MUSKEGON, Mich. — Vince Dostert caught the aviation bug early in life.
Some might even argue that flying is a genetic predisposition in the Dostert family, one the 87-year-old Muskegon aviator has successfully passed on to the next three generations.
"I don't know of anyone else who has this kind of legacy," says Rex Vanderlinde, president of Executive Air Transport Inc. in Muskegon — a business Dostert founded in 1959 and sold in 1971.
"I know a lot of second-generation pilots, but no one who's kept going and going like the Dosterts," said Vanderlinde, who began working for the company in 1979 and purchased it in 2000.
For the record, there's Vince Dostert, a retired commercial pilot and a U.S. Army Air Corps World War II veteran. He was training to fly a Curtiss-Wright C-46 Commando, a transport aircraft, preparing to invade Japan when the war ended.
Then there are his two sons. Steve Dostert, who "never reveals" his age or address, served in the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam in 1968-69, and is a retired commercial pilot. David Dostert, 54, who soloed when he was 16 years old, was crew chief for Air Force F-4C Phantom Jets in the early 1970s.
"You just don't see that," Vanderlinde repeats. "So many Air Force veterans in the same family."
Even today, a member of Vince Dostert's extended family serves in the Air Force. His step-granddaughter, Nichole Stafford, 24, is a senior airman. She has served one tour of duty in Afghanistan already, with a second one looming in her future.
"I think a lot of that girl ... and what she's doing for her country," Dostert says. "I love to talk to her. That gal's got a lot on the ball."
But the Dostert family's interest in aviation predates even Vince, who took his first airplane ride when he was 4 years old in 1928, the year that Amelia Earhart became the first woman to successfully pilot an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean.
Vince Dostert's father — the late William "Bill" Dostert — served in the U.S. Army Air Service in World War I. The elder Dostert trained as a gunner and was accepted into pilot school at Ellington Field, south of Houston, at a time when the world of aviation was just beginning.
Bill Dostert passed his love of flying on to his young son, Vince, taking him in the air before he even went to school. Bill Dostert worked at "the Continental" for 44 years as a shop supervisor, but he never lost his interest in the aviator's world.
"It was something I had to do, too," Dostert said. "I had to do it. I really fell in love with flying because of my dad. My father was my hero."
When he was in school, Dostert used to ride his bike from his family home in the Lakeside area out to the Muskegon County Airport. He worked for the legendary Cecil R. "Sinny" Sinclair, one of the earliest pilots in Muskegon and a fixture in the skies. When young Vince's grades faltered because he was putting in too much time at the airport, he was grounded by his parents until he graduated from Muskegon High School.
But he could see his future on the horizon. As soon as he got out of the Air Force, he came home to the West Michigan area. He and his sweetheart, Alma, were married. He helped start an Air National Guard unit in the area and went to work selling Beechcraft airplanes. His work brought him often to Muskegon where he met with local industrialists and company owners who could use a private airplane.
One thing led to another, and by 1959, Dostert was ready to stop selling airplanes and get into the flying business in Muskegon. With the financial backing of industrialist Don Seyferth, on Nov. 1, 1959, Dostert and M.R. "Brownie" Brown opened Executive Air Transport Inc. at the airport.
"We started out with one Beechcraft," Dostert remembers, "but we did a survey, and we identified 83 companies that could use our services."
Use them they did. Dostert and Brown transported executives and company officials for Ott Chemical Co., Neway Co. and Howmet Corp., among others.
The business was a second home to the Dostert family, which also includes two daughters — Lisa Dostert Stafford and Lynelle Dostert Brown. David Dostert was just 3 years old when his dad started Executive Air. He was always underfoot, always in the air whenever anyone offered.
"It was fun," David Dostert remembers.
Growing up in the aviation world had its advantages for kids. Steve Dostert was in first grade when his dad picked him up for lunch one day — those were the days kids still came home for lunch — and took him on a run he made to Kalamazoo.
By plane.
Steve Dostert was a little late getting back for afternoon classes, and later, his teacher told Vince and Alma Dostert that their son had "a tall imagination." He'd told her he'd flown to Kalamazoo on lunch hour when she asked why he was late.
"He did," Vince Dostert told her.
It is a story that still makes father and sons laugh, so many years after the fact. Who else on their block had that kind of life? No one else they knew. What other dad came home from work at night and told stories — true stories — about spotting a downed pilot in Lake Michigan and circling the spot until the Coast Guard could come to the rescue? Who else flew to New York and back in the same day, taking people to corporate headquarters for meetings, then home again to Muskegon in time for supper?
"It was a wonderful life," Dostert says. "Forty-three years of flying, and I didn't give anybody a bloody nose. I didn't hurt anybody."
David Dostert says his dad "set the mold" for his brother and him
"He taught us that we owed something to our country, as far as the military goes," he says. "And his work ethic was phenomenal."
Dostert's work habits took him away from his family more than he'd like.
"I used to think my dad was the airplane," Steve Dostert jokes. "My mom would point to the sky at an airplane and say: There goes your dad."
In 1971, Vince Dostert sold Executive Air, even though he continued flying commercially into his retirement years. At 87, he no longer is able to fly on his own, safety regulations being what they are — but in August, he accomplished something few pilots can say.
He took his 4-year-old great-grandson, Dylan Dostert, who lives in Cadillac for his first airplane ride with the assistance of a certified safety pilot on board. Little Dylan is David Dostert's grandson and Casey Dostert's son.
"Dylan is so excited about airplanes," David Dostert says.
David Dostert watches as his dad looks at the photos of Dylan in the air, taking his first flight at exactly the same age as Vince did so many years ago.
"I have a feeling the family's love of flying is going to be rekindled," David Dostert says. "When you think about it, it's really quite a legacy."
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