Trafford Publishing: Winds Aloft: A Pilot's Diary

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Winds Aloft: A Pilot's Diary

by C. R. Williams

340 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-1281; ISBN 1-4120-3453-1; US$27.50, C$31.00, EUR22.50, £16.00

A collection of humorous stories following the life of a pilot. From his youth flying with the military to the often humorous challenges he faced as a commercial airline pilot, these stories are sure to entertain.

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about the book about the author excerpts catalogue info

About the Book

May 6th, 1937
It is not without some degree of humility, I confess the following. At about the same moment I was beginning life's journey from a military hospital at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, a great disaster was in the making. Thousands of miles away, the giant German dirigible Hindenburg was making its approach for a landing in Lakehurst New Jersey. There are several versions of what happened next
While descending toward the mooring station, for reasons that are still unclear today, the mighty zeppelin burst into flames and was completely consumed in 34 seconds. Thirty-seven people died in the disaster. The giant dirigible was full of 70 million cubic feet of hydrogen and as such was an explosion waiting to happen. What set it off is still not known for sure (some say a bolt of lightning).
One thing is for sure, though; I had nothing to do with it.
It never occured to me while my life was whizzing by that some of the events and activities of my life would make good stories. I suppose most people think the breakdown of the day to day activities of their individual lives would really not interest most people. When I started relating some of these stories to friends and relatives they expressed great interest and mentioned that I should put it all down on paper and write a book. So that is what I have done here.
This is not a novel, nor is it a diary in the pure sense of the word. Instead it is a chronological collection of what I consider to be interesting stories emanating from a flying career. All the stories are true and have an element of humour involved. All should appeal to the general public and especially to flying enthusiasts.
Flying out of Berlin, Germany up and down the three corridors through Communist East Germany and behind the Iron Curtain in the East Bloc countries was especially interesting and sometimes a little hair-raising.
Putting together all these stories was more fun than work, especially with the assistance of these wonderful computers. Getting the book out to the public was the big challenge.

About the Author

Charles R. (Chick) Williams retired from airline flying after thirty-one years with the airlines and eleven years with the U.S. Air Force. Before entering the military at age 19, Williams grew up as an " Army brat" living in many different locales. In addition to traveling all over the continental U.S., Williams lived in Kunsan, Korea and West Germany while growing up.
Williams' father was an Army officer who served in the European theatre for the duration of WWII. After the war his assignments to far off places made for some interesting travels for the Williams family, and a few laughs.
Right after high school, Williams joined the Air Force and eventually attended OCS (Officer Candidate School), where he received his commission as a second lieutenant; then on to pilot training. After six years of flying in the air force, Williams joined Pan AM World Airways. Fifteen years of his Pan Am experiences were spent flying out of their remote base in West Berlin, Germany where many of his stories occurred. As Pan Am continued to falter economically, Delta Airlines bought out their North Atlantic routes and the East Coast shuttle, and Williams transferred to Delta airlines where he remained until retirement at age sixty.
After retirement and to the present, Williams continues to instruct in the Boeing 727 in Miami, Florida.

Excerpts

It was time to go home -back to the states. We had all the veterans on the island with us, so now we had to escort them back to the mainland. So we had this big briefing with all the pilots in one room; it looked like something out of "Twelve O'clock High". There were going to be three waves like the formation coming over. (See page 158) Each wave would have four tankers and two fighters to each tanker. That would be twelve airplanes in each wave. The waves would be scheduled thirty minutes apart.
During the briefing we had papers all over the place -Weather maps, charts, manifests, crew lists, passenger lists etc. I found out I was going to be the number four tanker in the second wave. We were to take off on an easterly heading and continue straight ahead to Honolulu. Since I would be taking off nine minutes after my lead tanker, I was curious how I was supposed to join up. He would be nine minutes ahead of me. Nine minutes is a long way out there at the speeds we were flying. I found the A/C of the lead tanker, and asked him if he had any plans for join-up after take off. He didn't understand the question, so I knew that was going to be a problem.
It was quite a sight to see all those airplanes lining up for take off. One by one, they all took off and finally me. As I climbed out straight ahead, I had the Nav tune the radar for what we called station keeping. That meant he would tune it to see other airplanes and not necessarily weather and clouds. I could see on the radar the leader was way the hell out there, forty miles away. I was going flat out and not gaining on him. At this rate I wouldn't catch up until we got to Honolulu.
We were told in the briefing that there would be no unnecessary chatter on the radios; that would be a mess with twelve of us on the same frequency. The tanker leader was the leader of the formation and there was to be no backtalk. I had to break radio silence and said, "Tanker leader this is Tanker 4 -I'm still forty miles out; can you slow down?" All I got was a "Roger."
I was still trying to close when another voice came on the radio and said, "Hey leader, I've got fluctuating fuel pressure and engine vibrations."
It was obviously one of the fighters talking to his leader "How bad is it?"
He says." It seems to be getting worse."
Quiet. We were all wondering what's next. By now we knew it was the number two fighter up ahead on the tanker leader's right wing. So we were speculating what the lead tanker would decide. In the meantime, the crippled fighter's leader says, "Ok number two, I want you and number seven fighter to go back to Guam." I was thinking that over; number seven was on my left wing. Why him? And which tanker will be the escort? I figured since the crippled fighter is up with the lead tanker, why doesn't he just peel off to the left with the crippled guy right there with him, and number seven fighter could just go join them. No such luck!
To everyone's utter amazement, the Tanker leader chimes in with his command decision. "Tanker number four, (that's me) I want you to take Fighter two and seven back to Guam." There was to be no back talk or questioning of orders, just do it. Right.
Before I could completely collect my thoughts, this F-100 goes streaking right over my head. I started my 180 degree turn to go after him and told him to give me a steady tone on his direction finder radio, and to slow down as slow as possible, hold his heading steady and I would come to him. In the meantime number seven just flew a loose formation on me.
As I was homing in on his signal, something or someone made me think, "Something is terribly wrong here!" Without any time to explain, I pulled the power to idle, extended the speed brakes, and lowered the landing gear as I was pushing hard nose down on the stick. All the maintenance troops in the back were thrown up on the ceiling like a "zero G" maneuver. Just as I got the nose going down, twelve silver streaks of the third wave passed overhead. By turning around, I had cut the separation between the two waves to fifteen minutes instead of thirty. It would have been the largest mid-air collision ever.
By now the cockpit was full of people wanting to know what the hell happened. The worst was over, and the crippled guy had joined up on me along with number seven; but now we needed a clearance back to Guam and I needed a heading. The Nav had anticipated my needs and since it was so noisy in the cockpit, he handed me a note that I still have today that said, "Left 241 degrees, Love Nav."

Catalogue Information