1984, I was fortunate to get hired by an upstart company called Air Atlanta as a B-727 flight engineer. The experience led to being hired by the Flying Tiger Line, and I crewed on the B-727, DC-8, and B-747. In 1989, FedEx purchased Tigers, and I quickly moved to the first officer seat on the B-727. Back then, FedEx did 95 percent of its flying in the wee hours of the morning. It was the ultimate training tool, flying to all points within the United States and South America. I moved through the copilot seats and then the captain seats, flying to most major cities in the world, with my airline career culminating as a B-777 captain.
I also volunteered doing ALPA safety work, and the training was superb. My aircraft maintenance background afforded me the opportunity to be on several investigations over the years.
I’m sure my old stories bored both Caitlin and the relief first officer, Craig Kinkade. But they did ask! And as I reminisced, it seemed like it had only been days, not decades!
As we started our descent to the airport, I remembered the first time I flew there. It was 1987, and I was in the second officer seat of a B-747. It was a journey I would repeat in the DC-8, DC-10, MD-11, and, more recently, in the B-777. Here I was experiencing that flight for the last time.
It really hit me that it was all over as I flew my very last leg back home, Los Angeles to Memphis, on a beautiful morning. I confess it was sobering. I heard various congratulations from controllers as I proceeded across the western United States. It was now sinking in: This is it. ATC cut the red tape and gave me a straight route to the runway.
As I turned onto Taxiway Alpha, the fire trucks were in place. It was now my turn to be on the receiving end of an age-old aviation ritual. As I shut down the engines and ran that final checklist, I had to sit there for just a few seconds longer, taking it all in.
My primary takeaway is that I’m one lucky man to have been able to enjoy my life’s passion: to fly airplanes for a living, to work for a successful company, to see the world—and, most of all, to have gained valuable friendships that will stay with me in the years to come. Over all those passing years, what I’ll remember most are the friendships I’ve enjoyed—brothers and sisters cut from the same cloth who share a love of aviation.
This chapter of my life has come to an end. The parking brake is set on this adventure, and it’s on to the next—time to make new memories. Yes, I’m one lucky man.
