Fly the Airplane! A Retired Pilot’s Guide to Fight Safety For Pilots, Present and Future

"Fly the Airplane!" is a must-read for pilots and everyone in the aviation business. This book was written for people who want to be pilots, people training to be pilots, recreational pilots, military pilots, people beginning careers as pilots, and even "old timer" pilots. It should be required reading for airplane designers and design engineers. The title of this book, "Fly the Airplane!" should be permanently imbedded in every pilot's brain, to be the overriding thought any time the pilot is in the cockpit during flight. These three words may seem redundant if you are a pilot flying solo, but they are not! Any time you are with another pilot in the cockpit of an airplane with dual flight controls, that should be the thought that makes the difference between life and death.

Charlie Wood enlisted in the U.S. Air Force after high school graduation and became an airplane engine mechanic. He was accepted as an Aviation Cadet, and after pilot/officer training graduated as a Second Lieutenant and Pilot. He flew worldwide transport aircraft missions in the Vietnam War and was stationed in Japan, Georgia, the Philippines, Spain, Germany, and Illinois. As a civilian pilot at Douglas, McDonnell Douglas, and Boeing, he flew experimental and production test flights, and trained airline pilots in the U.S., Yugoslavia, Mexico, France, Germany, Singapore, Argentina, Taiwan, China, and Japan. As an airline pilot he became the airline Director of Training. He retired with over 20,000 accident-free flying hours.