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Contrails: The Memoirs of a Pilot

by Roger Thompson

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A pilot’s career viewed from carrier decks to airline cockpits

$18.72 USD
$31.20 USD $18.72 USD
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Paperback New English

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AlbakiReads Editorial

A pilot’s career viewed from carrier decks to airline cockpits

Drawn from Roger Thompson’s 37-year aviation career, Contrails gathers firsthand accounts across military and commercial flying. The memoir traces an early entry into aviation, the 1960s military draft, naval flight training, aircraft mishaps, and combat missions over Laos and Vietnam from the seat of a Navy carrier pilot. It later turns to airline operations, including crew coordination in ordinary and emergency conditions and TWA flights affected by the 1986 Ozark Airlines merger. A claimed shared military past, later revealed as an imposture, provides the occasion for assembling these episodes. The book’s scope connects the risks of jet combat and jet-airliner flying with an insider’s attention to cockpit work and aviation survival.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in firsthand military and commercial aviation memoirs
  • Aviation enthusiasts curious about naval flight training, carrier operations, and airline crews
  • Readers seeking accounts of flight operations during routine and emergency situations

Themes

Aviation career memoirNaval aviationVietnam-era combat flyingAirline operations and crew dynamicsRisk and survival

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

In the last year of his career as an American Airlines captain, Roger Thompson met a man who claimed military experience identical to his own. The man was an imposter, but the incident inspired Contrails, a collection of aviation stories spanning Mr. Thompson's 37-year career. Some of the stories in Contrails are tragic; some are exciting. All are true.

Contrails includes Mr. Thompson's introduction to aviation, a discussion of the 1960's military draft, and a description of the training regimen and assorted aircraft mishaps associated with naval aviation. It describes jet combat over Laos and Vietnam from the perspective of a Navy carrier pilot. Contrails details the untold story of TWA flights that almost ended in catastrophe as a direct result of the 1986 merger between Ozark Airlines and TWA. It explains the interaction of airline crews during routine and emergency situations.

Contrails exults in the beauty of flight and narrates harrowing close calls experienced in the cockpits of jet fighters and jet airliners. It looks behind that locked cockpit door to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of airline crews in flight. Contrails is a book about the adventures and the incredible good luck of an aviation survivor.

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