Fidel Sanchez and Zazil-xa Davis-Vazquez

[00:01] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Hi, my name is Zazil-xa I'm 25 years old. Today is March 2, 2020. We're in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and I'm here with my friend Fidel. Yeah, he's a vet.

[00:16] FIDEL SANCHEZ: My turn?

[00:17] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Your turn.

[00:18] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Okay. My name is Fidel Sanchez, and I'm 81, soon to be 82. And today is March 2, 2020. Location, Las Cruces. And I don't have a partner, so I'm just here by myself.

[00:35] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Sounds good. So, Fidel, you wanted me to start by asking you where you grew up and what that was like, what your childhood was like. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

[00:47] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Sure. I went to, when I first started school, I went to a one room schoolhouse with one teacher in about twelve. Well, twelve grades, but there was only one and two in this grade, three and four in that grade, stuff like this. So that was my first seven years of school. Was in one room schoolhouse with one teacher. Well, we had no, actually, we ended up with having about two teachers.

[01:15] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Just two?

[01:16] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Yeah.

[01:17] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Where was that?

[01:18] FIDEL SANCHEZ: That was here in Las Cruces. It was on Campo street, where the seven day adventist church used to be. My mom was a seven day Adventist, so of course she got me in that school. And then from then, after that, I started junior high at Alameda junior High.

[01:41] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: And from then on, what high school did you go to in town?

[01:44] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Las Cruces high school. We were the last class at that building. That's courthouse now.

[01:49] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about what the most important people were in your life and tell me a little bit about them.

[02:01] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Well, I think the most important people was, when I went to junior high, I started taking trombone lessons. So when I went to high school, I was already playing, so I was in the band and the orchestra, so I played. I guess I must have been good, because I made all stage orchestra in Albuquerque, and I remember Mister Kramer was the orchestra. And he got me a four year paid music scholarship to New Mexico State University.

[02:39] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: That's a huge deal. Can you tell me a little bit more about what made you pick up the trombone versus any other instrument?

[02:47] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Well, my mom and I went to see the music teacher at the junior high, and he asked me, what would you like to play? And I said, yeah, I didn't know anything about instruments. So he looked at me and says, you look like a trombone player. And that's how I started. But anyway, once I graduated and came to New Mexico State University, I also enrolled in a civil engineering course, and I could do both the music and the engineering for two years. And then I had to drop something. And, oh, I hated to drop the four year scholarship, but I did. And I just ended up graduating as a civil engineer. And at the same time that, well, when I enrolled at the New Mexico State University, you had to do two years of ROTC. I was already in the army national Guard because my cousin was a captain. Sammy Chavez was a captain at the national Guard, and he came by and recruited about four or five of us at the high school. So I was in the National Army National Guard already. And I got a funny story about that, because at that time the guard had 90 millimeter cannons and the shells were about 4ft tall and they weighed about 100 pounds. And we were skinny little guys, we couldn't pick up the shells. So we just did other jobs on the cannon.

[04:30] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: What other jobs did you do on the canon?

[04:32] FIDEL SANCHEZ: The cannon had on either side had an elevation control and an asthma control, and it was cranked. So you looked at a telescope, and when they sleeve, they used to bring sleeves from a fort bliss and we used to practice shooting at them. So one guy would follow the sleeve, the other guy would do the upper. That's the only thing we could do. But anyway, so then when I enrolled at the university, they had two ROTC units, the army and the air force. Well, I was already in the army, so I didn't care to came up to the line and there was two guys there, and they'd say, you go to the air force, you go in the army, you go in the air force, you go in the air force. So I ended up in the air force, which was fine with me. I had no intentions of going into the air force. Well, after two years of ROTC, they took us down into the auditorium somewhere. Might have been Milton Hall. Milton hall used to be a big auditorium.

[05:39] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: So this building right now that we're.

