Getting Our Wings

"Getting Our Wings" is an aviation book chock full of history, humor, nostalgia, honor, and yes, sadness. Specifically, it is THE NAVAL AVIATION FLIGHT TRAINING story, a non-fiction, fact-laden book about daring men and women spanning our first one hundred years as they struggled, taught, died, and learned to fly the Navy way.
In 2011, when the author published a web site asking former and current aviators, staff assistants, and anyone else connected with Naval Flight Training, for first-hand stories about their experiences in Naval Flight training, hundreds of stories came in. The best are in this book. They are inserted in the manuscript to help tell about Naval Flight training. Some stories even came in from unselfish former flight students who did not successfully complete flight training.
I would wager my last coin that many former flight instructors, students, and others who read this book will harken back to earlier days and swear that some of these memories happened to them during flight training days. “Hey, I believe that,” they might say. “I think that's me. My name should'a been in the book.” It just might be!
It is a great society. The days were tough. So were the nights. The outcome was always doubtful. Our families deserve praise for enduring our bad days and helping us to celebrate our good days. We and they will never forget.