James Smith, 49, a captain with United Airlines, flew his first plane in 1973 and went to military flight school in Pensacola, Fla., in 1976. After receiving his wings in 1977, he joined a helicopter squadron and flew attack helicopters. After serving in active duty for 12 years, he started flying with Pan Am in 1989. He has worked at United since 1992 and is the Northeast Vice President of the Organization of Black Airline Pilots (OBAP).

Taking a look at the airline industry today versus a decade ago, can you draw any conclusions about the state of African Americans in the industry?

In my 11 years at United, there has been incremental progress. When I first got to United, they didn't have very many African American pilots. When I got here there were about 100 out of 8,000 pilots. Since then, the number of pilots has gone as high as 10,000 and the number of black pilots have gone up to around 260. Now, both of those numbers are decreasing, but traditionally, the high has been about 2 1/2 percent. That's pretty much as good as it's ever been.

I believe these numbers are dropping because the airlines are downsizing. Typically, the ones that are hired last, go first. Unfortunately, that number is disproportionately African Americans.

Some say there is an overall lack of interest in aviation by African American young people. How did you get interested in aviation?

I started attending Negro Airmen International (NAI) meetings in various locations of New York, which is where I grew up. I went to the meetings and met a couple of folks that were airline pilots. More than anything else, they showed me that there are black people that fly airplanes. And that I had something to shoot for. I knew the numbers were real low but now I knew that they [black pilots] existed. I remember looking at a couple of pamphlets from Delta about 25-30 years ago and they had three pilots walking away from an airplane; one of them was an African American pilot. I thought, wow even though they're few and far between, they are out there. I told myself I could do that. It took a while to get here, but I finally did.

When I first decided to leave the military and join the airlines, I knew a few people here and there and applied for a bunch of different airlines and was hired by PanAm. During this time I got involved with OBAP.

Being associated with OBAP led me to meet a whole lot more of black airline pilots who were flying for the major commercial airlines. It was here that I met a couple of key role models. These were all guys who had gotten into the airlines in the late '60s, early '70s. These were the guys who blazed the trail so all the other guys would follow along and do what they did.

I went to United because at that time they had the most aggressive program in hiring minorities. Even today United Airlines has more African American pilots than any of the other airlines.

Do you feel there are enough African American role models for young people interested in aviation?

There are never enough, but the numbers have grown substantially. There have been some small advancements but the percentage is still relatively low. Looking industry wide, it's about one and a half percent. Especially now due to the fact that nobody is hiring, they're furloughing. Our percentage has actually decreased because a lot of guys who were hired in the last five years are now on the street, furloughed.

What can the industry do to attract more African Americans?

Something I've done out here in Virginia is I've put together an Aviation Career Enrichment Camp. I visit local organizations, churches, schools and recruit about 30 junior high school- and high school-aged children and I have a one-week aviation camp in Virginia to expose kids to aviation. We do things like visit the Smithsonian and tour a hangar in Dulles Airport. On our last day this year, we went out to Andrews where the students got to fly an F-18. I hired three African American flight instructors and each one of the kids got to go up and fly a small airplane. This was funded in part by OBAP and the kids pay a nominal fee.

I was a mentor to prospective pilots back when United Airlines was hiring. We had a program through OBAP in which someone who was approaching an interview would be assigned a mentor and we would sit down for hours and hours with that one person and go over interviewing techniques to polish their skills.

Will African Americans entering the aviation field today face some of the same challenges you faced when you entered the field?

The initial challenges I faced were with people who I grew up with not believing that I could do this. It was such an unusual occupation. It was one of those impossible dream kinds of things. Even my family thought I was reaching a little too far, but I was hard headed and said this is something I wanted to do. The next obstacle was when I got to flight school in 1976 and hearing the instructors say things like 'the only thing black with wings are flies'. Despite this, I began to bond with the other black students. We all got behind each other, pulled together. When one guy was down, the other was up.

Once I was out of school and went into the squadron in California, there were two black pilots out of 60. I ended up becoming a squadron commander at the culmination of my career where I was in charge of the entire squadron of 300 people.

By the time I was flying on the commercial side, things were actually not too bad. Because of the guys who had laid the groundwork. By the time we got there things were pretty good other than the numbers were low.

The problem we're running into today is many of the folks who get there think they got there by themselves. They sort of forget about the Tuskegee Airmen and the guys that blazed the trail for them.

Exactly what impact do you feel pioneers and aviators like Tuskegee Airmen had on the industry?

They laid the groundwork. They're the ones who had the most difficult time, who got out there and fought the hard battles. We look back at the guys who made the biggest sacrifices and who went a step beyond and helped us accomplish what we wanted them to accomplish. They're very revered and we have a tremendous amount of respect for them.

--Smith was interviewed by Patricia Brown

Special Report: Blacks In Aviation