Page 6 - Dec24

“With my eyesight limitations, I knew that military and airline flying were not available to me. Flying would just be a lifelong hobby, never an income-producer. Boy, was I wrong!”
doing being pounded into my ears? This ain’t fun!
Another obstacle to any hope of becoming a pilot was that I was quite nearsighted and had a bit of astigmatism. My first and second grade teachers thought I was mentally deficient but the glasses I finally got fitted for in the third grade proved that my problem had been that I couldn’t see anything the teacher wrote on the blackboard!
My love for flying has never abated. My parents were generous enough to pay for my private pilot instruction and license between my junior and senior years of high school when I was 17. With my eyesight limitations, I knew that military and airline flying were not available to me. Flying would just be a lifelong hobby, never an income-producer. Boy, was I wrong!
I graduated from Carnegie Institute of Technology – now, Carnegie-Mellon – in 1967 with a degree in mechanical engineering. My minor was in English! Little did I realize then that this unusual combination would provide the basic framework for my King Air work. The engineering knowledge allowed me to understand aircraft systems quite well and the English training allowed me to write and communicate my understanding to others.
Through a local flying club, I had flown just enough in college to meet the currency requirements. Now what? The Vietnam War was going hot and heavy at the time I graduated and, being single, I was prime draft material. To avoid the draft, I enlisted in the Navy! While at Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, I was offered an instructor position in the Navy’s Nuclear Power School. I had a choice of being stationed at Bainbridge, Maryland, or Vallejo, California. I picked Vallejo and spent my entire four-year Navy commitment without ever leaving
4 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
DECEMBER 2024