As a private citizen, Donald Trump glided through the sky on the trusted wings of his personal pilot, whose job it was to “make sure that everything happens seamlessly behind the scenes for Mr. Trump.”

That’s how easy air travel used to be for the businessman, thanks to John Dunkin, who explained his role in a segment of the “Mighty Planes” series, broadcast on the Smithsonian Channel before Trump’s presidential liftoff in 2016.

“Everything’s good, John?” Trump asked his trim, gray-haired pilot in the segment, whose producers couldn’t have found a more convincing aeronaut if they had handpicked one from “central casting,” as the president likes to say.

“Everything’s perfect, Mr. Trump,” replied Dunkin, whose work with the real estate tycoon dates to 1989.

Now that he occupies the Oval Office and Air Force One, rather than a private jet with enough gold to plate the outside of a Greyhound bus, President Trump is learning that aerospace is not so simple, especially without the aid of a full director of the Federal Aviation Administration, the multibillion-dollar agency responsible for overseeing all civil aviation in the United States. The role has been filled on an acting basis since the five-year term of Michael Huerta, an appointee of President Barack Obama, ended in January 2018.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/03/14/trump-wanted-his-personal-pilot-head-faa-critical-job-is-still-vacant-amid-boeing-fallout/?utm_term=.ab70c59ea7e1&tid=sm_tw&noredirect=on