D-Day Anniversary Today is the 80th anniversary of the Normandy D-Day landing. Many of the heroes of the Greatest generation traveled back to Normandy for a final visit. All are over 90 years old, many over 100. When I was growing up, everyone I knew had a relative who had been killed during World War II. Many of them were killed during the D-Day i…

Scott Cerone grew up on Long Island, listening to the Concord supersonic airliner fly final approach to JFK Airport, and KNEW he wanted to fly. He attended the United States Air Force Academy, majoring in General Engineering, and went to Undergraduate Pilot Training at Colombus Air Force Base. Scott ("Hummer") did well enough in training to score a…

Andrew Ross is a pilot at a major airline flying the Boeing 787 domestically and internationally. Andrew has served as a union representative, committee chairman, and is a member of the National Education Steering Committee for the ALPA. He has also served as an airline check airman and is a Gold-Seal Flight Instructor. Andrew is also a member of t…

Cesar "Rico" Rodriguez's first operational assignment was flying the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II at Suwon Air Base, South Korea; in 1985 he was selected to attend the Instructor Pilot Course at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas then spent the following three years as an AT-38 Instructor Pilot at Holloman AFB, New Mexico; in 1988 he transiti…

On the afternoon of May 11, 1996, Valet Flight 592 pushed back from gate G2 in Miami after a delay of 1 hour and 4 minutes due to mechanical problems.There were 110 people on board: 105 passengers, mainly from Florida and Georgia, and a crew of two pilots and three flight attendants. At 2:04 PM EDT, the DC-9 took off from runway 9L (now runway 8R) …

Watching Top Gun Scott Kartvedt watched Top Gun in 1986 just like many other young men but then went on to be a Navy pilot, something many of us just dreamed of. He applied to and was selected to the elite Blue Angels air demonstration team where he served as the number seven, six, and number five solo pilot before returning to the fleet. There, he…

Dan Verdoorn started his flying as a young child, riding his bicycle to the local airport and watching airplanes take off and land from outside the fence. Finally, a pilot in a J-3 Cub asked him if he wanted to go for a flight, and that was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with aviation. Dan worked his way up in the construction business and…

During the Vietnam War, with two years of college, Tom Speer was facing the draft. Out of curiosity, he visited a Marine recruiter and saw a photo of an F-4 and was hooked. The recruiter sent him to take numerous tests - which he aced - and he signed up to be a Marine Aviation Cadet. He had a bit of incentive when he received his draft notice! Tom …

Captured by Love shares the real love stories of 20 Vietnam War POWs. Some had wives who started a movement that changed American foreign policy. Others came home and had to start over, while five single men met the loves of their lives. Despite their unique differences, all these couples have been happily married 40 to 65 years. You’ll be swept up…

Sully Sullenberger: "I'm very glad that the Federal Aviation Administration has ensured the safety of the traveling public by wisely denying the waiver request by Republic Airways to cut in half the pilot experience requirement. U.S. airlines have attained an extraordinarily good safety record, with no fatal crashes in more than 13 and a half years…

From Air Line Pilots Association: In September 2016, Capt. David Whitson (United) was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a condition in which white blood cells that manage the body’s immune system form abnormally. The then B-787 first officer was treated at the Texas Oncology–Baylor Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center in Dallas, Tex., where he spe…

Named Tennessee's Outstanding Young Man for service to his community, state and country, Bud Willis has been well recognized for his first book, Bluestocking, released in 2009, now in its second printing. A native Tennessean, Willis grew up in Tullahoma, and graduated from Tennessee Tech University, Cookeville. There, Bud served as editor of the ca…

Scott Dworkin is an aerial photographer, contractor, and photojournalist based outside Los Angeles, California. He has had a lifelong passion for aviation and photography, and after honing his skills as a photographer for many years, he decided to combine the two interests professionally in 2010. Since 2010, Scott’s work has been published in numer…

I'd like to tell you about a great new podcast called Air Traffic Out Of Control. The show brings you curated ATC recordings that are funny, interesting and downright unbelievable. The show publishes a full episode every Wednesday and short 'fly by' episodes throughout the week. Check out Air Traffic Out Of Control wherever you listen to your favor…

The cornerstone of courage is optimism. In 1992, at the end of the Cold War, Steven Myers became the first American since Charles Lindbergh in 1931, to pilot an aircraft into the Russian Kamchatka peninsula. There he formed one of the first post-Soviet era joint ventures - a pioneering, expansive, business enterprise with the potential to transform…

Dave Carey was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in 1942. He entered the U.S. Naval Academy in June 1960, and was commissioned an Ensign in the U.S. Navy on June 4, 1964. Carey next attended flight training at NAS Pensacola, Florida, and was designated a Naval Aviator in 1966. After completing A-4 Skyhawk Replacement Air Group training he served as…

As a Captain, John F. Barton Jr. has been a Captain on the Boeing 767-300/757 and 737 Aircraft. He taught as an instructor the Boeing 777 aircraft, at the United Airlines Training Center from 1997 till 1999, He began his flying with a Major International Airline as a Boeing 727 first and second officer. His most recent position is Captain on the ne…

Roger Johnson is a Captain with a major airline and a former Fighter Pilot in the USAF. He has been flying for 48 years and has flown throughout the world. He is the second generation of being trained and operating in the civilian, military, and airline realms of aviation with his father giving him his initial flight instruction when he was 15 year…

Operation Linebacker, the code name for the new interdiction campaign, would have four objectives: to isolate North Vietnam from its sources of supply by destroying railroad bridges and rolling stock in and around Hanoi and north-eastwards toward the Chinese frontier; the targeting of primary storage areas and marshalling yards; to destroy storage …

by Robert L. Sumwalt It's no secret. When a flight crew's attention is diverted from the task of flying, the chance of error increases. Over the years there have been dozens of air carrier accidents that occurred when the crew diverted attention from the task at hand and became occupied with items totally unrelated to flying. Consequently, importan…

Enlisted airmen who work in some of the Air Force's most difficult jobs will receive from $900 to $5,400 less annually beginning next month as the service faces financial challenges that affect the ranks. Hundreds of service members will see cuts to their Special Duty Assignment Pay, known as SDAP, in fiscal 2023 -- which starts Oct. 1. Those month…

The minimum age to obtain an Airline Transport Pilot certificate is 23, which means that it is possible that new airline pilots were as young as two years old when the attacks of September 11, 2001 occurred. The world changed forever on that day, and it's worth looking back at the airline industry before, during and after the attacks. Although Secr…

Art Ziccardi learned to fly as a teenager after participating in Civil Air Patrol for four years. He attended an aviation college and accumulated thousands of hours as a SFI while there. He later obtained a Master's Degree and held several jobs in aviation until getting hired by United Airlines in 1969. During the airline downturn he was 4 pilots f…

Abel Castillo worked his way up to 1500 hours as a CFI and was hired by a regional airline, rising to the position of Captain on a Regional Jet. His goal was to advance to a legacy airline, and he had just been hired by another, better-paying, regional airline. He had completed all pre-employment documentation and was given a five-day window to com…

I turned off my Big Ben alarm clock at 0230, the usual wake-up time for our Linebacker mission. When the scheduling board simply indicated “Special”, we knew it would be a 0400 mass briefing at Wing Headquarters for a bombing mission over North Vietnam. We wouldn’t know our target until the mission briefing. The schedule was normally posted at the …