[05:41] FIDEL SANCHEZ: In, I played some concerts here. Oh, yeah, at the hall. So anyway, at the end of two years, they took us in there to do us what they call a stanine test, which is an IQ test. All day long, 20 minutes on math, 20 minutes on this, that type of test. So when the results came out, I looked at the board and I said I qualified for pilot. I mean, how many pilots are in Las Cruces? So I told my wife at that time, I said, oh, pending a physical. So I said, well, you know, I haven't taken a physical in a long time. So I took a physical. I had 2020, I visioned and everything checked out okay. So I enrolled in what they call advanced ROTC. So now I'm in. Now I'm in the regular air force reserve, because that's like a reserve unit. So after a few months of, I had two uniforms in my closet. I had an air force uniform and an army uniform, and I started thinking, so I talked to the colonel. I said, you know, colonel, I'm still in the army. And he looked at me and said, my God, you can't be in the army and the air force at the same time. So we got in his car and we went down to the air force recruiter, and within 15 seconds, I went from the army into the air force. So then after you graduated from the university, I earned a civil engineering degree and also a commission, a second lieutenant commission in the air force. And I was programmed to go into pilot training.

[07:32] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: So you graduated. How old were you when you graduated? Oh, my God, maybe like 21, 21.

[07:39] FIDEL SANCHEZ: 21 or 22 around there.

[07:43] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: You were pretty, like, qualified by the time that you were that age, ready to go. Well, that was what happened when you graduated.

[07:52] FIDEL SANCHEZ: After I graduated, at that time, the air force was giving you, if you were going into politraining, they would either you could go in right away or three months, six months, nine months, or a year. So I took a year because I wanted to try out civil engineering. And if I didn't like the air force, well, at least I could come back to work. So I worked for the forest service, Santa Fe Forest Service for a year. And then I went into pilot training. And pilot training is a 56 month course, very rigorous course, Pe. The first six months, you train in a real jet, but it's a real easy jet to fly. It's called a t 37. And after you, if you can pass that, then they take it to the supersonic jet fighters, which is the t 38. It's also the NATO's freedom fighter. And if you watch the astronauts, they always fly this little white jet. That's a supersonic t 38.

[09:04] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: What do you remember about flying that plane?

[09:06] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Oh, that's exciting. Especially, like, formation flying. You know, when you see the Blue Angels or the. Well, we did all that.

[09:18] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: What was. Can you tell me about, like, one day that you had to do formation flying? Like, what? Do you have any memories of that?

[09:24] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Well, I'll tell you, the first day, it was pretty exciting. It was a heart attack flight. Cause you're. There's four of us, four planes. And the t 38 was. A t 37 was a slow, big wing. So you. You were close, but not that close on the t 38. The wingspan was very short, I think about four or 5ft on either side. So when you came up to formation, you could see the color of the guy's eyes. That's how close you were. And then you're going fast. I mean, you're not going slow. You're going about four or 500 miles an hour. And you do all these kind of loops, turns, and you never take your eye off of the leader. Whatever he does, you do. So that was pretty exciting. But after a while you got used to it just like anything else. Then it became fun.

[10:21] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Let's see. Let me ask you some more questions. Can you tell me, you talked a little bit about training, but what are some things that you remember about adapting to military life?

[10:36] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Okay, let me tell you about, after graduation, polytraining. Then there was about 26 in my class, and we all got assignments to different types of aircrafts. And I was assigned to a b 52, which is a big eight engine bomber. So I flew that for about three, four years. And I was during the Vietnam conflict. I flew a lot of bombing missions on that b 52 over Vietnam. And that was very stressful and scary.

[11:13] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Yeah. Can you tell me what you remember from that?

[11:15] FIDEL SANCHEZ: What I remember from that?

[11:17] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Mm hmm.

[11:20] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Well, the flying Washington, it wasn't easy because we were fully loaded with bombs and had to refuel twice in the air. So that's pretty stressful. But I think the scariest part was we were always waiting for the missiles to come up and get you. But we had what they had, what they call an electronic warfare officer, and he was trained to listen to radar sites that had these missiles. And each missile has a different sound when they track you. And we used to call them bird calls because they sound like bird calls. They go beep, beep, beep, like that. So he knew exactly what kind of missile would be fired at us, whether it was a heat seeker or a radar type or whatever, so he could interfere with the radar on that missile. So anyway, that was pretty exciting. Scary, because we'd be coming in for a bomb run and he would say, lock on, which means that the radar site's locked onto us.

[12:36] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: What happens when that. Once he says that, what do you do next?

[12:40] FIDEL SANCHEZ: When he said that, you tighten your seat belt a little bit tighter because you might have to bail out. And we were pretty high. We'd come in at 39,000ft, which is pretty high. And thank God that I never had a missile fired at us. But it was a 13 hours round trip from. I was stationed at Guam in the Pacific, and it was a six hour flight to Vietnam and six hour flight back home, so it was pretty stressful.

