Local Automobile and Aviation Connections – Monterey

 

Travelers coming to the area for Monterey Car Week and its showcase event, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, have three options to make the journey by air. The first option, and one which the majority of air travelers will utilize, is to fly in on one of the air carriers that provide scheduled service to Monterey Regional Airport. Upon arrival, many of the airline passengers will probably have a different experience than what they have experienced at other airports due to Monterey’s facility being smaller in size along with its remaining throwback touches that include a dedicated observation deck. The other options that a much smaller segment of event attendees will utilize is to charter an aircraft or utilize a personal aircraft, ranging from single-engine personal propeller-driven types to the largest executive jets. A number of facilities on the airport are set up to handle all of the needs that such operators and their well-heeled passengers require.

It is likely that very few air travelers of any type are aware of the early history of airline travel to Monterey and that this history includes a very tangible connection to classic automobiles. That story starts on the next page with a presentation on Maddux Airlines, one of the first air carriers to provide service to Monterey as far back as 1928. Following that segment are the stories of two household names in the entertainment industry, Clint Eastwood and John Denver, and their lesser-known connections to both aviation and classic cars.

• • • •

Jack Maddux: Crazy About Cars And Aviation

 

Early flights in the Monterey area used the polo grounds at the Hotel Del Monte, but in the 1920s a dedicated grass flying field was established near the location of the current airport. Maddux Airlines was one of two air carriers (the other was Western Air Express) that soon began operations there. The company was founded by John Luther “Jack” Maddux, a Ford and Lincoln car dealer in Los Angeles. The airline commenced flights from that city in the spring of 1927 flying Model 4-AT airliners (aka Tri-motors) designed and built by the Stout Metal Airplane Company, a division of Ford Motor Company. In the spring of 1928 Maddux Airlines began serving San Francisco from Los Angeles on a route that included two flights day to Monterey.

Maddux was born on July 15, 1888 in Anniston, AL, and came to California with his family shortly after 1900. He was apparently inspired to begin his career with automobiles at the age of 14 by his own claim of building a limousine by installing a horse carriage body on a French Isotta chassis with a 1-cylinder engine. Maddux subsequently became one of California’s early professional racers, then leveraged his mechanical expertise into a role in a family-owned garage. After becoming a car dealer, he sold Stearns-Knight automobiles in the early 1920s before progressing to selling high-end used cars that included Cadillacs, Packards, and Lincolns. He eventually became the city’s only authorized Lincoln dealer and had a showroom near the site of today’s Staples Center arena.

By mid-1929, Maddux Airlines had 16 Tri-motors and was doing well. Despite its success, the airline was unable to obtain an airmail contract from the government, which was crucial to the firm’s long-term financial health. As a remedy, in November 1929 Jack worked out a merger with Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT). TAT was founded in 1928 and was well-financed, with investors that included Charles Lindbergh and one of the first Hollywood power couples, film stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. Initially, the new company was called TAT-Maddux, but after a merger in 1930 with Western Air Express (who was merging with Standard Airlines) the name Maddux disappeared and the company became Trans Continental and Western Airlines (T&WA). This name was later changed to Trans World Airlines. Jack Maddux was given a seat on the board of directors of the merged carrier but he did not live long to enjoy his time in the position. He died of a heart attack in New York City on July 26, 1937.

 

 

• • • •

Spared For Stardom: Clint Eastwood’s Close Call

 

Actor-director Clint Eastwood has been a long-time resident in the Carmel, CA area, which is within ten miles of Pebble Beach. He is a member of a distinguished group that purchased the Pebble Beach Company in 1999. Its impressive list of properties include the famous golf courses at Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill, the nearby 17-Mile Drive, the Lodge at Pebble Beach, and the Inn at Spanish Bay. He has had many names and been called many things in his numerous film and TV roles that began in 1955. In his life off-camera his identifications include Mayor Eastwood (Carmel-By-The-Sea, 1986-1988), helicopter pilot (over 30 years), and car-guy, with a collection that has spanned a 1932 Ford Roadster to a 1992 GMC Typhoon. Despite his famous use of the word “lucky” in the first film of his “Dirty Harry” franchise, he has never played a character identified as such, although he may modestly state that some portion of his career may be credited accordingly. However, as real-life U.S. Army Private Clint Eastwood, the details of his harrowing ordeal after a plane crash may warrant the addition of the term to his resume.

Stepping back in time, in 1951 Eastwood was assigned as a swimming instructor at Fort Ord, an Army basic training base (closed 1994) that was just north of Monterey, CA, where he had previously completed training. After taking leave to spend time with his family in Seattle, WA, Eastwood needed to return to his duties at Fort Ord. In those days military personnel routinely traveled on military aircraft if space was available. Eastwood managed to get on a U.S. Navy AD-1Q aircraft that was flying from Naval Air Station (NAS) Sands Point (closed 1969) near Seattle to Mather Air Force Base near Sacramento, CA (closed 1994). Since this destination was just over three hours by road to Fort Ord, his travel would be faster and cheaper than any other means.

The AD-1Q that Eastwood was flying in was a modified version of the AD-1 attack aircraft built by Douglas Aircraft of Long Beach, CA. It incorporated a separate compartment in the fuselage in which a crewman operated the aircraft’s radar to locate targets and attack them at night. It is listed in at least one official document as carrying Navy bureau number 09283, but it appears that this was a transposition of the actual number 09382, which conforms to Navy records for the AD-1Q. The aircraft was assigned to VC-35, a squadron based at NAS San Diego, CA, commonly known as NAS North Island. It was piloted by LT (Junior Grade, or JG) Francis Coleman Anderson (service number O-419051) in the company of another AD-1Q piloted by a LT Richmond.

