The Bruce R. McCaw Aviation Collection consists of business records and ephemera from the 1970s through 1997 gathered and created by McCaw over the course of his career but primarily documents his work with Horizon Air. Series I, the bulk of the collection, consists of records McCaw kept while serving as Horizon Air Vice President of Operations and documents Horizon Air’s development as a regional commuter airline from 1980 through 1987 before the company was purchased by Alaska Airlines in 1986. Series II is a smaller grouping of materials spanning the early 1970s through 1997 and is related to McCaw’s professional and personal activities as a pilot and aviation insurance expert.

Series I, Horizon Airlines, contains planning documents, manuals, contracts, correspondence, and trade and marketing publications detailing the development of Horizon Air as a regional Northwest short-haul commuter airline from 1980 to 1987. The series is organized into four subseries by function: Administrative Records, Legal Records, Operational Records, and Publicity Materials. The largest segment of the collection, the Operational Records, is derived from McCaw’s activities as vice president of operations from 1982 to 1986, such as handwritten notations for executive team meetings, internal and external business correspondence, flight operations and pilot training documents, and aircraft maintenance and safety records. The other sub-series are smaller and feature early organizational planning documents, publicity materials, and administrative records related to overall company matters from McCaw’s perspective as an executive board member.

An important part of the series, under subseries C. Operational Records, is related to the operation, development, and upgrading of Horizon’s fleet. This section includes sets of purchase agreement drafts, planning notes with handwritten notations, letters of correspondence, research articles, and trade reports and specification guides for various aircraft models. The materials document Horizon’s growth from a small group of aircraft of the Fokker F.27 family and the Fairchild (Swearingen) Metro II and III family, to a fleet of over 30 aircraft from the de Havilland (Canada) DHC-8 100 and 300 series prior to Horizon’s purchase by Alaska Airlines in 1986. Of note are documents showing internal and industry comparisons between top DHC-8 acquisition contenders: the ATR-42, the Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica’s 120, and the Saab-Fairchild 340.

Also unique to this series are the planning and meeting notes, internal communications, and external correspondence records, often with handwritten notations by McCaw, illustrating the company’s (and McCaw’s) attention to building and maintaining Horizon’s relationship with various vendors, aircraft manufacturers, the Port of Seattle, and the FAA.

Series II, Assorted Aviation, consists of a small set of folders containing a variety of textual materials on a range of aviation topics spanning in time from 1971 to 1997. The material is derived from McCaw’s professional and personal aviation activities. Key items include a set of AVMARK Newsletters from 1987-1991; assorted newspaper clippings and articles chronicling Horizon generally from 1990 to 1997; newspaper clippings and articles following airline Markair as it managed an issue with its employees in 1995; and marketing materials and correspondence about Jetstar Airways Corporation and its startup venture of using the Sikorsky helicopter for a business commuter program in the Southern California region. The contents are arranged alphabetically by topic.