Solo: My Adventures in the Air - Softcover

When Clyde Edgerton was four years old, his mother took him to a local airport to see the airplanes and to snap his photo. Eighteen yeras later she would take hime to the same airport to catch a plane to Texas for Air Force pilot training. She'd been his first passenger when he got his pilot's license. She'd supported his decision to join the Air Force. All the same, she wished he'd kept up his piano lessons instead.

The war in Vietnam was looming. But Truma Edgerton's only son had fallen in love with flying, and had fallen hard. There was no stopping his plan to pilot the newest, sleekest, fastest aircraft the Air Force had to offer. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, when he was ready to fly T-38s and F-10s, the only access to those cockpits was by way of th war, then in full swing. So he spent a year flying combat reconnaissance over the Ho Chi Minh Trail and won the Distinguished Flying Cross. Back home he took up another passion—writing. He also bought himself a Piper Super Cruiser he named Annabelle.

Now, more than thirty years after Vietnam, Edgerton looks back at his youthful passion for flight, at the joy he took in mastering it, at the exhilaration—and lingering anguish—of combat flying.

Solo is a story told with empathy and humor—and with searing honesty that will resonate with every pilot who remembers the first take-off, the first landing, and the first solo. For the nonpilot who always requests the window seat, it's a thrilling story to live vicariously.

Clyde Edgerton is the author of eight novels, five of which have been New York Times Notables. He is a professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and performs with his band, Rank Strangers. Author Web site—www.clydeedgerton.com.