 |
Continental Airlines Pilot Luis Salazar
It was the beckon of the bright and colorful lights
that first caught the attention of Continental Airlines
pilot Luis Salazar of Huntingdon. He was eight or nine
years old when he was captivated by aviation after
watching an early "airplane" action movie.
"I just remember sitting there seeing the lights," he
says in reverie, still mesmerized by the blue lights of
the taxiway; the green, white, amber and red sequenced
runway lights and the flashing white and green central
beacons of airports.
Reared in a family of physicians, Luis nevertheless
dreamed about becoming a pilot as he grew up in Lima,
the capital city of Peru, a South American country
located between Ecuador and Chile that is just smaller
than Alaska. Lima is located in the coastal desert of
the country where, Luis says, it never rains. The
barren sands of Lima, along the base of the Andes
mountain range, are in stark contrast with the
surrounding waters of the Pacific Ocean and the Rímac
River, in a country that is marked by the ruins of
ancient Incan civilization.
Luis was about 15 years old, when in the late 1960s the
country fell under military rule and his father moved
the family to the United States, where the physician
began his residency at Fairfield, Alabama's Lloyd Nolan
hospital, some seven miles from Birmingham.
"I was just like any other kid, excited but kind of
sad," says Luis. "I had just started getting permission
to go to the beach by myself (where his family had a
second home) and that was a big deal to me, to get on
the bus and go to the beach with my friends."
Accustomed to the all-male Catholic school he had
attended in Lima, Luis was shy around the girls at his
new American school.
"I was so shy, I couldn't speak to one of them" he
smiles coyly, teasing his pretty wife Andrea. "I would
turn bright red; I wasn't used to being around girls.
It took me forever to ask a girl out. Of course, when I
did, there was no stopping."
After his father completed his residency, the family
moved to Florida, near Orlando. Luis entered the
Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne where he
earned an associate's degree in flight technology and a
bachelor's degree in aviation management, also
attaining his pilot's license and various pilot
ratings.
His brother Sergio, two and a half years younger than
he, pursued the dreams of his forefathers to become a
physician.
"Just like our grandfather, just like Dad, he followed
his heart while I was following mine," says Luis. "He
followed his heart and we both fulfilled our dreams."
Luis' career in aviation began as a ticket agent with
Aero Peru in Miami, where his daughter, Veronica, now
22 years old and a student at the University of Tampa,
was born.
He then worked as statistics and budget coordinator for
Faucett Peruvian Airlines' Miami business, still short
of his dream of becoming a professional pilot.
"I had the ratings but not the flight time," he
explains.
That changed when he went to work with People Express
in New Jersey after flying a Beech 1900 for a year with
Rocky Mountain Airways in Denver.
He earned his rating as a flight engineer for Boeing
727 aircraft, maintaining systems such as hydraulics
and air conditioning, a job that technological advances
have now rendered obsolete.
Earning extra hours in the cockpit, after two years he
was certified as a first officer in the 727, and was
later type-rated as captain on seven models of the 737.
He earned 6,000 hours of DC-10 time and is now
type-rated captain on the Boeing 777, which he
currently flies in travels to Hong Kong, Tokyo, Tel
Aviv, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Madrid. His DC-10
journeys had also taken him to Rio de Janeiro, Rome,
Frankfort, and Düsseldorf on a routine basis.
"I've spent the last ten to fifteen years flying all
over the world," remarks Luis, who is now in his 19th
year as a professional pilot and 21st year with
Continental.
Over the years, Luis and Sergio maintained a
relationship so close that when Sergio married his
college sweetheart, Leesa, a native of East Tennessee,
and moved to Huntingdon, together the brothers founded
the Santa Rosa Ranch where they raise famed Peruvian
Paso horses. Half of their stock is imported from Peru.
Luis would commute to the ranch from his home in
Florida or, later, from his Continental Airlines base
in New Jersey, spending several days at a time with his
brother's family.
Luis (left) and Sergio
Salazar ride their famed Peruvian Pasos.
He describes the Peruvian Paso as having a lateral
rather than diagonal gait, a trait that earns the breed
- arguably the smoothest gaited horse in the world -
the distinction of a "luxury" horse.
"From the moment of birth, they're born walking like
that," says Luis, allowing training merely enhances the
natural characteristic that the Peruvian Paso Horse
Registry of North America Web site (www.pphrna.org)
describes as "a natural four-beat footfall of medium
speed that provides a ride of incomparable smoothness
and harmony of movement."
In a lateral gait, the legs on each side move forward
simultaneously; it may be a pace, stepping pace, "show"
running walk or a rack. If the legs on either side move
alternately, the gait is diagonal.
Another characteristic of the breed is the "brilliant
action typified by lift as the knee and fetlock flex,
combined with 'termino', a movement of the front legs
similar to the loose outward rolling of a swimmer's
arms in the crawl."
Derived from several "Old World breeds", including
horses brought to Peru by the Conquistadores, the
horses are renowned for their "even temperament,
energy, strength and stamina" as well as their
"excellent conformation, action, proud carriage and
beauty."
The powerfully built, medium-sized animals exhibit a
wide range of colors and sport luxurious manes of
"fine, lustrous hair that may be curly or straight."
Last year, the Salazar brothers contributed to making
the 10th annual Shrine Children's Hospital Trail Ride
at Natchez Trace the most successful ever with the
donation of three registered Peruvian Paso horses:
four- and five-year-old geldings and a yearling colt.
The horses brought $10,000 at auction.
Luis met his wife, the former Andrea Gulledge of
Huntingdon (the daughter of Jean and Nathan Gulledge
and the grand-daughter of Nettie Sue Gulledge of
McKenzie), some seven years ago when she arrived at
Sergio's home, during one of Luis' visits, to pick up
her then 11-year-old son, Chad.
"My brother's son, Sergio, is his age and they had
spent the night together," relates Luis. "I happened to
be there and that was it."
Andrea recalls entering the home excited about her
first plane ride that had transpired when she went to
the local airport to pick up a friend, who had treated
her to the flight.
Not to be outdone, Luis mentioned he, too, was a pilot,
and showed her a picture of the huge passenger liner he
piloted.
His advances were merely utilitarian, however, since
Andrea, unbeknownst to Luis, had decided months earlier
they were destined for each other.
"I knew that man was going to ask me out," Andrea says
matter-of-factly to the amusement of Luis, who declares
they had never spoken a word to each other previously,
despite crossing paths in places such as the post
office and grocery store.
Though at a loss for an explanation, Andrea insists,
"I've never been one for intuition but I knew it was
going to happen; I knew he was going to ask me out."
Within days, he had done just that, and the couple
married after dating about a year and a half.
With Andrea's appetite whetted for flight, Luis was as
anxious to introduce her to hitherto unknown locales,
allowing her to choose the first destination, New York
City, where she was enthralled most of all with the
seemingly endless Atlantic Ocean.
Andrea and Luis in Peru.
Subsequent trips took the couple to Los Angeles,
where she experienced the Pacific Ocean, and to Hong
Kong, Caracas, Puerto Rico, Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid,
and to Peru to visit his family. Andrea's excursions
are always first-class.
"She comes with me almost everywhere," says an
apparently love-stricken Luis, who adds, "I've got to
the point I don't even like to go to work unless I'm
with her."
Luis' career endured the blow following 9-11 along with
the airline industry as a whole, forcing him to choose
the position of first officer rather than captain in
order to retain choice schedules and assignments, an
option that means the difference between a few days
away from home each month or nearly every day away.
Andrea's career in real estate, currently with
Tri-County Realty in McKenzie, also provides the couple
the flexibility they need to spend available time
together.
The couple's home overlooks rolling hills in a rural
setting that suits Andrea's children: Chad, now 18 and
a senior at Huntingdon High School, and 11-year-old
Austin, who is in the fourth grade. And the decidedly
Spanish flavor of its interior décor serves as a cozy
foundation for Luis and Andrea's chief objective,
spending quality time together and with their family in
love. |
|
