[AAC Cadet Leader]

hi fellow antique aviation fans. a few of you here already know about my six-month-long aerial barnstorming hitchhike i made through the continental USA in 1988 and that i have been sporadically writing a comprehensive book about it ever since to be titled, "Have Goggles, Will Travel!"

i know, i know, i should have finished it long ago, but completing the endless details of that book has proven to be a much larger task for me than completing the remarkable feat of the journey, itself.

in an effort to get something into print before any more of my generous pilots leave earthly bounds (and don't return to land), i have a new sub-goal: to create a less comprehensive, much smaller book with photos and memories of then until now and how my epic aerial journey has influenced my life. my hope is to get this interim book into print within a few months, and at the same time reformat my 45 minute multi-media slide show/talk to dvd so that i may again be available to share the journey at aviation banquets and schools, etc in 2008. now that my two children are teenagers and quite independent, i feel i can leave them for a day or two at a time, whereas before now i wouldn't consider it.

writing is an incredibly lonely task, which is one of the reasons i have started and stopped the progress on my comprehensive book in the past. having this thread for the development of the new interim book and having some of you check in on me daily and offer occasional encouragement will help keep me accountable to my committment of writing @ 500 words a day, which may not be much for many of you, but for me with all of the other things i have to do, it can be a lot.

i don't have any idea really how i'll write this book or what all will be in it, so it should be interesting to see it unfold and compile right here on the aerodrome which has become my online home for the past few years. you'll be seeing the unedited version before a publisher gets their hands on it.

please feel free to offer occasional constructive critiques or questions you have, etc. please forgive that i won't attempt to answer you directly on thread as it takes me a lot of time, but i will read all posts. replying directly to posts might change the immediate flow of the writing which might not be where i was planning to go with it, but having your feedback and questions will help me plan what subjects within the entire text i should address.

to begin, i’ll do my best to summarize my journey in three paragraphs:

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Summary

Much of the momentum and success for my journey was due to the fact that the press took immediate and continued attention for my romantic goal of traveling through all of the lower 48, living the part of and dressed as a 1920’s barnstormer with only pocket change, and getting rides onboard the wings of antique aeroplanes, piloted and hosted by their owners. Meeting and flying with different pilots every day hither and yon about the USA, criss-crossing my own path several times over the course of 183 days aboard some of the most beautiful open cockpit and vintage luxury cabin aeroplanes, held constant surprises and adventures, mostly excitingly romantic, sometimes exhausting, and on a few occasions - terrifying. The red carpet was rolled out for my arrival in many places and I was given royal treatment: TV cameras and newspaper reporters upon our arrivals and departures, fine dining and the finest hotel rooms and guest rooms in homes, the mayor’s keys to two cities, the right seats to the Spuce Goose and the Goodyear Blimp, the backseat of three P-51’s, the front seat of a 1918 Jenny, and a hundred other flights of fancy that most pilots in love with the days of aeroplanes & aviators only dream about.

In many other places, I was an unknown, and was dropped off by the last pilot and met with little or no fanfare nor notice. It was in those places that I was able to experience more of my vision of a true itinerant barnstormer of olde, unrolling my bedroll for the night under the wing of an aeroplane, in the backseat of an airport courtesy car, and on the couches of pilot’s lounges. The fare was equally rough in some cases. At times I subsisted on candy and chips from the airport vending machines – in one instance in rainy, cold Ypsilanti, Michigan for three days in a row, at night, I rolled out my sleeping bag on the dusty floor of the old, abandoned control tower on the airfield, while waiting for the weather to clear and a ride out.

My 199 pilots became my friends and my heroes, always dropping what they were doing and in some cases flying hundreds of miles to unfamiliar airfields to come get me, and to then take me further along my journey toward the next state that needed to be checked off on my map. Along the way they pointed out some of the most incredible hidden things from the air that I would’ve otherwise missed, and on a few occasions from low altitudes (usually by my encouragement,) we experienced some rare and privileged viewing angles of America’s iconic treasures: Mount Rushmore at eye-to-eye level with the Presidents; the Grand Canyon from a tiny plane; a steep turn over top of Niagra Falls; an encircling, slightly-above torch level view of the Statue of Liberty; a circuit around Mount Saint Helen’s still-smoking, ash peak and toothpick trees; beside red plateaus and huge natural, red rock formations of Sedona, Arizona and the snow-covered, black granite peaks of the Grand Tetons near Jackson, Wyoming. There were a few flights at very low altitudes, including: between a low-level thunderstorm and a Missouri highway; alongside a semi truck on a mostly-deserted Nevada highway (in a P-51); within the walls of a quarry in Georgia; and the lowest – beneath a bridge in North Carolina.

The statistics: 199 pilots, in over 200 vintage aeroplanes, 330 flights, 29,117 miles through 48 states, 183 days, 9 marriage proposals. The best part: 1000 new friends.
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