Short Tales by a Tall Pilot

Short Tales by a Tall Pilot PDF Author: Jim Lewis
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1475969872
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
When pilots sit around an airport or get together at a hotel lounge for beers or cocktails, they're almost certain to regale each other, and anyone else who will listen, with embellished tales of their greatest aviation exploits. The longer these stories continue, the more the similarities grow between the pilots' war stories and fish stories. As the night wears on, the exploits they share are likely to grow more and more elaborate and outlandish. In the spirit of those war stories, author Jim Lewis, who has worked as a professional pilot since the mid-sixties, offers his share of stories from his experiences. Many of these short stories are the result of mistakes in judgment, while others arose from deliberate decisions to proceed made from ignorance. A few were simply experiences that came with being a professional pilot, and two or three were blatant rule breaking. Lewis recalls landing in a soybean field, buzzing a nuclear submarine, flying under a bridge, running low on fuel, and tasting life in the cockpit of a jet liner. Some of his tales are humorous, while others take on a more dangerous nature. All of them, however, offer a lesson for others to learn.

Short Tales by a Tall Pilot

Short Tales by a Tall Pilot PDF Author: Jim Lewis
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1475969872
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
When pilots sit around an airport or get together at a hotel lounge for beers or cocktails, they're almost certain to regale each other, and anyone else who will listen, with embellished tales of their greatest aviation exploits. The longer these stories continue, the more the similarities grow between the pilots' war stories and fish stories. As the night wears on, the exploits they share are likely to grow more and more elaborate and outlandish. In the spirit of those war stories, author Jim Lewis, who has worked as a professional pilot since the mid-sixties, offers his share of stories from his experiences. Many of these short stories are the result of mistakes in judgment, while others arose from deliberate decisions to proceed made from ignorance. A few were simply experiences that came with being a professional pilot, and two or three were blatant rule breaking. Lewis recalls landing in a soybean field, buzzing a nuclear submarine, flying under a bridge, running low on fuel, and tasting life in the cockpit of a jet liner. Some of his tales are humorous, while others take on a more dangerous nature. All of them, however, offer a lesson for others to learn.

Backcountry Pilot

Backcountry Pilot PDF Author: Thomas Bowen
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816547165
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
When people get together around southern Arizona, there's a good chance that somebody will say, "That reminds me of the time I flew with Ike Russell. . . . " A backcountry pilot famous for his jaunts into the wildest, most remote regions of the borderlands, Alexander "Ike" Russell has become something of a legend since his death in 1980, and the stories surrounding his flights never fail to amaze. This book combines biography and oral history by offering a wide range of anecdotes and remembrances about Ike by friends and family. Many describe the great adventures and gut-wrenching close calls that have become enshrined in local folklore as classic "Ike Russell stories," in all their hair-raising and hilarious splendor. Russell was an easterner who moved to Arizona for his health and got his pilot's license in 1948—despite suffering from a respiratory disorder that would have kept other men firmly anchored to the ground. Over the years he flew scientists and other scholars to remote field locations in Mexico's Gulf of California and Sierra Madre Occidental that otherwise might not have been investigated. He often landed on short and dangerous airstrips and never seemed to mind running out of gas, getting caught without provisions, or attempting night landings in unlighted terrain. He took along a teapot wherever he went—and wherever he stopped, his first priority was to brew a quick cup. Backcountry Pilot is the story of a larger-than-life adventurer, with those who knew Ike sharing tales tall and true about his famous exploits, brushes with fate, and sometimes narrow escapes from the jaws of disaster. It includes reminiscences by such scientists and friends as botanist Richard Felger, whom Ike frequently flew down to Seriland; ethnohistorian Bernard Fontana, whom Ike took to Tarahumara country; and paleoecologist Paul Martin, who talked Ike into a nine-month trip through Africa over totally unfamiliar terrain. A concluding chapter by Thomas Bowen offers a brief biographical sketch of Russell. Ike Russell was a central figure for a generation of people who studied the southwestern desert and who helped others see it as a biological treasure rather than a wasteland. More than a highly skilled bush pilot, he was an extraordinary human being who touched the lives of everyone he met. For those who never got the chance, Backcountry Pilot secures Ike Russell's legacy in the desert skies.

