[{"id":172781469832,"handle":"aviation-books","title":"Aviation Books","updated_at":"2025-01-23T14:36:39-05:00","body_html":"","published_at":"2020-03-04T16:23:35-05:00","sort_order":"best-selling","template_suffix":null,"disjunctive":true,"rules":[{"column":"type","relation":"equals","condition":"Aviation Books"}],"published_scope":"web"},{"id":174244659336,"handle":"aviation-supplies-academics-inc","title":"Aviation Supplies \u0026 Academics Inc.","updated_at":"2025-01-23T13:53:37-05:00","body_html":"\u003cp\u003eASA was started as Merrell Aviation Ground School by Creighton Merrell in 1940. The company’s primary goal soon became the training of post-war military pilots returning from active duty to work in the early civilian airlines. Plotters, regulations and training manuals were the first products. In 1960, the company broadened its production and development efforts with additional pilot supplies and books added to the ground school training line.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1969, the company became Northwest School of Aviation under a new owner, Roy Beech. The company’s goal was the franchise of the popular Merrell Ground School under the name “Aviation Seminars of America,” or ASA.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn November, 1976, Joe Cucchiari purchased the company. “Aviation Supplies and Academics” replaced Aviation Seminars of America as the name to go with the ASA acronym, and the company again broadened its product line to add cassette courses and new books and training materials. The company was incorporated in 1977. In 1981, Joe Finelli joined the organization, bringing 20 years of experience in printing and publishing with him. Publishing and manufacturing has since become the principal company mission.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe title=\"Embedded Video Player\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Emb_a2DvFtE\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","published_at":"2020-03-11T14:53:09-04:00","sort_order":"best-selling","template_suffix":"","disjunctive":true,"rules":[{"column":"vendor","relation":"equals","condition":"Aviation Supplies \u0026 Academics Inc."},{"column":"vendor","relation":"equals","condition":"Aviation Supplies \u0026 Academics In"}],"published_scope":"web","image":{"created_at":"2020-07-20T11:57:22-04:00","alt":"Shop for Aviation Supplies \u0026 Academics Inc. products.","width":500,"height":500,"src":"\/\/www.pilotshqshop.com\/cdn\/shop\/collections\/ASA_Logo.jpg?v=1672277315"}},{"id":189145677960,"handle":"coupon-eligible","title":"Coupon Eligible","updated_at":"2025-01-23T17:05:05-05:00","body_html":"","published_at":"2020-12-14T21:11:58-05:00","sort_order":"best-selling","template_suffix":"","disjunctive":false,"rules":[{"column":"vendor","relation":"not_equals","condition":"Lightspeed Aviation"}],"published_scope":"global"},{"id":285856989320,"handle":"new-additions","title":"New Additions","updated_at":"2025-01-23T17:05:05-05:00","body_html":"","published_at":"2024-05-13T22:18:55-04:00","sort_order":"created-desc","template_suffix":"","disjunctive":false,"rules":[{"column":"variant_price","relation":"greater_than","condition":"1"},{"column":"type","relation":"not_equals","condition":"Surplus Manuals"},{"column":"variant_inventory","relation":"greater_than","condition":"0"}],"published_scope":"global"}]
The Golden Years of Flying—As We Remember is the legacy of an earlier day in aviation history, recorded by one of the pilots who shared this experience and wrote down his fellow pilots' stories. Captain Tex Searle corresponded with and interviewed several retired DC-3 pilots from the old Frontier Airlines days, and brought all their tales together in one place for a vivid historical account.
Flying the Rocky Mountain region, Frontier Airlines' pilots achieved the best safety record in civil aviation—a record based on the most stringent measure of the number of takeoffs and landings while flying in extreme conditions. Frontier Airlines flew from 1946 to 1986. In her early days, crews hand-flew DC-3s over the high Rockies, in and out of small airports hidden deep in mountain canyons, with approaches often referred to as “black holes” due to their almost ominous darkness and lack of reliable visual references. Relating their first-hand experience of flying through “tornado alley” without radar, flying in canyons of sodden clouds while lightning displays an explosion of highlighted pageantry throughout the heavens, the pilot storytellers in The Golden Years of Flying invite you into the cockpit for a lighter dimension, too—you will surely enjoy the hijinks and hangar tales of their shared experiences.
As a retired FAL captain himself, the author points out that “flying the DC-3 was just about the best thing that could happen to a man.”
