Earl Leseberg Lake Mead Air dies.

[paceflight]

Just a word to all the Lake Mead Air alumni.
The meanest, biggest SOB, with a heart of gold, who for the last 30 years allowed 500 hour pilots to try and kill ourselves and our pax, flying into and around the Grand Canyon as we built time and learned how to really fly, died May 23 due to complications related to his 3 year battle with cancer. Obituary link to Las Vegas Review Journal to follow.

http://www.lvrj.com/obituaries/individual_display.jsp?obitID=4036638

For all the times you cussed me up and down, I cleaned your toilets, and washed the belly of your airplanes, have made me a better man.......I guess.
I'll never forget you!
Thanks Earl.

 

[dogman]

Sorry to hear that Earl has gone West. There definately was no other person quite like him. Whenever I'm flying over that part of the country, I look out the window and remember some of the most fun flying I have ever had.

 

[snow-back]

G** D**m! That suuuucks!! Earl gave so many marginally experienced pilots a start to their aviation career. No G*d d**m prima donnas though. Although he was convinced there would be bodybags everywhere, I don't think there were actually any.

I've got so many great memories about Earl and Lake Mead. Thanks Earl.

 

[meanstreak]

Does anyone know his son Mark. That guy loved to blackball people out of jobs at Skywest. R.I.P. Earl

 

[Kawasumi_Kichou]

He was one of the characters that lent some of the famous color to the Grand Canyon tour racket back in the day.

R.I.P. and enjoy your trip west Earl, you certainly earned it.

 

[SSDD]

Condolences to the family. I never flew at Lake Mead Air, but I had many conversations with him when he helped cover out overflow. As has been said before, he gave many guys a chance when nobody else would.

RIP

 

[GuppyPuppy]

I remember talking to Earl about a job many, many years ago. Unfortunately the pilot ranks were full so I never flew at LMA. Glad to have met him.

There definately was no other person quite like him.

Have you ever met Layton Bennett (L.A.B. Flying Service) from Haines, AK??? I think he's 86 and still kicking (his pilots).

GP

 

[Turbojet]

Guppy,

Yeah, I flew with Layton one spring when me and a friend decieded to check the place out. He was quite a character. Big white fur hat..and god forbid you screwed something up while giving him a stall demo. He would give you a spit shower while he was busy telling you how you would someday get a "pine tree up your a$$". I decieded not to take the job and went south to fly the ditch at Scenic/Lake Powel Air instead...Good times indeed.

 

[GuppyPuppy]

Hey T-jet!

I think I remember you telling me about that. Good times at Gouldings, eh???

How's life at SWA? Wish I could be based out west too!!!

Drop me an email sometime.

GP

 

[de727ups]

Earl

Earl hired me over the phone to work for him in Oct 84. I left there less than a year later to pursue a short lived career with the FAA in ATC. From that, I worked my way up to a UPS 757/767 pilot.

In short....Earl was an asshole and treated pilots like dirt for his own person gain.

Should you choose to read on....

Earl was an icon in the canyon. LMA was around for a long time and gave a crapload of people a nice ride through the big ditch that was the experience of a lifetime. LMA gave a lot of pilots, me included, a break into the industry that allowed us to build time outside of being a CFI. I was promised an intervew at Skywest if I stayed a year. Most did, and many guys went from LMA to Skywest back in the day when they flew Metros. Supposedly, Earl new the head dude at Skywest pretty well and if you stuck around a year and didn't cause trouble, he'd help you get on there. Earl liked me, at first, because I had a CFI and could take care of the occasional student pilot who walked in the door at the old Boulder City airport. Later, I fell out of favor, as I wasn't interested in going the extra mile for six days a week and six dollars an hour. He targeted me as a "lazy, primadonna, airline pilot" (his words, not mine) and that turned out to be very accurate.....and I say that without any remorse whatsoever.... The inner circle were the guys who would sit around the couch during the slow times and BS with him. After a short time, I decided I'd rather go out to the hanger and do busy work than listen to his rants. He figured out pretty quick I wasn't going to be one of "the guys" and doomed me to a slow progression off the 172 into the queen of the fleet, the T207's. I didn't really mind the 172's, though, or being in Earl's dog house. I knew I wasn't going to be around long.

I left LMA to work for the FAA. Though I promised to stay a year, he hired a few guys after me that didn't have to make that promise. One guy was from Alaska and left in less than a year to work for a BA-146 outfit that started up is LAS called Great Western Airlines (how many of you remember them?) I never thought that was fair and didn't have any problem leaving LMA to pursue a career in ATC, which was what I thought I wanted to do at the time. I got a bad recommendation from LMA because I didn't stay a year. Later on, that cost me a twin job in 402's at Air Nevada.

I look back on LMA with some bad feelings. Earl truely was a typical fat type-A personality that was lucky to make it to 80. We might not have won WWII without assholes like him but it's people like him that have made unions thrive in the aviation business. I can say I've never had a worse employer than LMA and a worse boss than Earl. Some will disagree but that's my experience.

Art Gallinson was Earl's right hand man. He was a really smart guy and better suited as a boss than Earl. I say that even though Art signed the letter I have to this day saying LMA wouldn't recommend me to another employer. Earl would have been better off walking away from the operation and letting Art just run it.

Sandy Sanderson, the mechanic, was a friggen jewel. He kept those planes in top shape and was a big part of LMA's success. I once inquired about oil temps being in the red arc coming out of the canyon and he said as long as the pressure stays up, it's not a problem. As hard as those airplanes were flown, we never had an accident of any sort during my sort tenure. Though, I heard they crashed one at Tuweep after I was gone.