Speed

Speed PDF Author: Gilliland|Keith Dunnavant Bob Gilliland (Dunnavant)
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1640124675
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
On December 22, 1964, at a small, closely guarded airstrip in the desert town of Palmdale, California, Lockheed test pilot Bob Gilliland stepped into a strange-looking aircraft and roared into aviation history. Developed at the super-secret Skunk Works, the SR-71 Blackbird was a technological marvel. In fact, more than a half century later, the Mach 3-plus titanium wonder, designed by Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson, remains the world's fastest jet. It took a test pilot with the right combination of intelligence, skill, and nerve to make the first flight of the SR-71, and the thirty-eight-year-old Gilliland had spent much of his life pushing the edge. In Speed one of America's greatest test pilots collaborates with acclaimed journalist Keith Dunnavant to tell his remarkable story: How he was pushed to excel by his demanding father. How a lucky envelope at the U.S. Naval Academy altered the trajectory of his life. How he talked his way into U.S. Air Force fighters at the dawn of the jet age, despite being told he was too tall. How he made the conscious decision to trade the security of the business world for the dangerous life of an experimental test pilot, including time at the clandestine base Area 51, working on the Central Intelligence Agency's Oxcart program. The narrative focuses most intently on Gilliland's years as the chief test pilot of the SR-71, as he played a leading role in the development of the entire fleet of spy planes while surviving several emergencies that very nearly ended in disaster. Waging the Cold War at 85,000 feet, the SR-71 became an unrivaled intelligence-gathering asset for the U.S. Air Force, invulnerable to enemy defenses for a quarter century. Gilliland's work with the SR-71 defined him, especially after the Cold War, when many of the secrets began to be revealed and the plane emerged from the shadows--not just as a tangible museum artifact but as an icon that burrowed deep into the national consciousness. Like the Blackbird itself, Speed is a story animated by the power of ambition and risk-taking during the heady days of the American Century.

A Short Story of a Long Life

A Short Story of a Long Life PDF Author: Emerich Salzberger Stoessl
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781425916398
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
The author starts by telling about his birth in war-torn Austria where his family had lived since the 15th century when they escaped from the Inquisition in Spain. His father was not present at the time of his birth. He was fighting the Italians whom he liked and admired, but was loyal to the Austrian emperor. In spite of family tradition, the boy did not feel comfortable in his country mostly because of rising anti-Semitism. In a proletarian glider club, he made his first flights and when he left high school, he went to the Central Flying School in Prague where he became a pilot with a commercial license. Studies in aeronautical engineering followed as did work as a test pilot in Italy, then more of both, in England. When WWII broke out, he joined the Royal Air Force, was sent on a special mission to Czechoslovakia where he got stranded. He hired on as a navigator on board a broken-down paddle wheeler to carry illegal emigrants to Palestine down the Danube, across the Black Sea, passing the Turkish straits into the Mediterranean. The ship was detained in many places and the journey lasted six months, ending up with a boiler explosion in the Aegean Sea. The Italian navy rescued all 500 passengers and crew who were interned on the island of Rhodes, then transferred to another camp in Calabria, Italy. Emerich Salzberger managed to escape and with the help of an Italian fisherman, made it to Malta, then British. After stays in hospitals to regain weight and strength, he was re-activated in the R.A.F., fought as a pilot in northern Africa with the desert air force and finally, went all the way up through Italy to the Austrian border. After the war, he returned to Britain to work as anexperimental test pilot followed with periods of aviation work in Palestine and Australia. His parents survived the war hidden in the house of a Slovakian friend. They later moved to Mexico. Emerich, who had not seen them during the war, went to visit them for a fortnight, or so he thought. He has spent the years since then, from 1947 to now, in Mexico, first working for an airline, later starting his own aerial survey company which he ran for over 50 years. Age and health forced him into retirement, resulting in this book.

