“For fifteen years I lugged around my suitcase, my Northwest flight manuals and miscellaneous parcels the old fashioned way” recalls Northwest Captain Gerald Mullen, now enjoying retirement on western Washington state’s picturesque Key Peninsula. “My fingers began to feel arthritic. I said to myself ‘there must be a better way’.”

            So “Moon”, as he is universally known, went to work. He designed a wheeled prototype using a Halliburton aluminum suitcase and the services of a welder who put together a frame. “The Halliburton wasn’t the answer,” Moon discovered. “So I contracted with a Korean supplier for some canvas suitcases. Customs was a particular problem, though, so I went to Minnesota, closer to home.”

            Moon engaged seamstresses in the towns of Dayton and Princeton to properly fashion canvas into suitcases and a friend in Clearwater, also a welder, to do the wheels and frames. Final assembly was done in a North Branch barn, not far from St. Paul. Moon’s old high school football coach tended to the logistics.

            “I made about 3,000 of them and sold them from $69 to $179 each, as improvements were made Moon says. “At first, sales were visual. ‘Where did you get that?’ a fellow crewmember would ask. Then, ‘Can you make me one?’ A pouch was fashioned on the side of each suitcase. I’d put a supply of business cards in each one and then things really took off.”

            Moon’s suitcases were deluxe models, indeed. Their wheels retracted.

            “We did some engineering,” Moon says. “When you pulled the handle rods up through their housing rods the wheels would drop down. When you pushed the handle down they retracted. Just like an airplane. We started with cheap wheels. Then quality ones with ball-bearings.”

            What happened next?

            “Well, I had sort of a partner and we disagreed about some things. Things sort of petered out. So I guess you could say I took the money and ran, figuratively, of course.”

            Other Northwest pilots were involved one way or another. Retired Captain and Northwest historian Jim Borden, now living in Park Rapids, Minnesota, recalls that NWA Captain Bill Atkins once welded a handle and roller skates on a Halliburton suitcase.

            “Bill was always hauling around tons of Northwest stuff and his own bundle of ideas, facts and figures wherever he went,” Borden recalls. “It was pretty tough on his arms and hands.” (Atkins also invented the flashing strobe “distance and direction” light that is now standard on the world’s airliners).

            “Bill Atkins was one of the most brilliant people Northwest Airlines ever had,” Mullen says. “He could do anything with anything. I wonder if he was ever appreciated.”

            Northwest Captain Bob Plath followed up on Moon’s accomplishments turning handle-and-wheel suitcases into big business under the “Travel Pro” label. He later sold to a large company. Plath now lives in Light House Point, Florida.

            If you want a wheeled suitcase now, which brand should you buy?

            “I think the Pretty Neat label is pretty good,” Moon says. “I think a TWA pilot developed it originally. He bought one of mine but didn’t like it so he designed one of his own. Most of them have fixed wheels now. Maybe that was a better idea.”

            A Princeton, Minnesota native, Mullen is a graduate of the U. S. Navy flight school in Pensacola, Florida. He was a U.S. Marine helicopter pilot early in the Vietnam War. He attended Northwest’s first co-pilot school in 1966 and began his Northwest flying on the Lockheed Electra. He retired in 1995.

            Postscript: We’re sure that many of you have found out the sad way – when an airline busts your luggage they do not usually pay off on smashed wheels. Maybe Moon had the right idea (retractable wheels).