So You Want to be a Ferry Pilot

About the Book

SO YOU WANT TO BE A FERRY PILOT is made up of nineteen true short stories about ferrying airplanes from one part of the world to another. Each flight has something about it that wasn't planned. Unexpected heart stopping engine failures, weather that went from CAVU (Clear and Visibility Unlimited) to Oh MY God!!, interception by armed foreign fighters, arrest by third world police or anything that old Mister Murphy can throw your face.

I had several pilot friends read the manuscript, here are some of their comments.

"Ferry pilots are nuts, everybody knows that." Captain Cal Harman, 20 years with Continental.

"These stories are unbelievable, I thought flying combat missions was dangerous." Captain Curt Briggs, shot down in Vietnam while flying an F-4 Phantom, rescued after spending more than 24 hours hiding from the North Vietnamese.

"When we were cell mates in Hanoi I suspected that Spike was a little crazy, suspicions confirmed." Lieutenant Commander Larry Friese, USN Retired. POW in Vietnam 5^1/2 years.

About the Author

Spike Nasmyth started off life in Billings, Montana on 14 November 1940. He first flew at the controls of an airplane in 1961. He earned his private pilot's license in 1962. After graduation from the University of Idaho he went on to U.S. Air Force pilot training at Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio, Texas. Spike graduated high enough in his class to get one of the three fighter assignments. He was assigned to the 555^th Tactical Fighter Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida.

On 4 September 1966, Spike was flying as aircraft commander in an F-4 Phantom fighter-bomber on an Alpha Strike against targets in North Vietnam. He was shot down by a Surface to Air Missile (SAM) north of Hanoi and spent the next six and a half years as a Prisoner of War. His book "2355 DAYS" recounts those days as a POW.

After release from North Vietnam, Spike separated from the Air Force and began a life in civil aviation. From 1961 to the present, he has logged over twenty thousand hours in a variety of aircraft.

In the seventies, Spike flew in Florida and the Mediterranean where he met a lot of not so legal folks. His book, "THE BOYS WHO BRING IN THE CROP" in based on those meetings.

Spike flew float planes in Canada, Grumman amphibians in Thailand, DC-3s in Asia, Beaver and Islander in Palau, sea-planes in the Philippines, plus he's the survivor of more than 50 ferry flights in all kinds of planes. This book "SO YOU WANT TO BE A FERRY PILOT" describes some of the more exciting ferry missions.

In July of 2002, Spike left Asia where he'd lived since 1987 and moved back to the States, he now lives in southern California with his wife, Lucille and daughter, Maebelyn. He's still flying planes and working on a couple more books.