Aviation was Mack Rowe’s passion from the age of five and it became
his lifelong vocation. During 45 years of flying he, arguably, flew more
types of aircraft than any other Tennessee pilot. Some, documented in
log books and military records include: P-36, P-38, P-39, P-40, P-47,
P-51, P-61, P-63, B-17, B-25, B-26, C-46, C-47, C-54, C-78, ME-109,
Fieseler Stork, Supermarine Spitfire, Hawker Hurricane, De Haviland
Mosquito, along with numerous civilian aircraft from the Lockheed
Lodstar to the Lockheed Constellation. In the early 60’s, before the age
of corporate jets, Mack used his personal P-51D Mustang for business
trips. Mack began flying at the age of fifteen at the former McConnell
Field under the direction of Louis and Albert Gasser. Later, Mack and
his younger brother Gene bought a Curtiss Robin and went barnstorming
around the southeast. When WWII began Mack’s civilian flight experience
earned him a direct commission as a First Lieutenant. His squadron was
shipped overseas to fly in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. During one
mission, flying a P-40, he was forced down in the desert during a sand
storm and was rescued four-days later. A few days later he took a crew
back, dug it out, patched it up and flew it back to base without a
canopy. In 1946 Mack joined the 105th Air National Guard Fighter
Squadron flying P-47’s at Nashville’s Berry Field under the command of
Col. G.A. “Skeet’s” Gallagher. Later that year he joined Jesse Stallings
and Henry Cannon to start Capitol Airways at Cumberland Field, now
Nashville’s Metro Center. As Chief Pilot and ultimately CEO, Mack guided
Capitol Airways from a grass field to an international air carrier with
a fleet of DC-8’s flying to Europe, Asia and the Caribbean, employing
over 3,800 people worldwide. At it’s headquarters and heavy maintenance
base at Smyrna Airport, Capitol International Airways employed over 700
people. Along the way, Mack made many friends in the aviation community:
Bob Hoover, Chuck Yeager, Jackie Cochran, Paul Tibbetts, Beevo Howard,
Cornelia Fort, Betty Gorrell, Tennessee Hall of Fame member John
Ellington, and many more not only in commercial aviation, but many
private pilots all who shared his great love of aviation both past and
future. Tennessee’s late Adjutant General Earl Pate, of the Tennessee
Air National Guard said, “Mack Rowe probably had more influence on
commercial aviation in Nashville than any single person.”
