DC-3s, Warbird Pilots, and the Art of Flying with Martha Lunken

By John Zimmerman
Feb 11, 2025
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Pilot's Discretion Podcast, episode 97

Few pilots have lived as interesting a life as Martha Lunken: from giving checkrides in DC-3s to teaching Neil Armstrong’s wife to fly, she has met some of aviation’s most colorful characters and flown some of aviation’s most iconic machines. She tells plenty of those fascinating stories in this episode—and shares some controversial opinions along the way. In the Ready to Copy section, Martha talks about what she would do as FAA administrator, flying the Lockheed Lodestar, and life as an accident investigator.

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Quotes:

Having a passion for aviation: “I’m a living example of somebody who’s crazy about airplanes and always has been.”
How being a pilot brings different people together: “It’s a great leveler, even today. You’ll get doctors and lawyers and kids off the street who are trying to scrape together enough money… nobody cares how much money you have or how much education you have.”
Flying solo: “You need that feeling. That’s one of the glories of aviation… you are in command of your fate.”
Visiting the Wright brothers’ home with Neil Armstrong: “I cannot believe I’m standing in the same place as the first man to walk on the moon, in the house of the first guy to fly off the face of the earth.”
Warbird pilots: “They’re playing dress-up… they bask in the adoration of the little guy.”
Learning to use the rudder: “You can fly a Cherokee or a Colt or almost anything and not know a thing about it. But where it gets people is on crosswind landings.”
Holding yourself to a higher standard: “A lot of people [think], ‘as long as I can get it on the ground going fairly straight, that’s OK.’ Well no it isn’t. That’s not the art of flying.”
Engine failures in big piston twins: “There’s an interesting thing about good freight pilots—as soon as they saw an oil temperature rise and pressure start to drop, they’d feather it.”
Flying the DC-3: “Like dancing with your great aunt—you just kinda push it around the sky.”
Taking an instrument checkride again late in life: “It was brutal. All I essentially knew how to do with a Garmin 430 was direct-to.”
What she learned working for the FAA: “There’s far too much unnecessary paperwork.”
Flying a Lodestar to get groceries: “the Lockheed was up on the ramp, and I was having a dinner party and I needed some groceries… I got in the Lodestar, fired it up, and flew to Hamilton.”
Accident investigation videos on social media: “It’s bad… they know no more about the circumstances or the causes.”