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Captain Hal "Mac" McNicol This is a short biography of
Capt. Hal McNicol Jr., known to many in aviation, as “Mac”. He was a
Navy Pilot all during WWII and he has flown to 129 countries and
logged over 25,000 hours with several Airlines including 4 airlines
Bouraq Indonesian, shown top left, Bayu Indonesian, Air Bali and
Eagle Airlines of Iceland, shown top right, that his company Flight
Crews International,
In Jan. 1947, he was selected
as F/O to deliver a DC-4 to PIA in Lima, Peru. This all-new Peruvian
airline was called Peruvian International Airways (PIA) with routes
from New York to Santiago, Chile. While in Peru, POA lost their MATS
contract and Mac was invited to stay with
Returned to Miami only to find they
were $50,000 in debt. Within days, the New York Rep. for Trans
Mediterranean Airways (TMA) called and asked if Mac could come to
Beirut and fly their
Two years later,
he checked out in the Boeing 707 (shown upper right) and had the
Polar run from AMS to LAX. A year later, he changed over to a summer
contract pilot (Apr.15 to Oct.15) and moved his family to West Los
Angeles. The following year, the Chief Pilot asked him to find an
experienced 707 crew. He did and they did a great job so whenever
someone needed pilots or an F/E, the company said “call Mac.” Little
by little, Mac was helping a lot of pilots and flight
While still flying in the mid 1970’s, Mac founded Flight Crews International, Inc. (FCI), a crew leasing, consulting and pilot employment company and in 1980 incorporated and moved into offices at LAX. He spent 23 years finding jobs for pilots, starting airlines and leasing crews to airlines that included LTU, Air Pacific, United, Asiana and over 20 others. At age 82, Mac sold FCI to Air Inc. in Atlanta, GA and retired. Three years later Mac and his wife Ursula sold their home in West Los Angeles and moved to Rancho Bernardo, a beautiful retirement community close to San Diego
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PIA.
A year later
friends got him an interview with Pan American Grace Airways (Panagra)
with routes from Miami to Buenos Aires via all the countries on the
West Coast of South America. Photo at center left shows Mac and an
Alpaca at LaPaz, Bolivia. Elev. 14,404 ft. Panagra was planning to
extend their routes across the Pacific rom Santiago, Chile, to
Easter Island, Papeeté, Auckland and Sydney. Mac was the first in a
class of 15 hired. A year’s leave in 1950 allowed Mac to fly DC-4’s
across the Pacific for Seaboard & Western Airlines during the Korean
War. Back in Lima he met a wonderful girl from Germany who lived
just a block away. Went together for a year and got married in 1953.
As most of the South American countries expanded their own airlines,
Panagra was forced to reduce their service. Mac was furloughed in
1961 just as he finished building “The Blue Dolphin”, a beach front
Motel on Sanibel Island off the coast of Ft. Meyers, Florida. After
turning it over to his Resident Manager, he got hired by Air America
and flew DC-6B’s out of Tachikawa, Japan all over Southeast Asia.
Before school was out and Ursula could bring their 4 children over,
he got a telegram offering a position with an airline in Miami he
had helped get started earlier. 
first
DC-6B. Mac and his family stayed 7 years in Beirut where he flew
DC-6B’s (shown left at Beirut Airport) all over Europe,
Africa, the Middle East and the Orient. Beirut was the “Paris of
Middle East and TMA was a great and steadily expanding airline so
when Braniff sent him a “Recall” telegram in 1965, he turned it
down. Two years later Pres. Nasser of Egypt needled Israel into the
June War of 1967. By 1970 Mac had to get his family out of Beirut so
he joined Transavia Holland in Amsterdam flying DC-6B’s all over
Europe, the Caribbean and Africa (including the Biafra War flights
out of Sao Tomé off the coast of Nigeria). 
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