Author Archives: Doug

Phantoms I Have Known

04 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by in D. S. Cooper Books, This Writer's Life

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Old Cadet Cover

Like my character Kevin O’Connor, I have known phantoms.

They often come in the night, bringing tingling sensations to my right leg, which was amputated above the knee three years ago. These visits by a limb which no longer exists in the physical world are not always unpleasant. Sometimes the illusion that my leg has returned is so convincing that I must reach down and touch the end of my stump to prove to my senses that there is nothing there. On occasion, there is searing pain, like a prolonged electric shock, which causes muscles that are no longer alive to brutally convulse. And while these most severe bouts of phantom pain are infrequent, I have learned that resistance is futile. I just get up and read and watch TV and listen to music through the night. By morning, the phantoms will have left me.

Civil War physician and writer Silas Weir Mitchell (1829-1914) gave a nod to the ghostly nature of the phenomena when he coined the term phantom limb, writing that “thousands of spirit limbs were haunting as many good soldiers, every now and then tormenting them.”

So when I decided to put a supernatural twist on my novel about the kidnapping of a boy from a military prep school in Pennsylvania, at least one of the characters — Kevin O’Connor — had to know the same phantoms which I have known.

Out of Paper

02 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by in Breakfast Flights

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Pitts

Pilots don’t like to run out of altitude, runway, fuel … or paper.

By paper I mean the aircraft’s registration, annual inspection, transponder certification or any of the other paperwork that is required for flight. And I was unable to fly my own airplane to breakfast again this week — even though my magneto was fixed — because I didn’t have a required piece of paper; my medical certificate had expired!

It was my own fault for waiting too long to make an appointment with my FAA Medical Examiner. I probably could have seen another examiner before the end of July, when my two years was up, but I’d rather hold off a day or two to see the same FAA doc who has been familiar with me and my medical history for many years.

So I hopped in with Robbie for a flight to the Vineyard, which is something we won’t be able to do for most of August, since President Obama will be vacationing on the island for a few weeks. It was a beautiful calm morning for flying, and breakfast at the main airport was just fine.

“You guys look like you’re out on parole.”

Celebrity sightings are common on the Vineyard, and usually we just smile and go on our way. But actor/comedian Bill Murray, who does not do many Hollywood interviews, is notoriously friendly in real life. So when our gang literally ran into him with his own group of friends at the gate to the flight line, Mike said hello and Bill obliged our motley crew with some banter and the quip about us being out on parole. Which was reasonably astute, since we are a bunch of working guys who do look a bit scruffy for our breakfast flights.

Third Class Medical Reform

Speaking of medical certificates, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) is wrangling with congress right now to do away with the FAA’s  inefficient and cumbersome medical requirements for private pilots. They would like to move to a self-reporting system for medical issues, similar to the state drivers’ license system or the relaxed medical standards for light-sport pilots, which have been working well in smaller airplanes for many years. I’m all for that! So I was a bit miffed when I learned that the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) is one of the staunchest opponents to the reform legislation.

However, upon reflection, I can see airline guys’ side of the issue, since the total elimination of the third class medical requirement might allow some pilots to fly beyond their physical limitations at airliner altitudes, such as a person with a history of heart trouble or sleep apnea choosing to fly at 17,500 feet in an unpressurized aircraft. Supplemental oxygen would be required at that height, usually delivered via a nasal cannula. Especially a night, that could lead to big trouble. And there are other scary scenarios.

So I really don’t know. I believe that my fitness to fly family and friends low and slow in my little Cherokee is between me and my personal physician. I wish that the FAA would allow private pilots of single engine four seat airplanes to self-report medical issues and remedies. But who knows if the other guy would push the limits too far?

Billy Coates

29 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by in D. S. Cooper Books, This Writer's Life

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Billy Coates

“Are you for the war,” was the question in 1969, “or against it?”

“I’m not for the war or against it,” Billy Coates would say. “I was in it.”

Now, Billy Coates is a fictional character, and not based on any one person. But I knew from the onset that the protagonist of Flight From Katama, which plays off pivotal events in 1969, would have to be a Vietnam veteran. The reason why has a lot to do with where I was living in the Seventies; Narragansett, Falmouth, Plymouth and Newport. Small seaside towns with a purpose, be it fishing or tourism or sailing. Towns where people were working hard. So the veterans therein (who were all older than myself) had simply come home and gone back to their labors. Perhaps in other places they might have donned their old fatigues and smoked pot and flashed peace signs to air the pain of blood spilled in vain, but the men that I knew had no time for all that.

So in Falmouth we have ex-door gunner Billy Coates, who used his GI Bill benefits to learn to fly, and who then found a wealthy sponsor for his charter flying business. He literally rubs elbows with the rich and famous when he flies them around Cape Cod and the Islands in his airplane, but he is not one of them. His best friend Ned Rogers is a cook in a seafood restaurant and Benedita Lopes, the high school girl whom he never quite connected with, is keeping the Cranberry Flying Service’s books for his silent partner.

When a seemingly small midnight favor — the flight from Katama — evolves into a momentous event, Billy finds himself standing at the confluence of wealth and politics. If he allows himself to be dawn into the media storm, his fifteen minutes of fame might lead to sudden riches. But at what cost to the course which he has charted for his own life?

None To A Million

27 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by in D. S. Cooper Books, This Writer's Life

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

cropped-eastrivertrust-cover-e14172283338142.jpg

Writers are each a solitary actor with an audience of none to a million.

That’s my theory; writing is a non-simultaneous performance art. We act out our stories as we write — we perform them in our minds, just as surely as if we were on stage — without knowing how many people will be in the audience when the house lights come up. The writer must feel all the emotion as she writes; the reader gets it later. And who knows how many readers there will be?

Some can hold their game face as they write, hardly betraying the highs and lows of their feelings as they put words on the page. Others mumble their dialogs or speak the words aloud. Some pace at their writing station and pantomime the action. No wonder so many writers prefer to work alone!

I’ve read that JK Rowling was waiting on a train platform without a pen when she had the idea for a scrawny bespectacled boy who did not know that he was a wizard. Imagine if she had entered into a conversation with a fellow traveler, and that thought had been lost? Later, she penned her Harry Potter novels in the public room of a pub overlooking Edinburgh Castle. Could anyone watching her face then have sensed the brilliance of the words which she was putting on paper?

Alas, few of us have imaginations so powerful and so impervious to distraction as JK Rowling. So we retreat to quiet places. We train our family and friends to respect our diurnal periods of self imposed solitude. In the end, we put it out there. We publish electronically.

Will anyone read our words?

Sky Hitching

26 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by in Breakfast Flights

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Base to Final 28M

It’s always something with airplanes.

No magneto for my Cherokee yet? No problem, I hitched a ride to breakfast with Greg in his nice Cessna 177 Cardinal. The weather wasn’t great, so we stayed close to home and ate at Plane Jane’s at Plymouth Airport once again. Not a bad deal at all, since Jane’s is our favorite spot for a fly-in breakfast or lunch.

My sick Slick magneto should be back from overhaul in Tulsa this week. It’ll be good to get the Cherokee flying again. However, my third class medical certificate expires at the end of the month and I couldn’t get an appointment with my examiner until August 4th, so I’ll have to fly with someone else next Sunday as well.

Like I said, it’s always something with airplanes!

How To Purchase (or Sell) an Airplane

They say that the two happiest days of a pilot’s life are first, when he buys an airplane, and second, when he sells it.

So our group wandered over to our friend Bob’s hangar at KPYM after breakfast to look at his Citabria, which he was selling to make way for a new airplane. It so happened that our friend Fred was looking for a tail wheel airplane, so we enjoyed watching the horse trading. Of course, we left them alone for the final price negotiation, but I can’t think of a better way to buy an airplane than from a friend. Especially so when another friend (Mike) has been doing the annual inspections on that airplane.

Some pilots consider the GCBC with flaps to be the best model of Citabria (Airbatic spelled backwards). I’m sure Fred is going to have a great time with it, and we’re all looking forward to seeing what shows up in Bob’s hangar next.

