Wright Brothers awardee’s first job was for CIA-owned airline

Dave Waters was shot at a lot in his first pilot job.

From 1968 through 1972, the Greensburg native worked for an outfit called Air America in Southeast Asia, where he flew photo reconnaissance missions for the CIA.

But that’s only one part of an aviation career spanning more than five decades and 30,000 flight hours.

On Aug. 27, the Federal Aviation Administration will formally present Waters with the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award, which recognizes pilots who have flown for at least 50 years and who exhibit professionalism, skill and aviation expertise.

Waters will join 80 other Kansas pilots who have received the award — a little more than 1 percent of Kansas’ 6,786 FAA licensed pilots — which the FAA says is its most prestigious honor for pilots.

For Waters, who at 77 looks at least 10 years younger, flying airplanes has been more of a pursuit of passion than working for a paycheck.

“I’ve enjoyed every minute of it,” he said this week from his home in the northeast Wichita suburb of Kechi.

The son of a pilot and former Kiowa County sheriff, Waters said he knew at age 7 that he was bound for a career in aviation.

“My dad … took me up in a Cessna 120, and that was my first indication that I knew I was going to do something with airplanes,” he said.

But it wasn’t until after Waters graduated from Kansas State University with a business degree and served three years in Army intelligence in Germany that he started work on his pilot’s license, at the urging of an uncle.

Using the G.I. Bill, he went to St. Louis to attend flight school at Lambert Airport, where he earned his commercial pilot’s license and multi-engine rating.

While there, he read a help-wanted ad in the newspaper seeking airplane and helicopter pilots. Applicants were to send their resumes to a post office box in Washington, D.C.

The job was for Air America, which Waters later learned was an airline owned and operated by the CIA to support the war in Laos against North Vietnam.

“You didn’t know that until you got over there,” Waters said. “They said, ‘You want to go to Saigon?’ Of course that was 1968 and most people didn’t want any part of it.

“It was four years, but I was single and making more money than I could spend.”

Waters was one of seven pilots assigned to the photo reconnaissance unit that flew thousands of missions over Laos, Cambodia and South and North Vietnam. He flew a heavily modified Beech Model 18 outfitted with cameras, tricycle landing gear, and lighter and quieter turboprop engines.

But those quieter engines didn’t prevent the enemy from shooting at his plane with anti-aircraft guns.

“All the time we were shot at,” he said, noting that he was never hit.

“The chief pilot that was my mentor … it was truly a blessing to be around somebody with so much experience in the Air Force and the agency and all that.”

When he left Air America in 1972, Waters had accumulated 4,000 flight hours.

Over the next few decades, he would accumulate the remainder of his hours working as an airport manager and charter pilot in Woodward, Okla.; as an airline pilot for the former Air Midwest, a Wichita-based commuter airline; as chief pilot and director of operations for the former United Beechcraft; and as a corporate pilot for several companies inside and outside of Wichita.

He has flown a variety of aircraft in his career and is type-rated in a couple of business jets, but he said his favorite is a Beechcraft King Air because of its ability to get in and out of short runways.

A Certified Flight Instructor – Instrument — which accounts for 6,000 of his 30,000 hours — Waters is a big believer in making sure his students are competent in learning how to bring an airplane safely down in an engine-out situation, and the principles of aerobatics.

Waters’ wife of 42 years, Sherry, learned quickly about his interest in aerobatics.

“My test to be his wife? He took me upside down,” Sherry Waters said.

This story was originally published August 17, 2016 at 5:47 PM with the headline "Wright Brothers awardee’s first job was for CIA-owned airline."