Flight Lines: Assorted Lies, Recollections & War Stories Softcover
The book is a series of short stories, a “memoir in anecdotes” that follows the author through his early years as a youngster in Toronto, on to Military College and Air Force flight training and then through a broad spectrum of professional aviation ending as an Air Canada Captain. Over his 37 year career, Captain Smerdon was certified and licensed to fly well over a dozen different aircraft types and their variants, from supersonic jet fighters, to helicopters to Boeing 747s and much in between.
Flight Lines includes;
Kent’s fond recollections of his father’s flying adventures during WWII
Flying supersonic interceptors for NORAD
A training flight detour through the depths of the Grand Canyon in a RCAF T-33 jet
Piloting RCAF/Government VIP Challengers for Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and family, Canada’s Governor General and members of the British Royal Family
Airshow tales with shuttle commander Col Chris Hadfield
A brief period flying helicopters
An airline career finishing in the left seat of the B-767-300.
The book is studded with personal touches, high drama, interesting aviation trivia and thundering humour. Flight Lines is neither an autobiography nor a book just for pilots. It is filled with many personal yarns plus contributions from his late father Allan, a WWII RCAF instructor and Mosquito pilot and from many friends, pilot colleagues and other keen contributors to the book.
Flight Lines is an easy to read collection of exciting flying stories, technical asides, tragic losses, funny cockpit happenings, humour and commentary.
Published 2018, 318 pages, 45 Black & white photographs, Paperback, 6" x 9"
