---

About us ...

"Capt. Larry Sez" and "China Nina" with her mascot "PANDAmonium"

Larry Jobe is a retired United Airlines B747-400 Captain and avid General Aviation pilot and instructor (and now local realtor). Larry achieved a little fame when he chartered a B747-400 from United to fly as his last flight before retirement in Jan. 2001 and invited 202 of his closest friends and family to join in on the best two-hour-plus airborne block party one can imagine! It was written up later in the Feb. 2002 issue of Pacific Flyer, among others. Just to keep the record straight, everyone kicked in $100 apiece towards the fuel, which was the big ticket item!

Nina Jobe holds a Commercial Pilot and a Ground Instructor Certificate and once managed a flight school near Boston, MA (Comerford Flight School) and two flight clubs at Dulles Int'l Airport in Virginia as well as having worked for United Airlines in a number of capacities - Customer Service, Reservations, Travel Agency Support, Executive Sales, Training, Red Carpet Room, and Tour Desk, among others. Nina also crewed on several P51's at the Reno Air Races in the mid-to-late 1980's.

We have lived for the past 25 years in Groveland, CA (Pine Mountain Lake) on a little airport/airpark (E45) near Yosemite National Park.You can view a live web cam or two via our local, very active aviation association at Pine Mountain Lake Aviation Association and see a bit of paradise for pilots.

We share (and adore) three daughters, one son, five grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Below are some photos from the now-famous Retirement Flight. Note the bottom entry on the United Airlines airport monitor at SFO - it is the only flight going from San Francisco to San Francisco! Larry designed the roundel to be applied to all the personalized headrest covers and shows all the aircraft he flew during his nearly 32 years with United.

Seeing that United was planning to abandon its pension plans over to the PBGC (most pilots, including Larry, have lost 80% since they were forced by the government to retire at age 60 and the government-run PBGC then penalizes them for "early" retirement), Larry began a new career several years ago as a realtor and is in partnership with our good friend, Liz Lilley under "Yosemite Area Realtors" and has found this to be an exciting new venture - even in the current dead market! They have even opened an office out at the airport and offer free transportation to folks flying in for the great local golf or a ride to beautiful downtown Groveland - subject to their availability, of course.

Here is a photo of Pine Mountain Lake (showing our airport/airpark and the lake and golf course) taken by friend (and recent real estate client), Carole Wong (whose dad and uncle went to China with us a few years back), while starting out on one of Larry's famous flights over Yosemite's High Sierra Wilderness:

If you see a house or a piece of property you like in the photo, visit Larry's own website at www.PMLairportProperties.com and/or www.YosemiteAreaRealtors.com or just E-mail him at LarryJobe1@gmail.com and I'm sure he'll be happy to show it to you (provided it's for sale, of course)! &;-)

---

Another enterprise Larry has been doing for years is the professional dispersal of cremated remains over mountains, desert and sea and utilizing a specially designed and configured chute for this purpose that avoids improper or incomplete dispersal or damage to the aircraft surfaces.The most commonly requested sites are over the High Sierras on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe and also 12 miles out to sea in the Pacific Ocean off the San Francisco coastline. One of his special signatures is to also spread wildflower seeds indigenous to the area and elevation when dispersing in the High Sierras as a way of offering perpetual life as a remembrance.  He provides this service to both individuals and to a number of mortuaries. Larry now has as his partner Allen Cordle ("Beyond Horizons"), his good friend of 40-plus years and who is also a retired airline pilot (American Airlines).

On the lighter side, since Larry's retirement we have gotten involved in old cars - like horseless carriages, Model T's, Franklin air-cooled autos, the Brass and the Nickel age, Model A's, and the Classic Cars - and have enjoyed the special camaraderie of the folks in all the various car clubs. Many of them have joined us on our China tours over the past many years. We were also surprised to find that many old car owners are or were also pilots at some point in their lives. Certainly, a strong shared interest in history was the seed that caused many of these folks to enjoy the tour of China.

Contents and photos for this website are "admitted to" by Nina Jobe, with some photos provided by some of our previous tour participants: Stan Crawford, Dick & Dottie Davis and Jim Lagorio.

RETURN to the TOP

This page last updated June 21, 2010
Webmaster - Tori Armstrong