Both aircraft took off on September 30, 1951 and flew south above the clouds on oxygen until they reached the vicinity of Eugene, OR. At this point they became separated after encountering heavy cloud cover. Richmond reversed course, found his way back to Portland, and subsequently landed at Medford, OR. Anderson’s radio apparently stopped working as did the aircraft’s oxygen system, and he was unsuccessful in several attempts to get back on course. He continued south at a lower altitude until he estimated that he was near San Francisco. With very little fuel left and unable to see land due to the fog, Anderson was forced to bring the plane down at sea some five miles off Point Reyes and approximately 60 miles north of San Francisco. Anderson and Eastwood escaped from the sinking plane and were able to get into separate life rafts. They stayed together until near the shore when the breaking waves caused them to separate and Eastwood’s raft tipped over, forcing him to swim to the beach while Anderson was carried further north in his raft. Eastwood had to fight through large waves and severe undertow that kept pushing him back to sea until he finally came ashore and walked to an RCA radio station at Point Reyes. Anderson landed on the beach near Pierce Point and went to the nearby Kehoe Ranch. Both men were brought to the Coast Guard Life Boat Station at Point Reyes where they received medical attention before proceeding to their respective units.

Eastwood returned to Fort Ord and continued his military service there until his discharge in 1953. In one of the times that he talked about the aborted flight, Eastwood said that he found out many years later that the area where the plane ditched was a breeding ground for white sharks, adding “…I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time or I’d have just died.”

A last item to end this story is that at the end of 1952 LTJG Anderson deployed to Korea with Carrier Air Group 14 (CAG-14) on the aircraft carrier KEARSARGE (CVA-33). CAG-14’s subordinate units, including VC-35 to which Anderson was assigned, began flying missions over North Korea on January 8th. Less than three weeks later, Anderson and radar operator Aviation Electronics Technician Second Class John Robert Schmid (service number 318298) failed to return from a nighttime airfield attack mission in North Korea on January 28th. Their aircraft was another version of the Skyraider identified as an AD-4N and carrying bureau number 124748. A search for them in the area of their last transmission and beyond was unsuccessful. Both men were listed as Missing in Action and presumed to be dead on June 14, 1954. Their names are now inscribed in the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial in Hawaii and the National Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.

 

• • • •

The Day A Different Music Died: John Denver Flies West

 

Although singer-songwriter John Denver called Aspen, CO home, in his last year he lived in a Craftsman-style coastal retreat on the Monterey Peninsula located at 139 Boyd Way in Carmel-By-The-Sea, CA. Neighbors at the time described him as a happy person who liked to drive a loud Porsche, which seems to be appropriate to his persona. Denver had an interest in performance cars that at times were a yellow 1963 Porsche 356 that he famously crashed in 1994, a Porsche 928, a 1995 Porsche 911 Carrera 4 (see below right), and a Lamborghini Countach.

Denver also had a very high-profile passion for aircraft that may have been inspired by his father’s career as an Air Force pilot. Henry John Deutschendorf, Sr. set several records in the supersonic B-58 Hustler bomber (below left) during the early 1960s. He reportedly taught his oldest son Henry Jr. (a/k/a John Denver) to fly, resulting in Denver earning a private pilot license with ratings for single and multi-engine land aircraft, single-engine seaplanes, and even gliders. He added an instrument flight rating and completed formal certification to fly Lear Jets.

After owning a number of different aircraft, Denver took a ride in a Rutan Model 61 Long-EZ homebuilt aircraft and was hooked. It was a larger and more powerful homebuilt aircraft based on Rutan Aircraft’s equally unconventional VariEze. The company began selling plans for the unconventional fiberglass design in 1980, and it soon became very popular with private pilots who wanted to build and fly their own high-performance aircraft. Denver’s Long-EZ was originally constructed by a builder who made a change to the plans. He relocated the switch controlling fuel in the plane’s two tanks from its designed location in the cockpit to a spot behind the pilot’s left shoulder. The reason for the change was that he did not want fuel lines running into the cockpit, especially at a point low in the fuselage where they might rupture in a belly landing. The change made it very awkward for the pilot to move the selector to change the source of fuel. Denver did not like this configuration and planned to correct it as soon as possible.

After purchasing the Long-EZ, Denver had it painted and re-registered as N555JD before basing it at Monterey Regional Airport. After playing a round of golf, he eagerly took it for a first flight in its new paint on October 12, 1997. He made a few touch-and-go landings at Monterey Airport, then headed out to fly it above Monterey Bay to fly it for about an hour. Due to low fuel in one of the tanks Denver attempted to change the selector switch while at low altitude. In shifting inside the cockpit to move the selector switch his right leg apparently pushed the right rudder and made the aircraft turn quickly right and down at high speed. It crashed about 100 yards off Lover’s Point in Pacific Grove with an impact that killed him instantly and shattered the aircraft into small pieces. Denver’s body was recovered and taken back to Aspen where he was cremated and a funeral service was held that was highlighted by a flyover of six airplanes that rocked their wings in tribute.

Today, a bronze plaque in a boulder between Acropolis Street and Asilomar Avenue at Point Pinos commemorates and marks the location of Denver’s crash.

There are two additional items of note concerning John Denver’s life in the Carmel area. First, the house that he lived in on Boyd Way was sold for $4.8M in 2024; it is unknown if any provenance as to its famous temporary resident impacted the sale price. Second, Denver’s 1995 Porsche 911 Carrera 4 with all original equipment is reported to have sold for $61,500 in March 2016.