Captain William R. Davis: Flight Operation Delta Air Lines, Inc

by Phillip Bellury

Like so many young people who grew up to become pilots, Capt. William Davis got his very introduction to aviation at an air show. Born in Tuskegee, Alabama in 1954, Davis and his family moved to Michigan when he was four years old, and he lived there until he graduated from high school. A family friend who was one of the renowned Tuskegee airmen took a very young Davis to air shows at Suffrage AFB in Michigan. Davis was fascinated by airplanes and hooked for life on aviation. As a boy, he built model airplanes, watched space programs on television and developed a dream about one day becoming a pilot himself.

Today, Davis is a Captain with Delta Airlines. He started with Delta in 1987 as Flight Engineer on the Boeing 727, then advanced to First OfCaptain on the McDonald Douglass MD-88, then First OfCaptain on the Boeing 757/767.

“I’ve been very fortunate that there were people interested in me who helped steer me in the right direction,” says Davis. “I went to a large high school in my hometown in Michigan and you could choose a major of study there. So I majored in aeronautics, and my teacher, John Toliver, was a WWII veteran who loved to tell stories about his experiences as a pilot. He was an inbut it was my grandmother who tilted me toward the Air Force Academy. And it seems that the Tuskegee connection keeps coming back time after time.”

With help and encouragement from a Michigan congressman, Charles Diggs, who had also been a Tuskegee airman, Davis enrolled in the Air Force Academy in Colorado. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree, but not before he learned to obtain his sailplane license. He then began pilot training with the Air Force at Vance AFB in Enid, Oklahoma. His next assignment was C130 training in Little Rock, Arkansas, then Dyess Air Force Base in Texas.the Caribbean, Europe and Central America. His last assignment in the Air Force was as an instructor pilot at Mather AFB in Sacramento, California,

The same year he joined Delta, Davis was encouraged by a friend, John Bailey, to get involved with the Organization of Black Airline Pilots (OBAP), an organization whose mission is to reach kids about career opportunities in aviation. Together, they developed a Delta-sponsored program in the Dallas/ Ft. Worth area called ACE Camp (Aviation Career Education), which among other things, allows young people to try their hand at aircraft.

“Each ACE Camp has their own approach,” he says, “but basically theyare all about giving kids a chance to experience use sailplanes or other aircraft, and we typically get them up for an hour or so in a Cessna 172. We try to reach them when they are younger and help get kids who never thought about it have a chance to learn what aviation is all about. It’s been very rewarding to see kids come out of that program and go on to be successful.”

Davis continues to work with young people through the Atlanta ACECamp program. His involvement springs from his desire to encourage young people in much the same way he was encouraged by others when he was young.

“I’m very happy with the success I’ve had,” he says. “I still had to work hard to get here, of course, but a lot of it had to do with good luck and getting help from people who cared about me. Because of that, I believe very much in giving back, and the ACE Camp program is a great opportunity to do that.