Becoming a Commercial Aviation Historian

DALLAS — While some of us are interested in commercial aviation from a travel perspective, Shea Oakley made it a passion that turned into a career as a historian.

Mr. Oakley has been a commercial aviation enthusiast since childhood. He first joined the World Airline Historical Society (WAHS) in 1983 and has served on its board for the past 14 years. In 1987, he was co-founder of the former Tri-State Airline Historical Society.

Oakley joined the staff of the Aviation Hall of Fame and Museum of New Jersey, US, in 2001 and was the museum’s Executive Director from 2006 to 2018. He has written many articles for airline history and enthusiast publications.

In 2017, he started The Commercial Aviation History Consultancy, an organization devoted to fact-checking and research for commercial aviation projects in every form of media.

Oakley currently serves as the Pan Am Historical Foundation’s Principal Contributor and Historical Advisor for Social Media. Oakley is also a Principal Contributor for Social Media to the Fellowship of Christian Airline Personnel (FCAP), with which he became involved over twenty years ago (Oakley sponsored advertising for this organization in an airline enthusiast magazine during the 2000s).

Airways had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Oakley about his beginnings in aviation, his journey as a commercial aviation historian, and the importance of the field.

WI: It's good to have you in this interview. At what point in your life did you take an interest in being an aviation historian?

SO: As far as the enthusiast aspect of it and my general interest in commercial aviation, I can’t remember a time when I was not interested, and there’s a reason for that.

The first time I flew, I was four months old, in 1968. We were on a BOAC Super VC-10 flying from New York Kennedy to Bermuda. My father was given a packet for something called the BOAC Junior Jet Club, and it included a logbook for children to log their flights. My father got it for me on that flight.

He got it signed for me on each flight by giving it to the flight attendant, who would then give it to the cockpit crew, who would fill it out and sign it. He did that for me until I got old enough to hand it to the flight attendant myself, at four or five years of age.

The FA would often tell me to take the logbook to the captain, and I would find myself in the cockpit, as a young boy, getting my logbook signed.

I actually kept that up until adulthood. I’m on my sixth logbook. Now I’ve logged virtually every commercial flight on which I’ve traveled since June 1968, and so that’s really where it began. I can’t remember a time when I was not fascinated by airlines and airliners.

It’s literally a lifelong interest as long as it becomes something that is more than just a formal historical interest. I was 15 when I joined the World Airline Historical Society and went to my first National Convention of theirs the following year, in 1984, in St. Louis.

So that’s when you could say my official historical interest began, but my interest and passion for commercial aviation are lifelong.

You mentioned that you’ve flown quite a number of times. Which are your favorite airlines?

That’s a tough one. Are we talking about airlines in the past or airlines in the present?

Both. 

I would say my favorite airline that is no longer with us is Eastern, and that’s because, as a child traveling to Sarasota, Florida, when my family was vacationing there in the 1970s, Eastern was actually one of only two major carriers serving the city, along with National Airlines. I love both, but I would say Eastern is number one.

I collect airline memorabilia, and I have more Eastern artifacts than from any other airline. So I flew them between 1968, from infancy to my college years. They are, without a doubt, the classic legacy carriers that I’m most interested in.

Pan Am, BOAC, and Delta would be the other ones. As far as current airlines, probably BOAC, because it began it all for me, British Airways (BA) would be my favorite current carrier.

What challenges have you faced in your career so far as a commercial aviation historian?

It’s one thing when you’re working, as I did for 16 years for an aviation museum. When you’re working for a larger organization, it’s a little bit easier than when you’re freelancing.

For the last five years with The Commercial Aviation History Consultancy, I’ve been a freelance airline historian, and basically, the mission statement says that the organization exists to provide video, audio, or written commentaries for projects touching on any aspect of airline history.

So if there’s an organization, particularly a media organization, that’s working on a project of any kind involving commercial aviation in the past and they need accuracy assistance or general commentary, I’m available to help with that.

You don’t get paid to do interviews, but the advantage of that is that you get exposure, which allows you to promote the other side of your business, which is doing paid work.

What's the highlight of your career so far?

The highlight of my career as an airline historian is having the opportunity to be interviewed for documentaries and by major news outlets like the BBC and The New York Times. It’s an honor, and it’s also exciting to be able to talk about the thing I’m most passionate about and be able to, hopefully, give accurate information.

It’s something that’s important to me—that we see more accuracy in more media about the history of aviation, especially commercial aviation in particular. 

What advice would you give someone who would like to be a commercial aviation historian? Perhaps someone who doesn’t have the same background starts young and maybe picks up interest along the way.

I have a degree in aviation management, which has been helpful, but if I were to encourage someone young who would like to make it his or her career, I would say perhaps get a degree in aviation management but also get a degree in general history, in museum management, or in museum operations.

