This is the first book to tell the story of one of Canada's most innovative aviation companies, Laurentian Air Services, and thus fills an important gap in Canadian aviation history. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with Laurentian's presidents, pilots and ground crew, author Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail explores the company's 60-year history from its founding in 1936 in Ottawa with small biplanes through to the 1990s when it was operating scheduled flights with twin-engine Beech 99s and Beech King Air 200s. During those 60 years, Laurentian was at the forefront of air tourism in the Ottawa region and the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec as well as fly-in hunting and fishing in Canada's north. It also pioneered the use of the Grumman G-21 Goose and de Havilland Beaver commercially and provided vital air support to survey and development work for such massive undertakings as the Churchill Falls and James Bay hydroelectric projects. This book brings Laurentian's history to life through first-hand stories and an exciting collection of colour and black and white photographs, the majority of which have not previously been published. This is a long-overdue book that appeals to armchair bush flyers and aviation historians alike.
The assassination of John F. Kennedy is the haunting subject of this book. Reconstructing events that took place on November 22, 1963, the novel brings back to life the tragedy that left its indelible mark on American history. Reality, fantasy and mythology interlink to make Flying in to Love as controversial and shocking as it is compulsively readable.
Reality, as Eileen Robertson Hamra perceived it, instantaneously altered the moment authorities confirmed that the plane her husband was piloting had crashed, and he had not survived. In the process of mourning her loss, with three young children in tow, where Eileen wandered and landed was nothing short of miraculous. Between the valleys of grief and the peaks of hope, she discovered that keeping promises to the dead is a lifelong act, and honoring one love does not mean foregoing the freedom and joy that is found in reopening your heart, trusting in new love, and expanding your definition of family. Three days before Christmas 2011 and just two miles from her parents’ home, Eileen Roberston Hamra’s husband, Brian, died alone, flying his own airplane. Overnight, Eileen lost the man she loved, and her three young children lost their father. Brian’s parents lost their son, his younger sister lost her big brother, and hundreds of people working across the globe in the tech and solar energy industries lost their mentor, their leader, their guide. Al Gore sent his condolences. After holding bicoastal celebrations of Brian’s life, for weeks, months, a year, Eileen and her children wrapped themselves in his clothing, and cocooned. Each night, under the balmy black-blue skies of Southern California, they cried, hugged, and pressed forward in ways they knew Brian would have wanted them to. Through the rollercoaster ride of loss and mourning, they were buoyed by friends, teachers, strangers, angels, and of course, family. Despite the dark sense of having been gutted, in fact because of the shadowy pangs of emptiness she experienced, Eileen learned new ways in which to shine a light and make her way toward feeling whole again. She transformed longing and loneliness into wisdom and wonder. She became more patient, compassionate, balanced, joyful, and loving than she had ever thought possible. Time to Fly is the story of how one woman chose to view the tragedy of her husband’s death as an opportunity to strengthen the bond with her children, and to wake up to her life’s purpose. It is one woman’s high-flying and turbulent journey to taking full possession of her potential by breaking beyond what she thought she would, should, and could do. Eileen Robertson Hamra moved through grief toward healing via a tough and magical spiritual awakening. Making a series of conscious choices and paying attention to a string of “coincidences” and otherworldly signs, she eventually met another wonderful man, Mike. They fell in love, got married, and set a well-respected IVF clinic record by giving birth to a miracle child when Eileen was forty-six years old. Time to Fly is a memoir not only for the bereaved and those who support them, but for anyone who believes in the power of finding the silver lining in the darkest of situations and holding on to that sliver of light, in order to turn things around. We do not have complete control over our limited time on this remarkable planet, and so in the time we do have, we must hold one another, build softness alongside resilience, and write our own flight plan.
