THE AMAZING RACE

Be sure to check out this week's Ask Cap'n Meryl
question & answer about missed approaches:
Missed Approaches

Before I get to this week's topic, I have just a
couple of things I want to mention:

First, I had a call from my friend Bettina Bathe
in Calgary. Bettina is the author of the highly
successful children's' series "Violet the Pilot."
Bettina had told me several months ago that her
books were being developed into a play, which was
pretty exciting news. Even more exciting, the
play is now a reality and will be performed in
Toronto this coming April and May. Since that's
a bit in the future yet, I'll give more details
as we get closer for those in the Toronto area
who might want to attend. You can visit Violet
the Pilot at www.violetthepilot.com .

Also, remember Sally Jessy Raphael? Her TV show
ended several years ago, but now she's on the
radio and I had the pleasure of being her guest
last Tuesday. Al The Web Guy has posted that
interview, lasting about 13 minutes or so, here
on my Media Links page:
Media Links .

Sally was a real pleasure to interview with, and
even mentioned me again the next day which, of
course, is highly flattering. The interview
primarily centered on "The World At My Feet."

Speaking of which, that brings me to this week's
title. I swore I would NOT get addicted to any
reality shows. However, I made the mistake of
watching one episode of "The Amazing Race" last
season and got hooked. I thought I might be able
to overcome the addiction, and even attended
several meetings of RSA (Reality Shows Anonymous)
but it was no use. Ever since I saw the
participants breaking wine bottles over each
other's heads every time a cuckoo in a cuckoo
clock went off, and watched them try to learn the
Schuhplattler dressed in lederhosen, I just have
to watch.

Now, I just finished recording the audio version
of "The World At My Feet" for a studio in London,
and as I read the chapter called "Iran" it
occurred to me that I had participated in my own
Amazing Race of sorts.

Frankly, my whole life could be looked at as an
Amazing Race but specifically, in the late
seventies, when I was flying for a small commuter
airline in southern California, one incident in
particular stands out. My airline decided to buy
some more Navajo Chieftains for their operation.
A Chieftain is a nine passenger light twin.

The Chief Pilot of this commuter airline had
flown B-727's relatively recently for Iran Air.
Through a contact in Iran he discovered a small
airline in Teheran had three Chieftains for sale
at a ridiculously cheap price. It was discovered
later that the planes were the property of the
deposed Shah of Iran and were being sold by those
who had confiscated his property, including more
than forty aircraft, as we later discovered.
Even the Shah's private B-707 with a gold bathtub
was put up for sale (the asking price was $8
Million).

There were only about sixteen pilots at this
commuter at the time, including fifteen guys and
me. We were all unmarried and all had the same
goal, which was to build flight time so we could
get hired by a major airline. We all had
tremendous drive and a sense of adventure, and
the thought of ferrying airplanes from Iran all
the way back to Los Angeles was just too much to
resist for any of us. We all wanted to be part
of it.

When we heard our Chief Pilot was going to go to
Iran to negotiate a purchase and then ferry the
three airplanes back one by one, there was
nothing less than a "feeding frenzy" of pilots
trying to convince him he should take some of us
along to help fly the planes back.

"Nothing doing," our Chief Pilot said. "I can't
take you all, so nobody goes." What he thought
he had going for himself was that, although he
still had a work visa to get into Iran, none of
us could get one as visas were unavailable to
Americans at that time. He thought he was safe.

He didn't count on all of us calling the Iranian
consulate in San Francisco begging for visas, but
we certainly did. Only one of us was actually
issued a visa and subsequently made it all the
way to Iran. Now, guess who that might have
been.

Right, and I had ridiculous obstacles to
overcome, just as in the TV show. For instance,
I had to figure out how to first talk my way into
being issued a visa when none were being issued.
Then I had to figure out how to get to Iran
virtually for free (it wound up costing me $10
round trip), how to come up with the bucks to
make the deal happen after the chief pilot quit
and no longer had any backing (the planes were so
cheap we decided to buy and sell the airplanes
ourselves), etc.

If you've not yet read my book, I hope this
tidbit will now inspire you to reconsider (see
offer at the end) and if you already have it
yourself, maybe you have a friend or child who
would enjoy reading the rest of the story. "That
time of year" is quickly approaching, and it
really is one heck of a story.

Sometimes I forget or don't appreciate what a
wild ride I had getting to an airline job, but
reading through the entire manuscript out loud
for the audio version served as a reminder. I
actually had to re-record several sections as I
couldn't get through them without laughing out
loud, like during the chapter about the blimp
pilot and the ridiculous joke he played on me.

But that's another story (and one you can hear
via a radio interview on my Book Synopsis page,
recorded in 1983):
Book Synopsis


Incidentally, my thanks to the folks at "Colorado
Country Life" magazine who wrote an unexpected
and really nice review for "The World at My
Feet." Their reviewer describes it as a
"hard-to-put-down" book.

Hopefully you will agree.