[13:12] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: How did you stay in touch with your family and friends back home during this time?

[13:18] FIDEL SANCHEZ: During that time, my family was. We were stationed in Peace Air Force Base up in New Hampshire. So it was just by mail and stuff like that. That's.

[13:30] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: You wrote letters?

[13:31] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Pardon me?

[13:31] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: You wrote letters to each other.

[13:33] FIDEL SANCHEZ: And the strange part about it was that when I was at peace Air Force Base, my crew wasn't scheduled to go to Vietnam until after I was ready to get out of the service in June of 19, whatever it was. And so my crew wasn't scheduled to go to Vietnam. So one morning the wing commander came in to give a briefing every morning, and he says, we need a volunteer to go to Guam because one of the pilots from another squadron had to go home in emergency leave, so they had to replace them. So I volunteered, and that was really something. I volunteered, and two days later, I was shipped out.

[14:37] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: You didn't have a lot of time to process that?

[14:39] FIDEL SANCHEZ: No. So that was. It made everybody mad. So after I came out of the regular air force, I got hired by Continental airline as one of their pilots. And one of the first assignments that I had with Continental was to fly the 707 back into the Vietnam thing. But this time I was taking the soldiers that were going from the United States to Vietnam, and then I was bringing them home from that. So that was. And I was back in the war with a different uniform, though, so that was kind of. Kind of neat.

[15:29] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: What was it like talking to all the soldiers who were leaving, taking them home?

[15:37] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Oh, coming home, yeah. Oh, they were real happy, of course. Yeah. But going back there was a very sober bunch. I don't blame them. But I did that for about until, actually, until the Vietnam situation finished, and then I just started flying here in the States.

[15:59] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: So you were a commercial airline pilot for how long?

[16:04] FIDEL SANCHEZ: I flew for continental for 32 years.

[16:07] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Is that where you retired from?

[16:09] FIDEL SANCHEZ: And let me show you. This is a list of all the airplanes that I've flown.

[16:14] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: So do you want to read these off? Let's read those off real quick.

[16:19] FIDEL SANCHEZ: I can read it off. Okay. In the air force, I flew a Cessna 150, which was the first airplane, and then we flew the t 37. T 38. I told you about that. Supersonic. Supersonic flying is very, very exciting because as you're breaking the sound barrier, you get a little shockwave in front of the airplane. It's like a little flame.

[16:43] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: You can see it.

[16:44] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Yeah. And the faster you go, it starts moving back because you're breaking the sound barrier. And pretty soon it gets behind you, and all of a sudden, everything just gets quiet. You just fly around, no sound at all. Really weird.

[17:05] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: That's amazing.

[17:06] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Anyway, and then I flew the B 52, and then I actually joined the Air Force National Guard or reserve unit. National Guard, Air Force National Guard and van Nuys. And I flew the C 97 for them. And then when I went to work for Continental, it was a Boeing 707, taking the troops in and out of Vietnam. And after I did that, then I started flying this Boeing 727, which is a passenger plane. It's a beautiful airplane. And then I flew the 737, and then I flew the DC ten, which is a big airplane on that one. We used to fly from La, Honolulu, Australia, Taiwan, all those places. And I also got a chance to fly the DC nine. And before I retired, I flew the Airbus 300, which is another big airplane. During all this time, I also took lessons on a helicopter.

[18:11] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: So you have to tell me about that, obviously.

[18:13] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Oh, the helicopter. Yeah. I tell you, the helicopter flying is a lot of fun.

[18:18] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: What's different about it than flying an airplane for you as a pilot?

[18:23] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Because on a helicopter, you can go up and down, sideways, backwards, forward, whatever you want. You know, in an airplane, you can just go forward. Right? You can go backwards. So that was a lot of fun.

[18:36] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Why did you decide that you wanted to do that?

[18:40] FIDEL SANCHEZ: When I came out, there was a. I had what they call a GI bill. And you had so much money to use up. So I took a couple of courses down that I was based. I was living in California at the time, so I took a couple of courses, fun courses, at Moorpark College, you know, like astronomy, music appreciation. I forget what the other courses I took. So I still have some money left over from the GI bill. So a friend of mine, a continental pilot, had a school up in Santa Barbara that he taught helicopter flying. So he said, hey, you want to fly the helicopter? I said, yeah. So I went down there and took lessons and got rated on it. It's called rated. This is what a license looked like. A pilot's license tells you what airplanes sell. And those airplanes that you're listed on there, that I flew captain on those airplanes.