Because really, if it were not for the 16 years I spent at the Aviation Hall of Fame and Museum of New Jersey, I would not have the credibility that I have now. There are things that I did earlier.

I started a small airline historical society in the New York area with a friend when I was 19. I also started the first airline collectible show in the New York area in the Northeast when I was 20, so there were things that I did earlier on as far as informal training.

I think having, if possible, a degree in both aviation and history or museum management would be good advice. 

I would like to know. Of the recent aviation trends, which one is your favorite and why?

Well, I’m a big proponent of sustainable commercial supersonic flight. I am a fan of Boom Supersonic out of Denver, largely because when I was a child, in the early seventies, my assumption was that in a few years, I would be flying around in Concorde and Boeing SSTs—you know, the American answer that was planned for the Concorde that ended up being canceled.

Supersonic flight was assumed to be the next step. And of course, while we had more than two decades of Concorde service, it was quite limited. Now we have an opportunity with boom supersonic to possibly see a second supersonic age that might actually be widespread. They have ordered their provisional orders for 140 aircraft right now from the likes of American Airlines (AA), United Airlines (UA), and Japan Airlines (JL).

Whether or not they do make it into series production is still an open question. Boom would need about US$5 billion to do that. But if it goes into production, that excites me because we are living in a period where travel is obviously not as comfortable or luxurious as it was 50 years ago. Aircraft have become, if anything, slower, not faster.

We are now flying aircraft that don’t fly as fast as the first-generation jetliners of the 1960s. And the other thing is, how many “twin engine mounted on the wing” airliners can you have? It’s not quite as exciting as back in the days when there were twin jets, tri-jets, and quad jets, and everything from the Boeing 707 to the Boeing 767 flying around at the same time.

I’m looking forward to breakthroughs that see things like supersonic flight or, if it’s something that can be practically achieved, the concept of electric-powered airliners. Ultimately, though, it’s the idea of finally moving past the 500 to 600 mph barrier that we’ve been flying past since 1958 that I find most compelling.

Why is aviation history important to you and to the world?

Well, I think aviation history is important to me because, for as long as I can remember, I've had a personal fascination with flight. There are a lot of people out there that are interested in military aviation. There are a lot of people out there who are interested in general aviation, including people who want to fly as pilots and a vast number who fly on commercial airlines [IATA forecast predicts 8.2 billion air travelers in 2037].

It’s been a dream for human beings, for our entire existence as a race, to be able to fly. It’s only in the last century that commercial flight has been a possibility, and it’s only become mass transportation in the last forty years or so. This age-old dream of almost anyone being able to fly has been fulfilled in our lifetime.

So, it’s something that I think is inherently exciting to me because the advent of commercial aviation has opened up vistas for travel, commerce, and the opportunity for people of the world to draw closer together to know each other for the world to be shrunk, in a sense, by the speed of air transport. It has revolutionized the way we live in so many ways.

The fact that we have a global air cargo system that transports goods around the world is something that was unthinkable a century ago.

Commercial aviation is sort of a modern miracle. It’s really important to stress that commercial aviation has set human beings free from the ground to travel by air all over the globe. This is truly amazing. 

What is your favorite historical moment in commercial aviation?

The inaugural flight of the Boeing 747 by Pan American on January 22, 1970, is definitely profound in the sense that it is what began the age of mass air transportation. It was pioneered by Pan Am. I have the privilege of doing social media work for the Pan Am Historical Foundation, whose mission is to preserve and promote the history of “The World’s Most Experienced Airline,” as their advertising used to say.

For me, I think the advent of the 747, which would never have happened if it weren’t for the two companies, Boeing and Pan American, was the most meaningful moment in the history of commercial aviation.

The greatest moment for me was when I worked at New York JFK for a while in airport operations and often had the opportunity to be next to the runway when Concorde was taking off.

That is almost an indescribable experience because we were only a couple of hundred feet away from the aircraft. The airplane is lifting off, it’s rotating, and you’ve got the afterburners, the full reheat coming from the Rolls Royce Olympic engines, the sound, and the fury.

It wasn’t something that you just heard; it was something that you felt when Concorde was that close to you at takeoff thrust. Every time, it was tremendously exciting.

My last question: You've already told me about your favorite airline. How about your favorite aircraft?

That’s a tough one. I am a bit of a partisan for Boeing. As a child, I would most often fly with my family in a Boeing 727, and especially now, it’s become one of my all-time favorite aircraft because I identify it with my childhood memories of flying.

I would give anything to have another ride on an Eastern or a National Boeing 727 Whisperjet. 

Thank you for your time. 

It’s been a privilege to be interviewed by you and by Airways Magazine.

Featured image: Fritz Rethage, used with permission. All photos: Shea Oakley, unless otherwise noted.