If anyones really interested in LMA. AOPA did an article on Earl and LMA maybe 7 or 8 years ago. If anyone has the issue date I'd love to go back and make sure I save it.

I hate to poop on a man's grave, but I've been waiting a long time to write this. Earl taught me how not to treat people and how not to be a boss. I guess that counts for something. Thanks for the education, Earl....

 

[SWAdude]

Guess you didn't make it to Earl's memorial.

I can imagine some will say the same about you after you head out west.

Rest in peace Earl. I never knew you but know many who did appreciated you giving them a chance.

 

[de727ups]

A: "Rest in peace Earl. I never knew you but know many who did appreciated you giving them a chance."

If you actually knew him then I'd say you'd have the right to say what you do.

B: When I depart this world, I'll go knowing I didn't create an environment that would cause someone to say what I did 20 years later. I stand by what I said, I was there. The guy was a prick.

 

[TAZ MAN]

A: "Rest in peace Earl. I never knew you but know many who did appreciated you giving them a chance."

If you actually knew him then I'd say you'd have the right to say what you do.

B: When I depart this world, I'll go knowing I didn't create an environment that would cause someone to say what I did 20 years later. I stand by what I said, I was there. The guy was a prick.

You are a tool. Twenty years from now I will think you are a prick. So theres your environment pal. SWAdude has a right to say what others he has known have said about the man.

Let it go.

Rest in peace Earl.

 

[mullet]

Anybody know what happened to his dog Snickers? Didnt work for him, but spent some time at LMA doing overflow. I sure did enjoy watching you guys scamper anytime he came into the breakroom. Or better yet, seeing him sitting in his golf cart at the end of the runways at Boulder, judging your landings. Classic! Thanks for the memories and the stories. RIP.

 

[de727ups]

Venting after 20 years...

"SWAdude has a right to say what others he has known have said about the man."

Of course he does, so do I. I worked there and knew the guy. Did you?

Thanks for the chance to vent. I didn't have the balls to say it to Earls face as newbie 500 hour pilot. As a UPS 757/767 F/O, I'd have had no problem saying it to his face. It's bad form to say crap like this about a dead guy, so I'll leave it alone at this point. I'm sure that anyone who worked for LMA can sympathise with where I'm coming from.

Have a nice day.

http://forums.flightinfo.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

 

[TAZ MAN]

It's bad form to say crap like this about a dead guy, so I'll leave it alone at this point.

You said it. Bad form and extremely disrespectful to someone who gave you a job that helped you get your great paying 76/75 position.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

 

[dogman]

If you ever worked there, you would know that everything De727ups has said, is correct. Earl would even agree with him.

 

[DitchDriver]

First time I met Earl, he looked at my logbook and asked if I smoked. I answered "only after a few drinks". That was two wrong answers but we went up for wheel landings in a Citabria I flew into 61B. He said I was "trainable" and told me to join the ground school already going on in the back. A couple of months later he personally loaded a kid in my plane - turned out it was his grandkid. I guess I did not scare him enough!

LMA was a part 135 bootcamp. After that if I ever caught crap from a boss, I just laughed to myself and thought "you got nothing on Earl". Then I met Layton Bennet and ran like hell from that operation.

I hear that "Ariport Security" Snickers keeps on looking for him.

Thanks Earl. Like you used to say in front of our passengers, "Don't get lost!"

Rest In Peace.

 

[de727ups]

"Bad form and extremely disrespectful to someone who gave you a job that helped you get your great paying 76/75 position."

Just the facts. I left Earl and LMA to leave piloting, as a career, forever. I had always thought that an ATC career might be a possibility for me. During my tenure at LMA, I was offered employment as an ATC trainee. The per deim alone for that was twice what I made as a pilot for LMA.

I left LMA to go through the ATC academy in OKC and later worked as an ATA at LAX TRACON. Even more later, I spotted swordfish in a Cessna 150 around Catalina Is. and then got hired at a 135 multi job flying UPS subcontracts out of Stapleton.

You gotta trust me on this, but working at LMA had NOTHING to do with my career advancement. In fact, I went through 135 ground school with Air Nevada. Then LMA (earl and art) gave me a bad recommendation which cost me a job there. Not that I could blame them when I left to work for the FAA, but it really hurt my career progression. Had I got hired at Air Nevada and got the 402 time, I would have been ripe for a job at United in the late 80's....maybe Earl did me a favor...hehe. But you could say I hold a grudge about that bad recommendation to this day.

Dogman...I appreicate you comments since I think you know what N9100D means. I flew that one a couple of times. That was earls favorite 207, though it was the simplest and the last to go.

In conclusion, I'll never forget Earl's voice bitching and complaining about "Gawd **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** primadonna airline pilots". I see his face and I hear his voice to this day. To think that I advanced way beyond what he hated SO much just boggles my mind. I never thought I had it in me. I can proudly say I'm a "Primadonna airline pilot". That would be a UPS 767 F/O making 140K a year to you Earl, and to you too, Tazman. Don't know what ever happened to Earls son Mark....he was a Delta pilot....

 

[TAZ MAN]

It's bad form to say crap like this about a dead guy, so I'll leave it alone at this point.

Then leave it alone man!

Just leave it alone.

Rest in peace Earl.

Some know what respect means.