[19:42] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Wow.

[19:43] FIDEL SANCHEZ: And the rest of these were I just flying co pilot.

[19:46] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Oh, I see.

[19:48] FIDEL SANCHEZ: But anyway, that's how I got into helicopters.

[19:52] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: So I have a question about music, because music is definitely something that was a big part of your life. It is currently. Can you tell me more about, like, throughout your life.

[20:03] FIDEL SANCHEZ: At the end of the two years, I put my horn in the case, and then I went to fly. I did this. I did that. About 50 years later, I moved back into Las Cruces because I lived in California and had this friend of mine call me up, and he says, hey. He says, do you still have your horn? And I says, you won't believe this, but I've been carrying it around for 50 years. I still have it. He says, well, we're taking some refresher lessons down at the music box. Says, why don't you? So I did. I says, okay. So I took the horn out to the music box, and I told the guys, I said, would you kind of, kind of clean it up and get it? So they did. I picked it up a couple of weeks later, and the guy says, take care of this horn because they don't make parts for it anymore. And this was a horn that I first started in junior high. So after a couple of lessons or refresher lessons, we were in a class, about 20 people there, and some of the other people were in there to learn how to play a trumpet or how to play a clarinet or. They were all beginners. So when we were taking a refresher lessons, we were just like beginners. So you look at them, and we started playing like Mary had a little lamb, that type. But it all came back. The music, the reading of the music, playing of the music. I was real surprised because it all came back. So after a couple of months of that, the instructor said, hey, you guys are ready to go play in a concert band? I said, oh, my God. You got to be kidding me. We didn't think we were that good. So I joined the new Horizon concert band, and I played with them for about. Well, after I played with them for about two years. I like classical music more than I do band music. So then I joined the new Horizon Symphony Orchestra. They just had a concert Sunday.

[22:15] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: I can't believe we missed it. Wait, yesterday?

[22:18] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Yeah, we played about three, four concerts a year in the symphony. So I played with them for about ten years, I guess. Yeah. And last year was my last time that I played with them because my hearing was going bad. By that time, after flying all these airplanes, you'd be surprised. The noise and everything else, how it affects your hearing. So on the trombone, you have a slide, and there's seven positions on there. So if you're just off that 8th of an inch, you're either flat or sharp. So most of the time on a trombone. You have to listen to the note even though it sounds good to you. It might be sharp or flat. So I says, you know what? I better just close that book for everyone else.

[23:24] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: They don't have a.

[23:24] FIDEL SANCHEZ: So I played my last concert last year, which.

[23:28] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Where was that? Where did you play?

[23:29] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Here. Here at the university. We played at Atkinson hall. So that was very exciting to get back to the music part.

[23:37] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Yeah. When you left and you started with the Air force, did you think that you were going to be able to come back to music?

[23:44] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Never, but I carried my horse around.

[23:49] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: So you moved. When you had it in California, you kept it there like you took it with you.

[23:53] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Let me tell you, in the Air force, we moved. My kids were kind of small by that time, and I had three children, a daughter, Lorena, and Michael and Paul. And we moved seven times in five years. Major moves. So that was the worst part about service time.

[24:26] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Can you tell me a little bit about your kids?

[24:28] FIDEL SANCHEZ: About who?

[24:29] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: About your kids.

[24:30] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Oh, my kids.

[24:31] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Yeah.

[24:33] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Yeah. None of them. None of them decided to. They took music lessons, but they didn't keep it up. And they're old now. As a matter of fact, my daughter had two boys. They got married, and I ended up with one, had three, three kids, and the other one ended up with two kids. So I ended up with five great grandkids. But my daughter Lorena married a police officer, so he retired. They're both retired. And my son Michael, he became an architect designer in Oxnard. He's got his own business up there, designs beautiful buildings. He's very artistic. And Paul, he came back to New Mexico state to get his degree. And he was an announcer here at the radio station because I think that was his major. He went into the radio business or something. He got hired by Disney Channel. Disney World.

[25:43] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Wow.

[25:43] FIDEL SANCHEZ: So he just got his 25 year pin the other day working for Walt Disney.

