My Flying Stories: 63 Years Messing Around With Airplanes

By Mr. Duane D. Switzer

63 years; a collection of 97 stories in 90,000 words and 43 pictures of my lifetime in aviation and flying airplanes around the world as an agricultural pilot and an international ferry pilot. It's a serious, risk-filled world."Stop! I'll shoot," the airport cop yelled, as I walked away in Abu Dhabi. Running the gauntlet in Cairo of child soldiers with automatic rifles in the airport terminal; audacious escape from Cairo; threats and extortion by the airport police lieutenant in Luxor; airport arrest in Abu Dhabi; instant uprising in India when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated; running out of money in Singapore; revenge on an army office in Indonesia. All on one trip."Crossing the Timor Sea in a pitch black night, the stars and the Southern Cross, my favorite of all constellations, shone brilliantly, out of the darkness a mysterious voice came across the airwaves so clearly and friendly it was almost like the man was putting his arms around me. I knew I was nearly home."As an international ferry pilot there is solitude, beauty, and total self-reliance required while flying small airplanes across the Pacific Ocean, a thousand of miles from land. Going in the water due to poor navigation or mechanical failure is unimaginable to most people, but it happens."This is good," I said out loud to myself as I pulled up out of the onion field in the early morning. After 44 years of back-and-forth, back-and-forth, I still say, "This is good."An agricultural pilot's (crop sprayer) world demands high degrees of precision and mandatory self-discipline. There is excitement and satisfaction, yet knowing that anything can go wrong at any time. And sometimes it does.Spraying at night you still work under powerlines which flash over you as silver streaks; you see night animals and birds. The moon shines brilliantly in your eyes.For agricultural pilots there are many rewards, but also high risks at times; wrecked airplanes and pilots killed, always remembered.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1537425242
• ISBN13: 9781537425245
• Release Date: July 2017
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 198 Pages
• Weight: 1.29 lbs.
• Dimensions: 11.0" x 0.5" x 8.5"