Bud Anderson is a flyers flyer. The Californians enduring love of flying began in the 1920s with the planes that flew over his fathers farm. In January 1942, he entered the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program. Later after he received his wings and flew P-39s, he was chosen as one of the original flight leaders of the new 357th Fighter Group. Equipped with the new and deadly P-51 Mustang, the group shot down five enemy aircraft for each one it lost while escorting bombers to targets deep inside Germany. But the price was high. Half of its pilots were killed or imprisoned, including some of Buds closest friends. In February 1944, Bud Anderson, entered the uncertain, exhilarating, and deadly world of aerial combat. He flew two tours of combat against the Luftwaffe in less than a year. In battles sometimes involving hundreds of airplanes, he ranked among the groups leading aces with 16 aerial victories. He flew 116 missions in his old crow without ever being hit by enemy aircraft or turning back for any reason, despite one life or death confrontation after another. His friend Chuck Yeager, who flew with Anderson in the 357th, says, In an airplane, the guy was a mongoosethe best fighter pilot I ever saw. Buds years as a test pilot were at least as risky. In one bizarre experiment, he repeatedly linked up in midair with a B-29 bomber, wingtip to wingtip. In other tests, he flew a jet fighter that was launched and retrieved from a giant B-36 bomber. As in combat, he lost many friends flying tests such as these. Bud commanded a squadron of F-86 jet fighters in postwar Korea, and a wing of F-105s on Okinawa during the mid-1960s. In 1970 at age 48, he flew combat strikes as a wing commander against communist supply lines. To Fly and Fight is about flying, plain and simple: the joys and dangers and the very special skills it demands. Touching, thoughtful, and dead honest, it is the story of a boy who grew up living his dream.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A woman returns to her small Maine hometown, uncovering family secrets that take her on a journey of self-discovery and new love, in this warm and charming novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Evvie Drake Starts Over. “A testament to the truth that love comes in all shapes, sizes, and situations.”—Jodi Picoult ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NPR, PopSugar Smarting from her recently canceled wedding and about to turn forty, Laurie Sassalyn returns to her Maine hometown of Calcasset to handle the estate of her great-aunt Dot, a spirited adventurer who lived to be ninety-three. Alongside boxes of Polaroids and pottery, a mysterious wooden duck shows up at the bottom of a cedar chest. Laurie’s curiosity is piqued, especially after she finds a love letter to the never-married Dot that ends with the line “And anyway, if you’re ever desperate, there are always ducks, darling.” Laurie is told that the duck has no financial value. But after it disappears under suspicious circumstances, she feels compelled to figure out why anyone would steal a wooden duck—and why Dot kept it hidden away in the first place. Suddenly Laurie finds herself swept up in a righteous caper that has her negotiating with antiques dealers and con artists, going on after-hours dates at the local library, and reconnecting with her oldest friend and her first love. Desperate to uncover her great-aunt’s secrets, Laurie must reckon with her own past and her future—and ultimately embrace her own vision of flying solo. With a cast of unforgettable characters and a heroine you will root for from page one, Flying Solo is a wonderfully original story about growing up, coming home, and learning to make a life for yourself on your own terms.
A layperson's explanation of how commercial airplanes function addresses common questions and concerns about a plane's practical mechanics and safety, covering such topics as maintenance, weather effects, and safety statistics. Reprint.
The book that inspired the Academy Award–winning short film, from New York Times bestselling author and beloved visionary William Joyce. Morris Lessmore loved words. He loved stories. He loved books. But every story has its upsets. Everything in Morris Lessmore’s life, including his own story, is scattered to the winds. But the power of story will save the day. Stunningly brought to life by William Joyce, one of the preeminent creators in children’s literature, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a modern masterpiece, showing that in today’s world of traditional books, eBooks, and apps, it’s story that we truly celebrate—and this story, no matter how you tell it, begs to be read again and again.
A poetic and nuanced exploration of the human experience of flight that reminds us of the full imaginative weight of our most ordinary journeys—and reawakens our capacity to be amazed. The twenty-first century has relegated airplane flight—a once remarkable feat of human ingenuity—to the realm of the mundane. Mark Vanhoenacker, a 747 pilot who left academia and a career in the business world to pursue his childhood dream of flight, asks us to reimagine what we—both as pilots and as passengers—are actually doing when we enter the world between departure and discovery. In a seamless fusion of history, politics, geography, meteorology, ecology, family, and physics, Vanhoenacker vaults across geographical and cultural boundaries; above mountains, oceans, and deserts; through snow, wind, and rain, renewing a simultaneously humbling and almost superhuman activity that affords us unparalleled perspectives on the planet we inhabit and the communities we form.
Here for the first time in a single volume are three of Richard Bach's most compelling works about flight. From his edgy days as a USAF Alert pilot above Europe in an armed F84-F Thunderstreak during the Cold War to a meander across America in a 1929 biplane, Bach explores the extreme edges of the air, his airplane, and himself in glorious writing about how it feels to climb into a machine, leave the earth, and fly. Only a handful of writers have translated their experiences in the cockpit into books that have mesmerized generations.
WITH A NEW EPILOGUE BY THE AUTHOR World-class free climber Steph Davis delivers a “thrilling and infectiously interesting” (San Francisco Book Review) memoir about rediscovering herself through love, loss, and the joy of letting go. The paperback includes a new epilogue in which Davis shares how her husband Mario’s tragic accident has affected her relationship to climbing and flying. Steph Davis is a superstar in the climbing community and has ascended some of the world’s most challenging and awe-inspiring peaks. But after her first husband makes a controversial climb in a national park, the media fallout escalates rapidly and in one fell swoop leaves her without a partner, a career, a source of income...or a purpose. In the company of only her beloved dog, Fletch, Davis sets off on a search for a new identity and discovers skydiving. Falling out of an airplane is completely antithetical to the climber’s control she’d practiced for so long, but she perseveres, turning each daring jump into an opportunity to fly, first as a skydiver, then as a base jumper. As she opens herself to falling, she also finds the strength to open herself to love again, even in the wake of heartbreak. And before too long, she meets someone who shares her passion for living life to the limit. With gorgeous black-and-white photos throughout, Learning to Fly is Davis’s fascinating account of her transformation. From her early tentative skydives, to zipping into her first wingsuit, to surviving devastating accidents against the background of breathtaking cliffs, to soaring beyond her past limits, she discovers new hope and joy in letting go.