[25:49] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: That's huge.

[25:50] FIDEL SANCHEZ: And he married this lady, Laura. She also worked for Disney, and he was 46 when he first got married. And she was up there, too, so there's hope for everybody.

[26:08] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: That's so sweet.

[26:09] FIDEL SANCHEZ: But both of them work for Disney. They're always in Disneyland because they're kids.

[26:18] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Let's go back a little bit. There's some questions that you have marked here. Can you tell me a little bit about what your first few months out of the service was like?

[26:29] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Yes, as a matter of fact, when I came out of the service in June, I had a class date with Continental, but they canceled the class date. So I said, oh, so we came back to Las Cruces and moved in with my in laws. And I said, well, I wonder what I'm going to do. At that time. There was an airstrip out here. I don't know if you're familiar with that or not. And there was a man there or a pilot that was teaching the ROTC students how to fly. So I went and I said, hey, you know, I'm a pilot. I got the license. And he says, do you have an instructor ticket? And I says, no, I don't. He says, ah, that's what I need as an instructor. So I said, well, call me if you need any other things. So I went home and I was having supper at my mom's house, and the phone rang and they say, somebody wants to talk to you. So I answered, and there was a guy that I had just talked to. He says, hey, he says, I have a charter to El Paso. Can you come down here and I'll check you out on this aircraft? And I says, yeah. So we went down there. He had a nice. It was a system 150, which I had flown before. It's a small little airplane. No, it was a big one. It was a 210. The big carries about five or six passengers. He says, I want to check you out on this tonight because tomorrow morning you have to take five professors to Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Oh, my God. Okay. So we got on this airplane, we were going to take this lady to El Paso to catch one of her flights. And she's sitting in the back, and I'm taking off, and he says, okay, now do this. And I never have flown a big little prop like that. You know, I was used to jets stuff. And he was telling me, how do this? And the lady back there is all scared, like, my God, what am I doing here? So we landed in El Paso and the lady got off. And then on the way back, he's still telling me, just like a brand new pilot, you know, carburetor, heat, do this, do that, do that. And we came into this airport that was, it's not here anymore, but it was there, and we did three landings, and that's all it took to check me out. He says, okay, come back here tomorrow about 06:00 in the morning. I said, oh, my God. So I says, do you have an aircraft manual I could read? Because I was used to going to school. You know, when you were checking out on an airplane, you go to school for about, you know, two, three months to get checked out, and you have check pilots and stuff like this. I mean, for somebody to tell you, brand new airplane, you got five professors to fly. So I stayed up all night reading about the. Just like when you buy a car, you read the manual. But the next morning, one of the professors knew me because I went to school with his son. And so we talked a little bit and I said, okay, you guys, hop on. So here, I took him to Albuquerque and Santa. From then on, I did a lot of charter work for the guy for about two, three months, and then Continental call and says, we got the class waiting for you. So I went to LA and went to school again for another three months. At the end of two months, the CEO of operations came in and said, we got to lay off 100 of you guys. I said, oh, my God. So I'm out of a job again. So, having a civil engineer, I started an interview with the city of Los Angeles, and they hired me.

[30:54] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: What did they hire you for?

[30:56] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Well, I had a highway design option, and so I was doing a lot of street design for LA.

[31:05] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: That is so cool. That is so cool.

[31:09] FIDEL SANCHEZ: So anyway, I did that for about seven months, and then Continental called. Okay, you guys, come on back. So I came back. So. And then after a couple of years in 1982, we had a corporate raider that took over Continental, and he took us into fake bankruptcy just to break all the contracts. So here we are out in the street again. I walked a picket line for about two years before the strike was over, went back flying, and finished out of my career. After 32 years with the Continental and eight years with the air force, I tell everybody I cheated death for 40 years.

[32:00] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: As a pilot. Huh?

[32:01] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Yeah.

[32:02] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Can you tell me what your favorite plane was?

[32:06] FIDEL SANCHEZ: My favorite plane? I had two of them. I flew the DC ten first. I flew at 727, and then I went to the DC ten and it just came out and everything was brand new. I mean, everything was automatic and what have you. Computerized control. And I flew that for about ten years. And that was a beautiful airplane, flying overseas to Australia and New Zealand and all these other exotic places. And then I came back and I started flying the 727 again, which is a nice, fast, high altitude jet. So those two were my favorite.

