Rinker Buck
‘Flight of Passage’ author, adventurer, and pilot
“We were just two boys, 17 and 15, flying to California in an airplane built before either of us was born. That summer a reporter would make us briefly famous by writing that we were the youngest aviators ever to fly America coast to coast, but it wasn’t records or fame we were after. What we were really doing was proving ourselves to my father.”
The book is a timeless coming of age story that appeals to even those unfortunate people who aren’t pilots. It’s also a flying adventure story that has inspired numerous pilots to follow the example of these two intrepid teens, making their own coast-to-coast flights.
After the 1966 flight, Rinker’s flying time was curtailed while pursuing a degree in journalism, although he enjoyed summers worked as a line boy on Cape Cod and flying whatever aircraft was available. As a cub reporter for the Berkshire Eagle newspaper, “there was always an airport around where I could rent a plane and get out to fly.” During a career as a well-respected journalist—he’s written for prominent national publications including Vanity Fair, New York, and Life magazines—he never lost his love of flying.While living in New York City and raising a family, he co-owned a Cessna 182, which he used to fly the kids for $100 hamburgers and family trips.
In 1997, 31 years after his youthful cross-country flight, he penned his first book, Flight of Passage, which became an immediate favorite of pilots.Over the past few years, Buck has piloted far different vehicles than a Piper Cub. He and his brother Nick drove a restored nineteenth-century Prairie Schooner wagon, pulled by a team of ornery mules, along the Oregon Trail, the subject of his 2015 book, The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey. After surviving miles on a jolting buckboard, he chose a smoother ride when he built and sailed a flatboat—think Huckleberry Finn—down the Mississippi River. His 2022 book, Life on the Mississippi: An Epic American Adventure, became a New York Times bestseller.
These days, Buck continues to fly for recreation and to enjoy the camaraderie of fellow pilots.
“I still love to fly taildraggers. I have lots of friends with Stearmans and Decathlons and I still enjoying doing the navigation while letting the other guy