Flight From Katama

25 Saturday Jul 2015

Posted by in D. S. Cooper Books, This Writer's Life

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Set in 1969, this novella plays off the ‘Chappaquiddick Incident,’ with young charter pilot Billy Coates and his friends from Cape Cod tossed into the world of presidential politics by a fictional twist. It was fun to write, because I lived in Falmouth in the Seventies and I first learned to fly there. The characters came easily, since I  had known a few young locals like Billy in that seaside resort town, with his stalwart pal Ned Rogers and love interest Benedita Lopes.

Flight From Katama was my first self-published project, appearing on Amazon eight months ago. I intended it to be a short ‘Two Hour Quick Read’ which I could initially offer as a free promotion to introduce me and my writing. But readers have really responded well to the characters, so I’m planning to bring them back in a ‘Billy Coates Series’ of eBooks.

The biggest mistake I made on this project was the title. Pilots from all over the country might recognize ‘Katama’ as the popular grass airstrip at Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard, but most readers wouldn’t know that. So given the way that Amazon suggests books by interests and keywords, ‘Flight From Chappaquiddick’ might have sold many more copies.

Live and learn.

My First Disaster

23 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by in D. S. Cooper Books, This Writer's Life

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Recyclable1

Much of my writing ends up in the recycling bin, and I know that I’m not alone in that regard. If you are reading this blog, you may be a writer, and this might all sound very familiar.

I started to write my first novel at least a dozen times over the years, but I could never charge further than about 70 pages into the story before work or travel broke my stride. A few of these attempts dating back 20 years or more are stashed away in my filing cabinet or somewhere in my basement, growing mold. No one has ever read them.

After my forced retirement, I took the advice of many writers and got up 5 a.m. each morning, made a pot of coffee, and sat down with my computer. I turned off my cell phone and tapped the keys until 9 or 10 o’clock, and then printed the pages and added them to the stack. Ten months later, I had 1245 pages of Moons of the Sierra Maestra, which I rushed off to friends and family for reading.

It was awful.

So, I did what we all do: I began editing and re-writing, preparing a final manuscript to mail off to some agents or publishers. I suppose that I might have spent the rest of my life perfecting that masterpiece if I had not decided to put it aside “just for a few weeks” to write a little novella. I had been toying with the idea for Flight From Katama for years, so why not try a small project as an eBook, just to see what this self-publishing thing is all about?

I still have a lot to learn as a writer, but pushing that one little project through to completion for Amazon Kindle was the best move I ever made.

Why I Write

22 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by in D. S. Cooper Books, This Writer's Life

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

writespace

Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.

Substitute write for teach, and that old proverb is the story of my life. Because many of the things that I now write about are the things which I can no longer do.

Three and a half years ago, I was a retired from the US Coast Guard and working on oil field service boats in the Gulf of Mexico and on tugs and ferries in New England waters. It was physical and enjoyable work. I ran, surfed, kayaked, fly-fished and dove into the deepest spots along the coast. I rode motorcycles and I flew my own airplanes.

It was in my favorite airplane that I hurt myself, a 1947 Aeronca Champ, when I mis-judged a landing and caught a tree with my wingtip.  Four seconds later, the airplane cartwheeled into the ground and my life was changed forever. After ten surgeries and months of laying on my back in a nursing home, I had one leg and limited use of my right arm.

We’re all lucky to be alive; some of us just embrace that fact more intimately than others. So I pushed my wheelchair up to the dining room table and began writing as soon as I got home to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

003  EastRiverTrust_cover2Old Cadet CoverROYALS Cover

Flying May Happen

19 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by in Breakfast Flights

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , ,

Young Eagles

Unlike this happy Young Eagle, no flying for me this weekend.

My Cherokee was diagnosed with a sick magneto on Thursday, which had to go to Tulsa for overhaul (hopefully under warranty.) So I had to hitch a ride to Cranland (28M) for the EAA Chapter Fly-In Pancake Breakfast. Which was great. But the highlight of the week was the second round of Young Eagles flights on Saturday morning. Some of our local pilots took 16 more Taunton High School JROTC students up for their first flights in an airplane. The sky was overcast but absolutely calm, and the kids were great, all smiles and polite appreciation. It seemed to be a complete success.

