 Their principal source of revenue, the Military Air Transport Service (MATS), at first awarded contracts only to a select group of seven supplemental carriers represented by the National Air Carrier Association, an agency headed by Coates Lear.Lear also happened to be a business associate of the recently appointed Secretary of the Air Force.His sudden death in 1963 did not mean the end of the supplemental carriers' troubles with military contracts, however, as the escalation of the Vietnam War impelled MATS to demand greater standards from their contractors.