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Renton honors 100-year-old aviation pioneer
King County Journal 07/25/05
author: Oscar Halpert
He stopped driving his car last year, but age hasn't prevented 100-year-old Clayton L. Scott from piloting his own airplanes.
On July 15, in front of a cheering crowd, Scott, or ``Scotty'' as he's known to friends, landed a twin Aerostar after flying from Renton to Boeing Field for a birthday celebration at the Museum of Flight.
Among the hundreds greeting him were Renton City Council members Randy Corman and Marcie Palmer, who presented Scott with a proclamation that renames the city's landing strip as Renton Municipal Airport/ Clayton Scott Field.
``It's quite an honor and I appreciate them doing that,'' said Scott, a Mercer Island resident. ``It just kind of appeared out of the blue sky. It's very nice, I think.''
Those who know Scott say the honor is fitting for a man who had a huge impact, both in worldwide aviation and putting Renton on the seaplane map.
Born in Pennsylvania, Scott moved in 1911 with his family to Portland, Ore., where his parents opened a grocery store. Enthralled by airplanes as a teen, Scott took his first flight in 1922, a $10 ride at Seaside, Ore.
He took his first solo flight in 1927.
``Just the ability to be able to handle a plane by yourself makes a great impression,'' he recalled.
In Oregon he met Vern Gorst, who hired him to work for his new company, Pacific Air Transport. The company delivered air mail between Los Angeles and Seattle.
Later, working for Seattle Flying Service, Scott transported thousands of passengers between Bremerton and Seattle for a $2.50 fare.
In 1928, he made his first landing as a pilot at King County Airport after departing from Gorst Field in a bi-plane on a site-seeing trip. Winds were strong that day, so Scott opted to land the plane at the still-unopened facility about a mile away.
He was the first to fly across the Gulf of Alaska, taking a commercial plane from Juneau to Cordova in 1929.
``It closed the gap of the air route from South America to the arctic,'' said Bill Jepson, 60, a close friend and fellow Mercer Island resident who is working on a bronze monument in honor of Scott that will be installed at the Renton airport.
Jepson, also a pilot, met Scott in 2001 during a seaplane open house at the airport. ``It was one of those open houses with the hot dogs and, of course, airplane pilots are always friendly,'' he said.
``Scotty was among them. He was my tour guide in his airplane.''
Naturally, at first Jepson didn't know much about the elder aviator. ``The more we talked, the more I knew this guy knew what he was talking about,'' he said. ``Little by little, I learned more about his history.''
In 1934, Bill Boeing asked Scott to be his personal pilot, a position he held until 1940.
``Everything went along very smooth,'' Scott said of his years with Bill Boeing. ``We went traveling around the country on various business trips. He had many of his friends that went along with us on fishing trips.''
In his work he crossed paths with celebrities. Once, on a request from his boss, he gave Howard Hughes and Ginger Rogers a ride from Burbank, Calif., to Catalina Island.
``He got a kick out of the airplane,'' Scott recalled.
From 1940 until his retirement in 1966, Scott was in charge of flight testing for Boeing. He tested bombers during World War II and later the company's commercial line of jets such as the 707, 737, 767 and 727.
After retiring, Scott started a business at Renton Municipal Airport modifying and rebuilding seaplanes. Both of the planes he owns, Cessna 195s, are seaplanes that he converted. That year, he built a replica of Boeing's first plane, the 1916 B&W, to commemorate the company's 50th anniversary.
Today, his office and adjacent parts room are inside the Aerodyne Aviation building on the landing field's south end. Though his hearing has faded with age, Scott is a spry, wiry man who walks without assistance and can still climb onto and down from his Cessnas with minimal assistance.
``I used to be right over by the (control) tower,'' he said, while walking near his airport office, where he still visits with friends and acquaintances two or three times each week.
Every month on Mondays, he breaks bread with his ``lunch bunch,'' friends he's known since the 1940s. They share stories, catch up on news. Pat O'Grady, 83, is part of the lunch bunch and gave Scott his last biennial flight review at Renton Municipal Airport four years ago.
``He does a masterful job, I can tell you that,'' O'Grady said.
Jepson said the monument he's creating was inspired by a 1929 photograph of Scott in full aviator regalia and a directional sign Scott saw in 1956 while in Nairobi, Kenya, that showed distances to various locations around the world. He saw in the sign a symbolic representation of what Scott's life meant to aviation.
``As far as Renton is concerned, it's the place where airplanes were built and it opened up the world to flight,'' Jepson said.
``Scotty was a big part of that.''
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