When Flying Was Fun! is an autobiographical collection of aviation anecdotes covering four decades of flying, starting with the sixties. These humorous and sometimes poignant stories are told from a first person perspective by the author, who was a Naval Aviator during the Vietnam War and spent over thirty years as an airline pilot with United Airlines. These memoirs relate to those days when pilots actually flew airplanes, before the days of “glass cockpits” and computer-operated flights. Those were the days when passengers dressed up in their Sunday finest for a trip to the airport to go on a flight that would take them on the adventure of their lives! This was a time when airline pilots and flight attendants looked and felt sharp as they strode to their airplanes with pride in their uniforms and the feeling that they truly were part of the most glamorous profession in America.

A little boy enjoys his first trip by himself in an airplane when he goes to visit his cousin.

Autobiography of the famous flyer which describes her own ambitions to become a pilot and offers advice to others.

A little boy is excited by his first airplane ride

No aircraft ever captured the curiosity & fascination of the public like the SR-71 Blackbird. Nicknamed "The Sled" by those few who flew it, the aircraft was shrouded in secrecy from its inception. Entering the U.S. Air Force inventory in 1966, the SR-71 was the fastest, highest flying jet aircraft in the world. Now for the first time, a Blackbird pilot shares his unique experience of what it was like to fly this legend of aviation history. Through the words & photographs of retired Major Brian Shul, we enter the world of the "Sled Driver." Major Shul gives us insight on all phases of flying, including the humbling experience of simulator training, the physiological stresses of wearing a space suit for long hours, & the intensity & magic of flying 80,000 feet above the Earth's surface at 2000 miles per hour. SLED DRIVER takes the reader through riveting accounts of the rigors of initial training, the gamut of emotions experienced while flying over hostile territory, & the sheer joy of displaying the jet at some of the world's largest airshows. Illustrated with rare photographs, seen here for the first time, SLED DRIVER captures the mystique & magnificence of this most unique of all aircraft.

Unlike conventional aviation authors and instructors I do not teach primary flying, crop dusting, pipeline patrol flying, bush flying, helicopter medical evacuation flying, and air to ground gunnery using instruments inside the aircraft as the primary situational awareness tool. Rather I teach Dutch rolls, slow flight and stalls over the runway, the energy management turns, use of ground effect on all takeoffs, the brisk walk apparent rate of closure approach, hover taxi in fixed wing aircraft, and low level low power mountain flying using sights, sounds, smells, and kinetics. Sight is used 99.9% of the time looking at the ground. Airspeed, nor any other instrument is used in takeoff or landing. This text teaches the art of flying in the old style at low level using ground references. Its author has over sixteen thousand hours of flying Army helicopters, crop dusters, and pipeline patrol airplanes at three feet to five hundred feet above ground level.