Kirkland resident Philip Smiley’s friendly skies lead to honor

Published 8:00 am Thursday, February 19, 2015

To be in a plane flown by Kirkland resident and retired Navy captain Philip Smiley is to be in good hands, and he now has the award to prove it.

Smiley, a member of the Rotary Club of Downtown Kirkland, received the Wright Brother’s Master Pilot Award from the Federal Aviation Administration in recognition of his 50 years in the skies without a single accident. Since he first sat behind the controls he has logged in 1,500 hours as a civilian pilot and 1,600 hours as a Navy pilot for nearly 30 years.

Smiley’s love for the skies started early on, growing up in Bangor, Maine. His father, a foreman at a local Air Force base, flew him around in their Piper J-3 Cub and visiting the regional airports. During the winter, his father would put skis on the plane and land it on the frozen lakes. For Smiley, the freedom of exploration that flying offered was irresistible.

“It was the view you get,” he said. “It’s a whole different world. There are more restrictions today, but (back then) you could fly almost anywhere.”

Fortunately, his extended family also supported his desire to become a pilot. After his family moved to San Diego, he took flying lessons in a Piper PA-18 Super Cub, which cost $16 an hour to rent. The instructor charged $5 an hour. In 1963, he made his first solo flight and was awarded his private pilot’s license in 1964.

His uncle offered to pay half for an airplane when he was in high school. Searching for one that fit his budget, Smiley chose a Aeronca 7AC Champion that cost $700, plus $150 to overhaul the engine. The plane was a manual, with no electrical system, but it was sufficient to keep Smiley up in the sky.

By the time he graduated from high school, the country was in the midst of the Vietnam conflict and he faced the military draft. Rather than wait to be conscripted, he looked into each military branch and then signed on with the Navy, which he said was the only one that would guarantee him flight school. There was also an adventuresome appeal to being a Navy pilot, he added.

“I thought it’d be fun to fly on a jet and land it on an aircraft carrier,” he said.

Graduating from flight school, he was designated as a military pilot on Oct. 23, 1970. Though he had flown in civilian aircraft, he said learning to fly military planes was more difficult because of the specific purpose for the flight. On top of just flying the aircraft, he said, pilots also have to be concerned about formation flying with other planes, low level navigation for evading enemy fire in combat zones, handling a jet flying eight miles a minute at 40,000 feet and the proper procedure for landing on a carrier. His first landing, like all landings on aircrafts, he joked, was a “controlled crash” in reference to the rough abrupt stop once the jet touches down.

“Military flying is much more precise than civilian flying,” he said. “You’re flying a weapons platform instead of flying for fun.”

Yet his training also taught him how to remain self-composed during stressful situations common to an environment where he often had to land planes on an aircraft carrier in extreme conditions. He recalled one such landing at night in the middle of a rain storm as being his most difficult.

But, he said, flight school had prepared him for the situation.

“You’re trained for anything that goes wrong,” he said. “You always have ‘plan B, C.’ It’s more of ‘This happened, so I’ll do this and this to try and recover.’”

As a retired Navy pilot, Smiley says he enjoys the 1986 film “Top Gun” starring Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer – in fact, he said some of his friends flew the F-14 Tomcats featured in the flight scenes – but the situations portrayed “don’t happen.”

After 26 years in the Navy, Smiley finally retired at the rank of captain without a single accident. Working as a defense contractor, he later served on the staff of the Secretary of Navy and Defense during the early 1990s as a special assistant for safety in acquisition.

Besides his extensive experience in aviation, Smiley also earned a BS at San Diego State University, his master’s from the University of Southern California, and doctorate of education from George Washington University.

Among the things that have changed since he first stepped into a Navy jet, he said, is how drones have made the need for a pilot actually inside the aircraft obsolete.

“Technology now enables a pilot to shoot a missile over 100 miles and fly in through a window,” he said.

He and his wife, Robin, moved to Kirkland in 2010 to be close to his daughter, who lived across the street. Since moving, he has earned a single engine sea rating that allows him to fly seaplanes, and joined the Boeing Employees Flying Association.

Back as a civilian after nearly three decades, he had his certified flight instructor rating reinstated and flew with the Paine Field Civil Air Patrol. Having flown for 50 years with no accidents, Smiley said there were some obvious ways to avoid problems  by looking outside so no mid-air collisions occur and avoiding icing of the plane and thunderstorms.

“The first one is showing off in an airplane,” he said. “You shouldn’t be doing that. We say the first thing in flying is safety.”

Two other big ones, he added, were a good preflight plan and resisting “get-home-itis,” a hazardous attitude that causes a pilot to ignore bad weather, conditions or basic flying safety precautions in a desire to get to their desired destination.

Smiley’s love for flying has not dampened with age, though he said he’s been grounded for the time being due to health reasons, albeit he hopes to one day get back in the cockpit and continue flying, and safely at that.

“It’s fun to be able to fly around like a bird,” he said.