Thursday, January 17, 2013

Book Review: Rogue Aviator

 This is my second book review  and I should mention I got the idea of posting the reviews after reading Franks Blog "N631S".  Now, keep in my that Frank's reviews are much more in depth and his collection of recent reads is easily available on the lower right side of his blog. I'm just starting to peruse his collection, I hope my readers take the time to offer suggestions of what they enjoy reading.
 
The Rogue Aviator is an insider's perspective of a professional pilot's roller coaster lifestyle. Ace Abbott's career spanned from the cockpit of an F4 Phantom to the Boeing 727 and the flight simulator of the Airbus A320.
 
While Ace shared his story of start up airlines, poor pay, endless recurrent training and maintenance issues, he managed to highlight a few episodes of classic hangar flying.  Ok, not a GA pilots version of hangar flying but stories of layovers, getting locked up in a foreign country and lost pay with companies that folded. This pilot did it all, charter flights, freight dog and scheduled commercial flights.

The book was a good read. I'm not sure what kept my interest more, his adventures or keeping count of the number of companies he worked for and those start up's that folded.

From the Rogue Aviator web page....

Ace Abbott was born and raised in upstate New York. He entered the U.S. Air Force in 1965 and became an F-4 Phantom pilot based in the Far East. He began his civilian career as a Learjet corporate and charter pilot, spending his last 22 years as a Boeing 727 captain. He retired in 2002 after visiting 44 countries with 14 different airlines. He currently lives in upstate New York with his wife.

The Rogue Aviator, will put you in the cockpit of the F-4 Phantom for exhilarating Mach 2 test flights and pulse-racing, treetop-level formation flights. Ace's Learjet charter stories will take you to five- star hotels and restaurants in Paris, jails in Venezuela, with frequent diversions to the always onerous, greasy and noisy air-freight tarmacs. The final journey encompasses a 22-year adventure as a Boeing 727 Captain with nearly a dozen different airlines during the unstable years of airline post-deregulation (1978 to present).

No comments: