The charismatic author of God Is My Co-pilot - continuously in print since 1947 and an inspiration to generations of flyers -writes a firecracker of an autobiography, a story alive with humor, excitement and the brash honesty that made Robert L. Scott a maverick in the Air Force and, indeed, for all of his life.
In a richly generous account of his background and career, he writes of his family's patient forbearance with their son's determination to become a flyer including the hair-raising episode of young Robert's first flight in a human-powered glider in a leap off a neighbor's roof, and his much later, absolutely last-ditch battle to get into the fledgling U.S. Army Air Corps. Concurrent with the grueling training that followed, Scott set himself to pursue-and won- his beloved lady, Kitty Rix.
Once efficiently accepted by the Air Corps, he seized every opportunity to fly, volunteering for all kinds of extra duties, including danger-filled airmail runs in the dead of winter. By the time World War II broke out, he had built up an astounding number of flying hours, and, desperate to get into combat, was able to talk himself into the Pacific bomber command - though he had never actually flown a bomber (the closest he had come to any bombing experience was hand-dropping watermelons from a fighter plane in the California desert).