Retired airline captain Barry Schiff began writing for AOPA Pilot in 1963.
The worst thing about celebrating anniversaries and birthdays is that it compels us to confront and concede our mortality.
So it is with some remorse that I will be celebrating two additional milestones in June. The most painful marks my qualification for Medicare. Yuk! More gratifying is that I will have been writing for this magazine for 40 years.
My first feature article was published in the June 1963 edition of Pilot and padded my wallet with the princely sum of $75. This is when Pilot's first editor, Max Karant, was at the helm. (Other editors who have endured my struggles with the written word are Charlie Miller, Bob Stanfield, Art Sanfelici, Ed Tripp, Dick Collins, Mark Twombly, and, of course, the current chief, Tom Haines.)
That first article, "Why Not Really Learn to Navigate?" demonstrates how much aviation has changed since I first dared to presume that others might be interested in what I had to say. It described how to use a war-surplus handheld sextant in general aviation cockpits to sight our twinkling compatriots of the night sky, heavenly bodies upon which we could rely for guidance no matter where in the world we wandered (see " Celestial Navigation," page 120). Some of my subsequent navigational articles now seem equally archaic and discussed navigating with Doppler, Loran-A (predecessor to Loran-C) and pressure-pattern navigation.
The most significant advantage of being an aviation writer is the opportunity to fly exotic aircraft about which I could otherwise only daydream. I am certain, however, that Editor in Chief Haines knew that I would have paid him a king's ransom to fly the Lockheed U-2 that was the subject of my article "High Flight." (See " Flying the U-2: High Flight," January 2001 Pilot.) Other exciting aircraft about which I have been privileged to write include a Goodyear blimp, a turboprop Piper Comanche 600, a McCulloch J-2 Gyrocopter, a Grumman Widgeon, a Transavia Airtruk, an Israeli Arava, an Antonov An2, and the EAA's Spirit of St. Louis replica. In 1967 I went to Italy to become the first American to fly the SIAI-Marchetti SF.260, which subsequently was imported here as the Waco Meteor.
Flying these machines obviously is fun, but writing about them is work. Care must be taken to include all of the important aspects of each aircraft as well as to anticipate points of greatest interest to the reader. But not every aviation writer puts so much effort into his stories. I am aware of two writers from other publications who prepared some flight reports without ever having stepped into the airplanes in question. They did this armed only with pilot's operating handbooks, factory brochures, and information obtained from factory salesmen. Perhaps this is what is meant by "flying a desk."
During my early days of writing, pilot reports often were puff pieces written more to please manufacturers and attract advertising dollars than to honestly assess an airplane for the reader. Things began to change for the better in 1968 when Robert Said, editor of the then-fledgling Private Pilot magazine, courageously and justifiably criticized Cessna's newly introduced Model 177 Cardinal because of a tailplane stall that often occurred during landing (a condition later addressed by modifying the horizontal stabilizer with a fixed slot). Cessna withdrew advertising support and the new magazine struggled.
Some of my favorite work includes proficiency and technique pieces. I have never been excited about writing about such mundane subjects as crosswind landings or VOR navigation. Rather, I much prefer to investigate and write about topics that pique the reader's intellectual curiosity and have the potential to improve our proficiency. These have included features dealing with stopping the propeller to improve glide ratio, returning to the airport following an engine failure in a single shortly after takeoff, and explaining why a downwind turn in a steady-state wind is aerodynamically identical to an upwind turn made under the same circumstances.
The most enjoyable articles for me to write involve personal experiences. My favorites include: 1) the first time my son, Brian, and I flew together as crewmembers on the same TWA flight, a Lockheed 1011 from New York to Berlin; 2) a description of the formation flight of 31 airplanes that I led from Jerusalem, Israel, to Amman, Jordan, in 1995 — a "peace flight" that probably would not be possible in these troubled times; 3) my nostalgic flight in the Aeronca Champion in which I had made my first solo flight 40 years earlier; 4) the extensive dual instruction received from Chief Astronaut Charlie Precourt in NASA's orbiter simulator; and 5) my bittersweet retirement flight on Father's Day 1998 with my son occupying the right seat of the Boeing 757.
My monthly quiz, "Test Pilot," has become increasingly difficult to prepare. It seems as though the best questions have already been asked, and if a question is not educational, fascinating, or entertaining, I don't want it, which is why I solicit (and beg for!) contributions from readers.
The most challenging aspect of a column is thinking of a new and interesting topic every month. After 1,000 articles, it seems that there is nothing more for me to say. But I am sure that my next flight will inspire me once again.
Visit the author's Web site ( www.barryschiff.com).
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