HE KISSING CAPTAIN

   Pancho Munoz; the gallant owner, operator, chief pilot and public relations chief of the now defunct Baja Airlines had a singular habit. He kissed all his female passengers as they boarded and deplaned.  They loved it!

   Francisco Munoz first flew solo in a Curtis junior pusher on Feb 7, 1937, at Ciudad Chiuhuahua - two months short of his 18th birthday. He flew sight-seeing passengers for two years and  acquired the necessary two hundred hours flying time to apply for his commercial pilots license: the 237th issued by the Mexican Aeronautica Civil.  While the ink was drying on the newly acquired certificate, our hero pulled stakes to Mexico City to apply for a pilot's seat with Aeronaves de Mexico. After a short interview, the station manager marched Pancho down the the parking area and showed him a Stinson Detroiter and announced the plane should be at work in Oaxaca on the following day. Pancho admitted he had not flown a Stinson Detroiter and asked if someone could check him out. The station manager stated, "Hell, you're a pilot aren't you, then check yourself out en route to Oaxaca".   Munoz immediately set out to buy a map so he could find out where Oaxaca was located.   Departure for Oaxaca was cut short when excessive engine vibration was noted. Pancho returned to the maintenance hanger and reported this to the chief mechanic who asked, "Ever flown a radial engine before?"  Pancho admitted he had no radial engine experience, to which the mechanic replied, "Well they vibrate!" as he walked away.

   His honor on the line, Pancho departed with a heavy load of spare parts aboard  and spent a sweaty 30 minutes circling the Valley of Mexico to gain altitude to get over the mountains on his route. As Tehuacan was approached , the pilot was thoroughly convinced that something was wrong and landed. He dispatched a telegram to Mexico City for mechanical assistance.

    The chief mechanic arrived in a disgruntled state after an all night train ride and reluctantly agreed to check the propeller. One blade was four inches shorter than the other. The mechanic produced a hacksaw and was preparing to prune the excess off when Munoz suggested that perhaps they should install the extra propeller which was in the cargo. Inspection revealed that the spare prop also had a blade that was shy four inches. The blades had been transposed during a recent overhaul. A blade change soon had the Detroiter purring like a kitten and en route to Oaxaca.

   Munoz's circuit in Oaxaca started at the capital city six days a week laden with passengers and mail. The route was from one tiny hamlet to another with never more than 10 minutes flying time between them. No roads connected these villages and their dirt strips seldom exceeded 600 meters in length. Survival was testimony to the pilots' ability.

   1942 offered Munoz an opportunity to work for the U.S. Government expanding Mexico's airstrips to accommodate the American warplanes.

   As WW11 wound down, Pancho took a job flying a DC-3 for a Yucatan lumber company hauling company executives and doing aerial surveys to locate mahogany forests in bloom. The lumber company fell into political disfavor and was dissolved forcing Munoz to to move to Texas where he sold Piper Airplanes.

    While on a business trip to San Diego, Pancho struck up a conversation within Jim Bracamonte at Lindberg field and learned that Tijuana had no air service. Pancho Monoz started Baja Airlines with a little four place Cessna 170 in 1955, a real shoestring operation. Business was slow and our kissing Captain supplemented his income flying old Douglas B-18's to the remote Baja California lobster fishing camps on the Pacific  between El Rosario and San Juanico. His manifests on the southbound leg of these flights would be supplies for the camps. The northbound leg was six thousand pounds of live lobster in wet gunny sacks.

     The application to upgrade the operation from a charter service to a scheduled airline was being ground through the wheels of bureaucracy when our legendary captain had the good fortune to be summoned for a flight from Guerro Negro to Tijuana by none other than Erle Stanley Gardner, author of the fabled Perry Mason series.  The flier and the writer were soon  fast friends. As the relationship blossomed, Munoz became one of the chief characters in Gardner's four subsequent books concerning his exploration of the peninsula. The resulting publicity generated by these books soon had Baja Airline flying with a route permit to Bahia de Los Angeles, Mulege and Guerro Negro. Many residents here on the peninsula suspected the famous author was an investor in this airline.       

   Quoting from AIR PROGRESS  magazine (July 1967) "Captain Munoz now has 34 employees. Baja Airlines has a 40 passenger Martin 202, two 18- passenger Lockheed Loadstars, a Beechcraft C-45 and a Cessna 195. At the same time more than 65% of his landings are still on dirt. Munoz commanded an uncanny ability to bring his planes to a safe stop on the shortest of landing strips. The writer watched goggle-eyed as Munoz brought in a fully--and we do mean fully--loaded Beechcraft into a downhill dirt strip just 1350 feet long. There were gullies at both ends and absolutely no room for error. F.M. touched down three point in exactly the same spot on two successive flights, within 30 feet of the beginning of the runway, and coasted to a stop with minimum breaking....Captain Monoz , for our money, is the best short field pilot we've ever seen in action."

    1970 was a bleak year for our Captain. His pal Erle Stanley Gardner died and the publicity dried up. Aeronaves de Mexico decided to expand their operations into Baja California since it was a proven moneymaker. Munoz fought this in court but the judge ruled that Aeronaves was a federally owned airline the routes belonged to them.  Baja Airlines permits were revoked and Munoz was out of business.

    Pancho Munoz became chief pilot for Exportadora de Sal, the salt company at Guerro Negro. He retired from that job at the age of 65 years in 1983, His log book showed 23,239 hours and 25 minutes but he admitted it had been shaved because he could only log 90 hours per month to be legal.

    Captain Francisco Munoz license # 237 will be long remembered by the old Baja heads: especially those who he kissed as they boarded a flight to Mulege and Bahia de Los Angeles. 

Jimmy Smith