Top flight

We all have our pressure-filled days at work. Keith Urbach can certainly relate.

Urbach, a Polson resident, enjoyed a long and decorated career in the Air Force that began with flying C-130s in Vietnam and culminated with piloting Boeing 707s carrying the first ladies, vice presidents, and other high-ranking executives during the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations.

“We called it a one-mistake environment,” Urbach says with a laugh. “Well, basically a no-mistake environment. There was no margin for error.”

Despite flying those closest to the president, Urbach is careful to distinguish that he never technically flew Air Force One.

“One thing people don’t realize is that it’s only Air Force One when the president is on it,” said Urbach.

Instead, Urbach was usually at the controls of Executive One Foxtrot — the code name for the plane carrying the first lady.

As the White House embraced the jet age — Reagan became the most widely-travelled president at the time — Urbach and others had their work cut out for them.

“The logistics are just unbelievable,” said Urbach, noting that about eight different agencies, such as the Secret Service and the Air Force, need to coordinate travel arrangements for not only government officials, but also their limousines and countless other supplies.

While Urbach never flew a sitting president, he did fly Gerald Ford after his departure from office, and flew George H. W. Bush when he served as Reagan’s vice president.

Some of Urbach’s other famous passengers included the likes of Betty Ford, Walter Mondale, high-ranking cabinet members such as Henry Kissinger, and Montana’s longtime senator, Mike Mansfield.

“Mrs. Ford was my favorite,” Urbach says. “She treated us just like her family. She would call us by first name.”

The Fords provided plenty of fond memories for Urbach. In fact, Urbach says that the closest he came to flying the actual president happened immediately after Jimmy Carter was inaugurated, when he was tasked with flying the Fords from Washington, D.C. back to their home near Palm Springs, Calif.

“Gee, it’s nice to be on Betty’s airplane for a change,” Urbach recalls the freshly minted ex-president saying as he climbed aboard.

And although the Fords account for some of his most colorful memories from the job, Urbach says with a chuckle that he was not on hand to witness Gerald’s most memorable moment on Air Force One, when he famously stumbled down the plane’s stairs on a visit to Austria.

“That was always our nightmare,” Urbach says, mentioning that the crew even checked the stairs specifically to make sure the hazard of tripping was minimized.

Looking back, Urbach insists all those long hours and the job’s meticulous attention to detail were well worth it.

“I just loved every minute of it,” he says.

Asked if the pressure of the “no-mistake environment” ever got to him, Urbach shrugs it off.

“You just had to be thorough,” he says. “You had to have a backup plan.”