The Final Word

By Capt. Wayne Lane (FedEx Express, Ret.)

Capt. Wayne Lane (FedEx Express, Ret.) closed out his career in December 2017, piloting his final flight from Newark Liberty International Airport to Memphis International Airport.

It was December 2017, and I was on the Newark Liberty International Airport ramp preparing for takeoff to Memphis International Airport. A flood of memories washed over me.

As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a pilot. I would tie a string from the curtain rod to a chair and put two hooks in the top of the fuselage of my models, then let them fly to a gentle landing on the carpet while imagining I was the pilot. More than once I accidentally pulled the curtain rod down, yet my mother’s patience was unlimited.

I would walk to my local library and lose myself in books about faraway places. One day while looking through the stacks, a book cover caught my eye. It had a Pan Am pilot standing in front of a B-707. I immediately checked it out and raced home to read it. The story was an encapsulation of one of his trips to Paris, France, flying a B-707 and touring the very same monuments I’d been reading about. At the end of his story, he pulled his Porsche into his driveway from what seemed like a vacation rather than work. That sealed the deal for me. I had to pursue this career!

After high school, I attended Embry-Riddle in Daytona Beach, Fla., where I met several lifelong friends who shared my dream. A young Black man pursuing a career in aviation, especially as a pilot, was still unusual in 1971—but I was determined to try.

After graduation, I spent years working in airport management, flight instructing, and flying charters until Flying Tigers hired me as a DC-8 second officer in 1978. That first day my childhood dream became reality, but the best part was meeting a pretty young woman in the Los Angeles International Airport parking lot.

I eventually married that young woman, and almost 40 years later I heard her on the headset saying, “chocks, set brakes, release.” My fleet captain, Capt. John Hunt, had a custom of having a pilot’s spouse perform the final block-in communications to close out the pilot’s career. She was not only one of the first people I met in my career as a pilot, but she was also the final word.