Flight of Passage

With a father, three brothers, two sisters-in-law, a niece, and several nephews who fly or have flown or soloed, and a few hours toward soloing myself, this book had instant appeal for me. Brother Jim's wife, Chris, recommended it to me and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Rinker Buck does a grand job of telling his story; the whole story not just the mind-boggling, spectacular flight across the country he and his brother, Kern, took as teenagers. The book is well written; easy and absorbing to read. This is not a book you will want to read quickly. I have not finished it and am in no hurry to do so. The story is to be savored; parts read and re-read. There are some photographs included which always adds to the appeal of a story about real people. (Two of my brothers soloed at 16. With a ten-year age difference between them, the older one soloed the younger one. It made all the local papers.) The relationship between the boys and their father is compelling, as is the fact that this is a family of eleven children, which makes for a pretty terrific mother, as well as a barnstorming, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants pilot for a father. Read and enjoy! Carolyn Rowe Hill

Flight of Passage is an amazing book. I picked it up in 1998 when I saw the cover picture of a Piper Cub. I had flown a bunch of "orientation flights" in a Cub when I was a teenager in Civil Air Patrol in the late sixties. Although it was not official flight instruction, cadets were allowed to do everything but land the airplane. I learned a lot and loved every minute of it - flying low and slow with the door open, learning the basic air work, even the smell of the engine oil on a hot summer day. I wanted to be a pilot, but college, music, work, and marriage led me on a few different paths until my late forties, when I finally started taking flight lessons. Events at the time were making it difficult to keep the lessons going, and reading this book inspired me to keep at it even if I had to take a few breaks from the lessons. The teenage Buck brothers did a lot more with their Cub than I ever did, but the book sure brought back the memories and the romance of flying. Rinker Buck creates a vivid picture of the life and times of his interesting family and of the late 1960's, in addition to writing one of the best "you are there" flying adventures I have ever read. Highly recommended even if you are not a big fan of flying books - it's a really good read. But for me, the book had an even bigger role to play. I happened to meet Kern Buck at a Jiffy-Lube in Massachusetts in 1999. I overheard his name and asked him if he was related to the "Flight of Passage" boys, and he said he was Rinker Buck's brother, the pilot in the book! We talked for a while about flying, and it turns out that he had just updated his flight instructor certification after a break of a few years (he is an attorney now, working in the Boston area). I was also coming back from a break in my lessons and looking for a new instructor. Kern signed on as a part-time instructor at the small airport where I was flying at the time, and I took around 8 lessons with him before I had to take another break (buying a house and moving). Kern was a great instructor and really helped me make progress with my landings. I finally completed my lessons in early 2001 (with yet another instructor) and passed my private pilot check ride that May. Last summer (2004) I decided to start working on a tail-wheel endorsement, and I found a local instructor who owns and teaches in a Piper Cub. I hadn't flown in a Cub since 1968, and the memories came flooding back once I squeezed myself into the back seat and Ed turned the prop to start the engine. This prompted me to re-read Flight of Passage and I enjoyed it even more as I was experiencing once again the pure flying fun of the spunky little Piper Cub. Flight of Passage is a fine piece of writing and one of my favorite books.

I just finished this book and I have to dispute the review offered here by Gordon Reade. First, the book has very few swear words. Second, the "night of drinking" is actually a road trip to Mexico and the young pilot of the plane does not even take a drink "because he has to fly tomorrow." I am not sure if Mr. Reade read the same book that I did or if he has an alternative motive here but this was a great read - I could not put it down for three days and it made me want to get in my own plane and do my own x-country trip.

Not so much a story about 2 mid-teenagers flying from coast to coast across America, but more the story of strained relations between brothers and between father and sons. It took over 25 years for Rinker Buck to get all this organised in his head, then put it on paper, but it was worth waiting for. What we get is the straight story, from his point of view, of the preparations and the journey, the turnaround in relations between him and brother Kern, and the two of them dealing with the expectations of a larger-than-life father who, perhaps secretly, wished to relive fame through the exploits of his sons. Told against the backdrop of ariel incidents, we find that the ebullient schoolboy prankster has to take (literally) a back seat to his shy, reclusive older brother, who suddenly comes out of his shell. It never descends into maudlin, or goes over-the-top, it is a straight from the shoulder account of the trip and the souring and cementing of relationships - a damn fine read.

"Flight of Passage" goes deep within the human heart of brothers, sons and fathers. It is not often in this day and age that we are given this masculine insight of two brothers and their love for each other. Nor, are we given such a privleged look into the relationship of a father and his sons. The airplane (espcially the Piper Cub) is a metaphor. The boys learn how to cherish life, to be good men, to be good citizens in fact from their work on this small airplane as it cruises across the United States. And, do they cross the U.S.! Strangly we are given the rare opportunity to see our nation from the air, with the eyes of teenagers who believe in themselves, their dad and their Piper Cub. We meet the men and women of America as the Piper lands in strange little airports in the midwest, the south west and the California coast. Not only do they fly out, they fly back to New Jersey. What the brothers discover is the grandness of this country, qualities that bind this country together, and the things that make each region unique. This is not a travelogue. This is a coming of age story that touches the heart -- deeply.