FLYING STORIES II How I came to be a pilot and engineer and what happened after that - This is the all new revised and expanded edition of the older book Flying Stories 3rd edition. This updated 2nd edition with new format is now 398-pages with over a hundred B&W images and photos related to the stories. These are hangar flying stories of a generation born in the 1930s, too late to fly dirigibles or be barnstormers and too young for WWII. The book, told in short vignettes, is about the golden age of civil and military aviation development and the forgotten aircraft engineers and pilots of the 1960s through the 1980s, those men and women who helped make air travel safer than riding the bus and America the world leader in aircraft design. An older, but wiser aviator looks back on his flying adventures and aviation centered life to tell these stories with humor and rich sarcasm.
About the Author: Author Marvin Arnold grew up during WWII and attended high school near Wright-Patterson AFB where his father was stationed after WWII. It was here, playing in the boneyard of captured German and Japanese airplanes of ARDC. This along with befriending the rocketeers from Peenemunde began the author's fascination with aeronautics. Many aspects of this novel are based on first-hand stories told to him by relatives and family friends returning from WWII. The author attended the Oklahoma City University and the University of Dallas. He became a civilian pilot at age nineteen, served on active duty with the Naval Air Reserve as an ASW aircrewman on P2V's and later an officer in the Guard. Currently holding a commercial pilot's license with instrument, multi-engine and seaplane ratings, Arnold has owned and flown dozens of different types of aircraft throughout his years of flying, was a millennium member of the CAF, and was an air taxi pilot in twin Cessna and DC3 aircraft for Greater Southwest Aviation and CEO of Flight Dynamics aircraft flight training school and fixed base operation at Amon Carter Field in Fort Worth. As a design engineer, Arnold worked in the cockpit and environmental design groups on aircraft like the Chance Vought C-142, the F8U Crusader, General Dynamics F-111 and the Lockheed C-5A and the early AWACS and finally, a tenure as Chief of Avionics Engineering at Aerospatiale Helicopter. At age fifty, Arnold left aviation to found his own computer software and systems design company. An antique car and airplane enthusiast, air museum curator and historian, the author and his family are lifelong residents of Texas.