Ferry Pilot: Nine Lives Over the North Atlantic

As a non-pilot, I really enjoyed reading the author's experiences and am glad I'm not a pilot!

I enjoyed reading this book very much (paper version) the story line is interesting and professionally written, and the best of all it actually happened.Highly recommended!!!

Great flying stories, hopefully Kerry will have another one out soon.

And people want to do this job? On the edge of your seat all the time. A real life, as it happened story.

The book immerses the reader into a life of a person who craves for adrenalin rush and a life of adventure. This is so much different than slow paced lives and nine-to-six desk jobs most people have, including myself.The author hopped freight trains in his teenage years, then moved on to skydiving and flying after reaching eligibility age of getting pilot’s license. Next job was flying skydivers. And after gaining certain flying experience he became a ferry pilot. That’s a job of moving small planes all over the world, usually across oceans and dangerous and uninhabitable places like Sahara Desert or jungle of Central Africa.The book describes several memorable flights in the author’s ferry pilot practice. Examples are flying into a thick cloud with broken navigational equipment and barely making it back, almost hitting a mountain top when crossing Alps, developing an icing condition that almost stalls the plane, and flying disabled plane on numerous occasions with broken vacuum pump, alternator, and malfunctioning ferry tanks. Also, the experience of getting struck by lightning, and being lost over a jungle of Central Africa.The ferry pilot job is not financially rewarding, and there is no glory for doing it. The business operates on a shoestring budget. Money is saved everywhere possible: on hotel stays, fuel, and pilot’s comfort.Many aviation regulations are ignored, avoided, or bent, because those small plane operations fall below the radar of regular jet commercial flights. This often comes at the expense of safety.So why are people still doing this ferry pilot job? The answer is simple: just for the challenge and adventure of it. Author’s opinion is that commercial airline pilots are stuck in unfulfilling jobs, which makes them nothing more than glorified bus drivers. It’s the world where individuality, creativity, and risk taking is frowned upon, and routine and boredom is encouraged. Totally opposite from keeping rolling dice, constantly pushing the envelope, and living on the edge.After reading the book, I certainly learned a lot about inner working of a plane, about different flight and weather conditions, and how to handle various emergency situations. Not that I’d ever use that knowledge, but that’d make me more appreciative of what’s going on outside a passenger seat on a commercial flight: the complexity of navigating a modern aircraft, communicating with the air traffic control, and the ecosystem of long-range international flights. I also learned about the importance of flight experience, and especially luck.