The Lieography of Amelia Earhart

The Lieography of Amelia Earhart PDF Author: Alan Katz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1939100518
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 45

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Book Description
Amelia Earhart, top aviator. You might know that her flight accomplishments were heralded across the globe. But what about the story of her teeth, which were so perfect that her dentist wanted to remove all of them to show his other patients? Or her refusal to read chapter nine in any book? You’re about to be treated to the Lieographical aspects of Amelia Earhart’s life, in this funny, lighthearted, “all that didn’t happen” take on this larger than life woman. The book ends with a short—but true—account of Amelia’s life—just enough to encourage kids to find out more on this important historical figure. But even if readers have already learned about Amelia, the wacky stories in this tall-tales book will be even more enjoyable.

Enigmatic Pilot

Enigmatic Pilot PDF Author: Kris Saknussemm
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 0345519027
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Enigmatic Pilot is Kris Saknussemm’s outrageously brilliant yet profoundly moving exploration and excavation of the American dream—and nightmare. In 1844, in a still-young America, the first intimations of civil war are stirring throughout the land. In Zanesville, Ohio, the Sitturd family—Hephaestus, a clubfooted inventor; his wife, Rapture, a Creole from the Sea Islands; and their prodigiously gifted six-year-old son, Lloyd, whose libido is as precocious as his intellect—are forced to flee the only home they have ever known for an uncertain future in Texas, whence Hephaestus’s half-brother, Micah, has sent them a mysterious invitation, promising riches and wonders too amazing to be entrusted to paper. Thus begins one of the most incredible American journeys since Huck Finn and Jim first pushed their raft into the Mississippi. Along the way, Lloyd will learn the intricacies of poker and murder, solve the problem of manned flight, find—and lose—true love, and become swept up in an ancient struggle between two secret societies whose arcane dispute has shaped the world’s past and threatens to reshape its future. Each side wants to use Lloyd against the other, but Lloyd has his own ideas—and access to an occult technology as powerful as his imagination.

A Crackerjack Life

A Crackerjack Life PDF Author: Rajiv Tyagi
Publisher: Notion Press, Incorporated
ISBN: 9781642496901
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
These are memoirs of my life as a fighter pilot, a mountain trekker, a bon vivant and a lover... 1."Rajiv still flies with his keyboard. He writes with a fighter pilot's swagger and attention to detail. Fighter pilots like old hunters, have a reputation for tall tales. Rajiv tells short ones, with aplomb and gusto. He writes with felicity and a sense of irony and wit, so rare these days." -Mohan Guruswamy 2."This is that rare kind of book, that slowly consumes your senses, and then suddenly overwhelms you with cinematic swell, leaving a smile on your face and joy in your heart." -Sanjiv Bhatt, IPS

Short Stories and Tall Tales

Short Stories and Tall Tales PDF Author: Mark Twain
Publisher: Courage Books
ISBN: 9781561383238
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Presents more than twenty short stories by nineteenth-century American author Mark Twain--including "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" and "How to Tell a Story"--And an essay on the author by Charles Neider.

Cockpit Confessions of an Airline Pilot

Cockpit Confessions of an Airline Pilot PDF Author: Stephen G. Keshner
Publisher: Pelican Press
ISBN: 9780967554099
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description


HEART OF THE COUNTRY SHORT STORY COLLECTION

HEART OF THE COUNTRY SHORT STORY COLLECTION PDF Author: Nick Armbrister
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1447850246
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
This is Nick Armbrister's new short story collection featuring a variety of stories. From war with Russia in Red Empire and Final Flight to the horror of Loss Of The Icequeen to varied romance like What Could Have Been and Tattoo Me A Smile, this book introduces Nick's work and varied story telling. Other stories cover topics like life and human behaviour.