num_pages: 217
description: Climb into the cockpit of an 80-year aviation adventure, told by the bold character who lived it. More than the memoir of an aerobatic master born to fling his body through cloudbanks, Spitfire Wingman from Tennessee offers a unique bird's-eye perspective on events and personalities of WWII and the Cold War. His desire to fly fighters won him a stint as famed New Zealand ace Johnny Checketts' wingman. Personal encounters with Patton, Vandenberg, Yeager, Truman and Nixon are replayed with perception and wit. While jockeying P-40s, P-51s, and P-47s, he was privileged to see the war both from twenty thousand feet and as Staff Officer at 9th Air Force Headquarters in Brussels, where he watched 'the Brass' play chess with armies on two world fronts. A stripped-down Thunderbolt fighter-bomber became his personal 400-mph runabout.Beginning with fragile fabric-covered biplanes, the Colonel bears hands-on nostalgic witness to historic transformations steering manned flight from art toward automated science. Starting out as the Memphis 'Boy Wonder' who built his first airplane in 1933 by adapting a motorcycle engine, this gifted flyer takes you on an intimate inside journey from barnstormer to dog-fighter, to threading the Himalayan 'Hump,' to Berlin Airlift commander, then on to Presidential Squadron leader - finally becoming Chief Pilot of the Military Air Transport Service. Balancing dry humor with just enough technical detail to please aviation buffs, this self-revealing autobiography thunders on all twelve cylinders with sky-sweeping appeal.
language: English
title: Spitfire Wingman from Tennessee
titlecomplete: Spitfire Wingman from Tennessee
ratings_count: 13
publisher: Stormwatch Press