It’s pinned to the plaster ceiling over my desk, which my wife doesn’t like so much, but I put it there so I could look up and always see it, a little model... read more
Pilots are traditionally buried in their uniforms, cap in hands. This is something I learned preceding my step-grandfather's funeral. He had been a lifelong career pilot for United Airlines, something that was fated... read more
My body is being shaken about, but it’s a perfect day. It has to be. With nothing more than a warm breeze, the cloudless sky is safe.
I loosen my grip on the yoke,... read more
Squeezed in the middle. Point of honour not to hog the rests. Window French chap; aisle Indo domestic going back to her kampung for a fortnight. Both uncommunicative. Former had just come out... read more
Leveling at 30,000 feet after departing LaGuardia Airport, our jet was jostled. We represented nothing but a tubular chew toy in the jaws of a masticating, mythical sky beast. The plane’s drop was... read more
My plane was screaming down the runway...or was that me screaming. The little Cessna’s wings wavered and bounced slightly as we gained speed. My heart was pounding, and I stared out the window... read more
I was about to push faster than the speed of sound, something the human body was not designed to endure. Especially mine. Only twenty, I weighed 100 pounds and focused on staying skinny,... read more
I’m not sure when I realized the depth of my love of flying but I got hooked early and it’s lasted a lifetime.
In 1941, my father was just barely twenty-two when he found... read more
My three-year-old wants to fly. Not in an airplane. She’s done that dozens of times, and that’s not at all what she means. She wants to hang in the sky like a butterfly,... read more
So, everyone has boarded our transoceanic aircraft at O’Hare.
The flight safety message has started. It’s the kind you watch on TV monitors, not a flight attendant’s live reenactment of what you should do... read more
