In a provocative and sometimes controversial style, this guide starts where standard-issue flight training manuals leave off. The Thinking Pilot guides you deeply into topics that weren't taught in flight training-everything from how to really do a preflight, through keeping your passengers happy, scud running, precautionary landings, and how to survive a crash. It includes a detailed introduction to flying floats, skis, aerobatics, and classic airplanes; probes some of aviation's dirty little secrets, explodes myths, and presents the best, most succinct guide to flying tailwheel airplanes ever written. Rick Durden was once described as aviation's Renaissance Man. He is an Airline Transport-rated pilot with experience in some 200 types of airplanes, a practicing aviation attorney who has been involved in hundreds of aircraft accident cases, writer, aviation magazine editor, safety counselor, flight instructor, volunteer pilot in remote areas of the U.S. and Central America, and has been the executive director of a nonprofit conservation organization making use of aircraft and volunteer pilots throughout much of North America.

Betty Durden's writings are a delightful look at life in the very mature years. Her contemporaries and their families find her writing perceptive, astute, and filled with compassion. They show her to be a constant observer of nature, feeling herself a part of the natural world, and a believer in the connectedness of all things. Readers enjoy Betty's occasionally caustic remarks and her impatience with superficial "niceness." They appreciate her encouragement to be open to change, honest with themselves and others, and grateful for life. Anyone in their later years, as well as those who will soon be entering them, is encouraged to sample Betty's clear and helpful messages. They would enjoy a peek into the world of aging. It will bring them surprise, hope, and inspiration.