Flying In The Pool: Adventures of a Pan Am Steward

This book documents my life and death experiences as a steward and Purser flying for Pan American World Airways during the heyday of ground breaking widebody aircraft such as the 747SP, L1011-500 and DC-10-30…While most carriers would call their back up flight attendants ‘reserve crew,’ at Pan Am if you were on reserve, you were ‘flying in the pool.’ …..While flying in the pool, one could be sent anywhere in Pan Am’s global system and you might be gone for days, even weeks at a time. Due to the uncertainties of flying in the pool, many missed anniversaries and birthdays, relationships and marriages fell apart…unexpected romances and horrible tragedies would happen as a result of flying in the pool…looking back at my log books, photos and company records it seems for me the best trips I ever had and the worst flights I ever had, happened while flying in Pan Am’s pool…At this point I'm half way through my ten years with Pan Am and have already experienced two deaths in flight, two emergency landings, made it through a scary spy mission into the war torn Middle East, when once again flying in the pool, I'm assigned a week long charter flight, destinations; Milan, Paris and Athens. Normally airline crews look forward to charter flights….Celebrity Encounters: Raquel Welsh, Bettie Davis, Glenn Ford, Richard Simmons, Joe Cocker, John Candy, many more….During my ten years flying for Pan Am, I would have three people die in my arms, saved two passengers lives, experienced two emergency landings, had a plane sabotaged leading to a near crash landing, flew into a hot war zone on a spy mission and endured numerous bravo whiskies - bomb warnings. I would also have several incredibly memorable globe spanning whirlwind romances with gorgeous Pan Am stewardesses, until it all ended horribly when my fiancée a newly hired Pan Am stewardess was killed by terrorists when they blew up Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland….What makes my story unique among the thousands of others that flew for Pan Am is I photographed my entire experience. Right from the beginning when I snuck an underwater camera into training, photographing the open ocean emergency and aircraft evacuation exercises at the Pan Am Flight Attendant Academy to hundreds of in-flight photos that show the real behind the scenes life of an international flight crew, all in this book…52 Chapters, over 450 photos, eBook extras include Landing at Sydney sequence, Chasing TWA and Scariest Landing Kai Tak-Hong Kong.