Death of Former Member, AAL Captain (ret) Chuck Carmichael

[Harold Henderson]

It is with great sadness I report the death of Chuck Carmichael. Chuck passed away in Fort Worth, TX Sept 18th after a brief illness.

Chuck had a storied aviation career flying many many aircraft including DC-3, DC-6, C-46, Constellation, MD80, B727 ++++ if it flew and hauled cargo and/or pax, Chuck probably flew it. At the time of his mandatory age 60 retirement about 10 years ago, he was a Captain flying B767s on Intercontinental and trans America's routes for American Airlines. To hear it from Chuck, there was probably no airport in Central or South America he had not had adventures flying into or out of.

Chuck was a member of AAVirtual (AAV) until around 2010 having joined a few years before. As I recall he joined several of our standard Friday GFIs (Group Fly Ins). He was a fount of knowledge to us wanna-be pilots. I became a FB friend and kept up with Chuck over the years and through a bout with throat cancer around 2010 or so. Chuck was a real character and sometimes his opinions would get him into FB "jail". In fact his daughter posted "P.S. If there’s a facebook jail in Heaven I expect you will find it!".

Two Chuck stories. I was flying a couple legs of a FREQ (Flight Request) in South America on a Saturday on VATSIM (multiplayer worldwide network with volunteer semi-professional ATC) and Chuck popped up online with a message that he wanted to join me. We ended up flying a couple of legs together. I don't remember if we had voice comms or were just texting each other, but he spent a couple of hours talking flying. Here was a REAL professional pilot sharing time with me. The common bond was a passion for flight.

I believe it was on one of our GFIs that Chuck was talking about DC-3's and I chimed in that I had flown several times on DC-3s on the Key West - Miami route back in the mid 70s. The airline was called Air Sunshine" but we called it "Air Sometimes". Chuck came back, "Yeah. That was my dad's airline."

I suspect Ted and maybe others may have a remembrance of Chuck, too. If you do, I can repost to the family if you allow that.

Goodbye friend. Clear skies!

[Omar Campanalunga]

I did not know him but I would have liked, I am so sorry for your loss, I will pray for him.

[Michael Blakely]

Thanks for posting Harold. What a great life Chuck had, living the dream!

[Arturo Carvajal]

Thanks Harold. I am so sorry for your loss.

[Theodore Martin]

Thanks for posting this Harold. I had not heard from Chuck in years. I don't have any good stories about Chuck but I remember him being on several of our GFI's and providing a lot of GREAT info about flying. He was a GREAT guy and always kept the GFI's interesting when he was on one.

[Rey Ramon]

I remember Chuck on GFIs years ago. An inspirational life and person!
Rey