My training as a private pilot

My 2009 novel THE SHIMMER is about the mysterious Marfa Lights that have been appearing in west Texas since people first settled in the area in 1889. The lights are very real (I’ve seen them) and were sometimes chased by aircraft when the military had an airbase there in WWII. Because I love doing research and making details as accurate as possible, I knew that, to write these scenes, I’d need some experience as a pilot, so I went to my local airport in Santa Fe and signed up for a few flight lessons. I enjoyed these so much that I took even more lessons and eventually became a private pilot.

Recently, FLIGHT TRAINING MAGAZINE (a publication of AOPA, which stands for Airplane Owners and Pilots Association) did a feature on my training and asked me to offer advice to student pilots. They called it RAMBO PILOT. It shows a nice photograph of me with my Cessna Skyhawk 172 aircraft. You might enjoy reading about what it’s like to learn to be a pilot.I added the article to the BIO page of my website, which is constantly evolving.

Here’s a link to it.

 

If you’re curious about the Marfa Lights and THE SHIMMER, here’s a link to information about that novel. You’ll see that in THE SHIMMER I call them the Rostov Light, but they are essentially the same as the Marfa Lights, which are described at the bottom of the link.