Born on August 14, 1932, in Wichita, Kansas, Clay Lacy came by his lifetime in aviation honestly from the very beginning. He began flying at age 12 and had 1,000 hours by the time he joined United Airlines as a Douglas DC-3 copilot at age 19 in 1952. At UAL he also flew the Convair 340, DC-4, DC-6, DC-7, DC-8, DC-10, and Boeing 727. He retired off the Boeing 747-400 in 1992, holding seniority number 1. He set an around-the-world record in a Boeing 747SP in 1988, making it in 36 hours, 54 minutes, and 15 seconds—and raising $530,000 for children’s charities.
In 1964, Lacy was a demonstration pilot for Pacific Learjet, and he flew one of the first Learjet 24s into Van Nuys, California (KVNY), an airport that would become identified with him over the years—from the Air National Guard, to the charter company that he founded there in 1968, to the movie One Six Right, released in 2005, which capped his career as an actor and photo pilot. Lacy helped develop the Astrovision camera system mounted on Learjets and others. With it, he filmed for Bombardier, Boeing, and Lear, as well as other manufacturers, not only for marketing efforts but also flight test segments. Film credits for the Astrovision system include Flight of the Intruder, The Great Santini, Armageddon, and Top Gun.
