Flight Song: A Novel of a Nugget Flying with the Fleet (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781591091875)

Born and reared near Berkeley, California, he attended college there. After graduating in 1955, he entered the Navy's then new Aviation Officer Candidate program and earned his commission, then his wings. He served in the Pacific Fleet for three years, flying Douglas AD Skyraiders, the military's last propeller-driven attack aircraft, from aircraft carriers.His active-duty commitment completed, he returned to civilian life and fulfilled a youthful dream by moving to Europe where he traveled extensively for an insurance firm for seven years. When he returned to the USA, he earned an Airline Transport Pilot license and joined a corporate aircraft sales business. In 1974 he became involved in restaurant development with one of his clients and he remains involved with three successful restaurants on San Diego's waterfront.He fished throughout Baja California for many years, flying his own airplane into remote dirt strips, and he spends several weeks each year in Kona, Hawaii, in pursuit (so far in vain), of the giant blue marlin. Butch assuages his need for periodic adrenaline infusions by driving his 1935 Wolseley and his 1954 Moretti Super Sport Berlinetta in vintage automobile races at Sear Point, Laguna Seca and Coronado, California, each year. He also flies gliders at Minden, Nevada.After serving actively on the board of the San Diego Aerospace Museum, he retired to the Honorary Board. He is also retired from the Naval Reserve as a lieutenant commander. With almost 5,000 accident-free, hands-on military, commercial and private flight hours, he is happy that his flying career in powered aircraft ended with an equal number of takeoffs and landings, and that the aircraft were always reusable.