Excerpts from Book

There is an apocryphal story about a fellow body haul pilot who experienced an engine failure and subsequent emergency landing in a field. When the authorities arrived, they accused him of having a fatal accident.

About a dozen men on horseback rode in and from their mounts in the flickering firelight announced, “We claim this land for the people of Mexico.” It could have been Pancho Villa. They each wore large sombreros, pistols on each hip, crisscrossed bandoliers across their chest, and a rifle saddle gun. It appeared to me that they intended to kill us.

There are few thrills available anywhere that exceed the thrill of flying 300+ knots at 50 ft. or lower.

After a few minutes of that, Rick took the controls (from the back seat) and flew even lower. What a hoot, Lieutenant clean-cut was out here scaring cattle with a supersonic jet.

The F-106 airframe was a Cadillac. It really would go Mach 2, even with the 360-gallon drop tanks. It still holds the official world’s speed record for single-engine aircraft at 1525.95 mph.

“Jacksonville Center, Mike Golf request flight level 500 and increase true airspeed to 1000 knots.”

George does not stop rolling to make his takeoff. The taxiway from the barn makes a delicate fillet with the runway and he simply accelerates through it. The lights of his aircraft are soon obliterated in the bright plume of his afterburner. It makes a loud, deep explosion more felt than heard as it begins. I look away in an attempt to save my night vision. Twenty seconds later with the throttle already full forward, I move my wrist outboard an inch and an additional 15,000 horsepower in unleashed. The response is delayed only a second, a loud thump, much more acceleration, and the Engine Pressure Ratio (EPR) gauge dips, then recovers to where it was before, indicating proper exhaust nozzle operation. I see George begin to rotate and then he is lost in a plume of snow that the afterburner and wing tip vortices blast into the air. I wonder if I will be able to see far enough to keep my aircraft on the runway when I enter the cloud of snow. Never mind though, at 135 knots, it’s time to fly. I'm off, gear up, yaw dampers on, drop tanks on. Wake up down there.

Props whirling, engines humming, the big red star on the tail, I wish you could have been there.

Suddenly, a huge dark form appeared ahead of the aircraft, and very close! All joking aside about "lightning fast fighter pilot reflexes," I pulled the stick as far back as fast as it would go. The wing immediately goes into a high-speed stall buffet - a sound not unlike driving down a rocky road. Simultaneously I instinctively shoved the throttle full forward. For what seemed like an eternity, the aircraft was pointed up and going down.

"I'm sure you don't understand how important is for us to climb or you would have already cleared us. What we have here is a flight of three fighters flying formation in weather that you can't drive in. If you don't get us higher right now, I'm personally going to have your ass."

"It was a thing of beauty, we must've kicked up dust in the fighter ops parking lot, then screamed across the airport and by the tower at 450 knots. Then hard pull up into a diamond barrel roll." "Your ass is grass, and probably mine too. You'll never get away with this."

As it closed, I realized that the tractor (Bill) had aligned on me instead of the adjacent road! I flung the camera to the ground and began to run away from the approaching aircraft. I only got two steps before the F-101 passed low overhead. About one second after that, the dart hit the ground about 20 feet from me followed by a whistling sound made by the still attached cable.

“Get really ready, with that low wing loading, it’s going to be hard to keep up with.” “Yeah, yeah, I’m ready. (on the radio) “Control execute the maneuver.” With that, the drone simply turned and vanished, far away from us. I couldn’t help but laugh. The hotshot fighter pilot had essentially been beaten by a drone.

The new copilot, fresh from the DC-8, where such things are part of their procedures, reached to the throttles, and pulled all three engines into reverse thrust. Prohibited in the 727, the reverser handles were immediately stowed, but the engines remained in reverse! Sinking like an anvil, they began to look for a field to land.

“At Houston we don’t use checklists. You can read it if you like, but don’t bother us with it.”

The joke about the duties of the first officer was to learn to say: “Clear right, I’ll eat the chicken, and I’ll take the ugly one.”

“Delta descend to cross twenty miles north of Macy Intersection at one two thousand feet.” “Unable, we’re too close to make that.” “Don’t you guys have speed brakes, why don’t you use them?” “Yeah, we have ‘em, but they are for my mistakes, not yours.”

“Don, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” Asked Captain Pete. Startled by this, I took a few moments before answering. “No, Pete, I’m a Deist, I’m not superstitious at all.” I Answered. “What, how can you deny the Bible as the holy word of God?” “I don’t believe that, the God that I know is kind and created all the beautiful things that I see in nature. How can such a God advocate in his Bible such things as homophobia, misogyny, slavery, and genocide?”

With that, I would turn off the pressurization, and open my window on short final approach. The boundary layer of calm wind, being about four inches thick, allowed me to casually put my elbow out the window. I said,

“Admiral Engen, I hesitate to ask this, but can we postpone the rest of the story until we finish with the agenda?”

Among the early heart transplant patients, he frequently opened his presentations with, “I want to thank you from the bottom of somebody else’s heart.”

Out of the cloud top, a cylinder of bright reddish light, a quarter of the diameter of the cloud, rose to perhaps ten times the height of the cloud and then spread out in all directions.

“Tehran Anti Aircraft Artillery, Delta 49 at flight level 370, squawking 4350.” No answer.

After getting the gaggle to the airport and making a few passes, we split up with the prop guys landing and Neal and I doing the airshow. It was mild by professional standards: Cuban eight, loop, barrel roll, four-point roll, tuck under pitch out. Even so, the crowd seemed to like it.

I pulled the T-Bird out of the hangar, fired it up, turned the radio off, and flew for an hour. Only in America.

After we pushed back from the gate, all the Delta Narita Ground Crew lined up on the ramp, and as I pushed up the throttles to pull away, they all bowed deeply.

He properly drew and fired. The simulated hijacker fell to the floor, whereupon my copilot proceeded to empty the remainder of his bullets into the attacker’s crotch.

Once on downwind leg, tower tells me, “V-tail make close in base leg, land on the orange dot. Baron ahead landing on the green dot.”

As I lined up for the approach, I entered what must have been a downburst, a sinking column of air. With little airspeed and a sink hurling me at the ground, I retracted the landing gear and flaps and pointed the nose straight down in an attempt to recover enough airspeed to land.

Fortunately standing on the side of the wing away from the door, the homebuilder witnessed a strange beast making circular incisions on his door, apparently attempting to eat its way through and gobble him up.

Closer and closer we came until….I pulled up and flew over it. As I turned to see, it was standing in the same spot only with his head turned toward me. A bull moose is truly the king of the woods, afraid of nothing.

We are taking almost 300 happy people to a place that they want to be. What could be better than that? Add a description here.