|
Foreword
So this book is partly a memoir of my own life in the air and partly a set of profiles of some of those remarkable flyers whom I came to know over the years. On the ground I have been a physicist and a teacher, in the air an earnest amateur. There's no physics in this book, but I haven't been able to resist doing a little teaching—for instance, about old and new ways to navigate, the different kinds of lift available to glider pilots, and the hazards of box canyons. If you're not a pilot but thinking of becoming one, whatever your age, you might enjoy this book. If you want to learn a little more about the lure of the sky that goes beyond anecdotes, scary or amusing, these pages might be for you. And if you're a fellow pilot, you might like to compare my experiences and observations with your own. |
hat motivated this book? First of all, my fifty-year love affair with flying. Second, my admiration, often tinged with awe, for the many people I met along the way who gave up whatever more lucrative careers might have been out there to do what they most loved doing, which was to fly. Since what I flew were small airplanes and gliders, out of small airports and landing strips, the professional aviators I met were mostly not airline pilots or corporate pilots. They were airport operators, flight instructors, weather flyers, environmental flyers, glider pilots, tow pilots, or just pilots for hire. And quite a few of them loved fixing airplanes almost as much as flying them.
H Bar Press
729 Westview St., Philadelphia PA 19119
Phone: 215-844-8054, Fax: 215-844-1399, ken @ hbarpress.com