The only sour note – and it was a big one – was our airport manager.

He came over and demanded that we have a $1,000,000 (yes, million!) insurance policy for the “event,” naming the airport as beneficiary. Which is news to all of us, since we’ve been inviting friends to come to the airport and fly with us for years, with no mention of “event insurance.” The Young Eagles were our invited guests, and each pilot and airplane was covered by EAA insurance for Young Eagle flights. The was no invitation for the general public to go flying, no aerobatics, no formation flying, no low passes, no “spectacle.” Just free airplane rides for some very deserving young people.

We polled some other airport managers who told us that Young Eagle flights were no different than any other “not for hire” flight, and that pilots were welcome to bring anyone to their Public Use Airports for a flight. But that wasn’t good enough for our manager, who is not a pilot. He stated that the Young Eagles “Didn’t know what they were getting into,” (whatever that means) even though each had a signed permission slip from a parent. In fact, many of the parents attended to watch and photograph the flights.

Unfortunately, the manager’s tone and conduct was rather shameful for our airport, especially when you consider that our user fees pay for his contract. (The airport does not receive a dime from the city.)  But as Melinda, the president of our association succinctly told him in a letter, “Flying may happen from time to time at the airport.”

Flying Into the Future

12 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by in Breakfast Flights

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

DSC_0556[1]

It’s embarrassing when my leg falls off.

I’m fine when I’m flying, but it happens sometimes when I get out of my Piper Cherokee. Right now, my residual leg (stump) is changing, so until I get fitted with a new socket, twisting out of the pilot’s seat onto the wing and down to the ground can cause my prosthetic leg to slip off.

Which was why I didn’t volunteer to make some of the EAA Young Eagle flights for the Taunton High School Air Force JROTC program this week. Instead, I sat at the reception table doing paperwork. But I was certainly thinking, just let one disabled cadet walk up to this table and I will personally limp out to my airplane and give them their ride!

Get a grip, Doug. Of course there are no disabled youngsters in JROTC, especially for the USAF. After all, we wouldn’t want to set a false expectation, since Johnny can’t go to the Air Force Academy and fly a jet after he lost his arm. And Sally, you’ll never be an astronaut with that artificial leg.

Except that there are service members currently serving as pilots after becoming disabled by limb loss while on active duty. Not to mention the WWII double amputee and Battle of Brittan ace Douglas Bader. So why couldn’t a young person with a pre-existing disability start a military career, if they could otherwise meet the fitness standards? I became disabled in retirement, but the greatest attribute I looked for in new recruits during my 28 year military career was MOTIVATION.

Personally, I believe that the bigger leap is in our minds. But I am certain that there will come a time, out in the big blue sky of the future, when advancements in prosthetics and therapy will make it perfectly normal for disabled youngsters to aim for careers as military aviators and as pilots for the major airlines.

It’s going to be a great day.

BREAKFAST AT KATAMA

We flew to Katama (again) this week for breakfast on the deck, with 8 airplanes: Super Hawk, Pitts, Vans RV, Cardinal, C-150, C-182, Citabria and the Cherokee. Our string of near perfect days continued, and the sky was bright blue and silky smooth. My only brain-lock occurred when we had to be pushed back into a parking spot. I use a bar (or lever) to control the rudder and nose wheel steering with my right hand. Down is left and up is right. Simple. Until I had to steer going backwards, and my brain couldn’t catch up, even though it was a lot easier than backing a trailer. But with Robbie and Mike pushing, we got the airplane parked without trading wingtip paint with the neighbors.

YOUNG EAGLES

As I mentioned, the Taunton Pilots Association flew 16 JROTC cadets on EAA Young Eagle flights this week. We had two Vans RVs, an Aeronca Champ, a Long EZ and a Hawk XP on the line. The kids were great and they really enjoyed it, but I think that the pilots had more fun than any of the teenagers.