[32:48] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: You like the fast ones? The fast fancy ones?

[32:51] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Fast ones. As a matter of fact, I retired about 20 years ago, and I was still going 500 miles an hour. I've slowed down since that time.

[33:05] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Can you describe to me what you see when you look, when you're in your spot, when you're in your seat? What is it like looking out the.

[33:15] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Window oh, out the window. As a matter of fact, most people say, how can you see out the window? Because most, they have real little windows. But when you're sitting up there, you can see the whole world. And so at night, it's very exciting because you see the cities all lit up, different cities and stuff. In the daytime, you can see a lot of. Well, you're up there, you can see, and you can see where the thunderstorms are, which is kind of scary.

[33:48] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: What does that look like?

[33:50] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Well, you can see the lightning and, you know, you can't hear the thunder, but you can see the lightning and stuff. And of course, on the radar, we have a weather radar and you can see the cells. So that's how you avoid. You never fly into a cell. You either go around it, up over it. Cause thunderstorms, they go up to 60,000ft. Yeah, they go up high. In some airplanes, you can't go up that high, so you have to go around them.

[34:22] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Can you tell me about what you used to do for fun when you were in active duty? Like, what did you do when you had any free time?

[34:33] FIDEL SANCHEZ: On our days off, my crew was, we were young guys, we were all young captains. So during the days that we weren't flying, we used to play a lot of golf, a lot of tennis, this type of thing. As a pilot, especially as a commercial pilot, and as a captain, you have to take a first class physical every six months. So that's a big motivation to stay healthy and no smoking, no drinking, this type of thing. So we did a lot of jogging, working out at the gym, that type of thing. As a matter of fact, I still go to the gym on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I'm there at 06:00 in the morning.

[35:26] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: What's your routine?

[35:27] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Pardon me?

[35:27] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: What's your routine like?

[35:29] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Well, I go down to planet fitness, and they have all these kind of machines that are really neat. I mean, if you really want to work out, they have. It's a very nice place to go work out. I go through about six machines. Takes me about 45 minutes an hour. Good way to start the morning.

[35:52] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Yeah, I need to do that. Is it okay if I ask you about your wife?

[36:00] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Sure. How did you know that I ended up with two wives? Okay. Like most pilots, most pilots have three, four wives. Anyway. My first wife was Pat Summers from Las Cruces. We met in high school, and she followed me around to all the air force bases and stuff, and that's who we had the three kids with. So I moved back home, back after we actually ended up getting a divorce and I came back home. I didn't like California at all, so I came back home. And after I was here for about ten years, I met Rose Marie Malone, and she was working as an assistant to the dean of engineering. So I was back in the engineering business. So we've been married now for about 23 years, I guess. So I know a lot of, I go to some of her functions and I know some of the professors, because most of the professors are already up in heaven someplace. But it's back. I was back. I made it full circle with the.

[37:20] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Music and the engineering. That's so cool. I think it's really interesting that you, when you left the military, you were still able to work as a pilot. Like, that's really exciting. You must have really enjoyed being able to still do that.

[37:34] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Oh, yeah. Flying is very exciting. It's more exciting than being a civil engineer. And you make more money.

[37:46] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: That's important. What is it, did you expect when you were growing up that you were going to be traveling this much in your life?

[37:55] FIDEL SANCHEZ: Yes, it's a matter of, well, you know, I did a lot of traveling. So with my first wife and my kids, I took them to Europe. I took them to Honolulu and this type of thing with my second wife, we went up to Europe. After I retired, we took about a two week trip to Europe and stuff like this. But we don't do too much traveling anymore as far as going to different places and stuff like that. So anyway, I don't do too much flying out. It's too dangerous.

[38:42] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: I mean, it's a dangerous game, period.

[38:46] FIDEL SANCHEZ: And especially now with this coronavirus, you really don't want to get stuck in an airplane because if somebody's sick there, the air circulates. You can get the whole 300 passengers sick.

[39:03] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: Well, thank you so much.

[39:04] FIDEL SANCHEZ: I like to drive. So every time I go see my kids, I like to drive.

[39:10] ZAZIL-XA DAVIS-VAZQUEZ: All right. Thank you so much, Fidel. I think we have to finish, but it's been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for sharing.

[39:17] FIDEL SANCHEZ: You're welcome.