Rinker Buck captured the imagination of readers in his bestselling memoir Flight of Passage, in which he described flying from New Jersey to California in a refurbished Piper Cub with his older brother Kernahan. They were just 17 and 15. Flight of Passage is a snapshot in time—the 1960s—as well as a riveting travel adventure.
Who: Rinker Buck
Occupation: Writer, journalist
Hours: Just under 1,000.
EXTRA: Buck’s latest book, to be published in 2014, describes a trip by horse-drawn wagon over the Oregon Trail.
STARTED IN AVIATION… It’s not inaccurate to say that 30 percent of people who are flying today originated in flying families...So that’s how we got started.
EARLY CHALLENGES… My brother was a much more natural pilot than I was. He was absolutely fearless in the airplane. I was a great navigator. I was more cautious. I found the challenge of navigation really, really fun. Since we flew around so much in airplanes without radios, which was very common, I learned the old-fashioned way.
EXTRA TRAINING… My father gave me spin training [at age 14]. When I soloed a high-performance glider that same year…it had a tendency to drop off on one wing [during stalls]. I pulled it up to stall it, and it spun on me. I wouldn’t have known what to do if my father hadn’t given me spin training.
DENSITY ALTITUDE…We would take off from these airports [out West] in the 90-horsepower Cub, which was really quite lively for that time and model of Cub, and it would take forever to get off the ground. We landed at an airport in Arizona and smoke came off the tires. Our groundspeed was so fast. We were still indicating 65 mph over the fence but we were probably doing 90. We learned that all that stuff we read about is really true. It’s not just some theory.
GOING BACK IN TIME… When I wrote the book I reflew most of the routes in a Cessna 182. I was curious about those old airports—could I describe them well? We landed at 30 airports, and 27 of them are still there and they look exactly the same.
ADVICE FOR STUDENTS… I think it’s important to read Wolfgang Lange-wiesche’s Stick and Rudder. The principles have not changed. You might be flying a Cirrus with a glass cockpit, but it's still subject to the same laws.
