Walking on Air aviation trilogy
Book 1, Pilot of Fortune
Book 2, C-IIGY Flies!
Book 3, Earth Angels Rising
First book in Walking on Air trilogy - Pilot of Fortune - now being published
By Doug Jermyn, President, AEA 2005 Inc.
A major change has been made in publishing the trilogy of aviation books now being written by Welland author Ted Beaudoin – who also is also our volunteer media services manager.
The change is in how his books will be published.
In fact, the first book of the trilogy – Pilot of Fortune - is now being published by Trafford Publishing of Indianopolis, Indiana, USA, and should be available for ordering on-line at Trafford or on-line at conventional book store web sites sometime late in October or early November.
We had reported earlier that author Beaudoin had intended to publish the books on an advance-sales booking order basis. To date we have received almost $700 from individuals who have placed firm orders for the trilogy, and we sincerely thank these individuals for their orders.
Each one who has paid for the trilogy will be notified personally by author Beaudoin and we at the AEA 2005 Inc. shall return this payment along with that letter.
Beaudoin has consulted with us and told us of his decision to take his books through the less time-consuming and more traditional process of an author having his or her book published – by submitting a completed and edited manuscript to a publisher of international repute. Which is exactly what he has done with the first of the books in the trilogy, Pilot of Fortune, now ready to be published – all 340+ pages of it.
As Beaudoin so aptly put it to us recently … “there was no flaw in the advance-order publishing plan, but if anything, it had one weakness: it is time-consuming.”
He told us that he decided that, after receiving many personal telephone and e-mail requests for the books, things might move along faster by going the traditional publishing route … one that most authors take. His commitment to donating a per centage of his gross royalties on all three books remains firmly in place –
• 5% each on Book 1 - Pilot of Fortune and Book 2 - Earth Angels Rising - and
• one-third (1/3) of his gross royalties from Book 3 – C-IIGY Flies! …
C-IIGY Flies! will contain, among other features, the story of how we built the Welland Silver Dart replica, officially registered with Transport Canada as C-IIGY.
He reports that he is nearing completion on the final manuscript for Book 2 and is expecting to have Book 3 (our own book) ready for publishing by mid-November this year.
To this end, Beaudoin has changed the one-page flyers which describe each book, which can be found elsewhere in this report.
We have also included in this update to our web site two book reviews, one of them by one of our own members, James Griffith, a retired Air Canada 747 pilot, Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON, and the second by Stan Taylor, Leaskdale, ON, a retired elementary school teacher who is very active with Scientists in School and the Science Teacher’s Association of Ontario (STAO).
These three books each contain new and never-before published material – including photographs – that dramatically document the remarkable contributions made to Canadian and international aviation by very remarkable yet very ordinary Canadian men and women – and some of their international colleagues such as in the original AEA of 1907, Alexander Graham Bell’s stunningly innovate pioneering team who built and flew the original Silver Dart on Feb. 23, 1909.
The superb and extraordinary efforts of all those who Beaudoin writes about, and who had to overcome, quoting Beaudoin, “heaps of hurdles, bumps and grinds to do it, gave Canada and the Commonwealth of Nations an incredible century of controlled powered flight.”
These dramatic documentary books featuring their exploits and efforts and adventures prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that supposedly very ordinary Canadian men and women also have the extra-ordinary Right Stuff!
LINK: Read the pre-production manuscript and a recent book review.
From the Archives...
The trilogy is one-third completed, with Book 1, Pilot of Fortune, ready for publishing.
The manuscript for Book 2, C-IIGY Flies! is now being written.
Final research on Book 3, Earth Angels Rising is expected to end by mid-May, and the final manuscript writing is scheduled start by June 1.
The sales campaign for all three books begins with the appearance of this news item on our web site, which features a promotional / publicity flyer for each book. Each book flyer will also be distributed by means of a simple, yet far-reaching e-mail campaign and through word-of-mouth within the global aviation community.
We all realize that such books will only sell to what is known as a niche market, but, as Beaudoin pointed out, “it is a big niche market. We know that there are hundreds of thousands of aviation enthusiasts world-wide and we are making full use of the internet and our own network of contacts to reach as many of them as we can.
“By publishing to an advance order booking goal, we can take full advantage of very low printing and distribution costs per book and provide a higher donation amount-per-book to the AEA 2005 Inc. group,” said Beaudoin.
Our non-profit company will receive its donation only after all bills are paid and only after each book or set of books is distributed to buyers. This could help ease our financial pressures as we prepare the replica for permanent museum storage once a suitable museum has been located.
All advance cash or cheque orders for a book or a set of three books placed through the AEA 2005 Inc will be held in separate bank account which we will set up in a Welland credit union. In this manner, the AEA 2005 Inc., will guarantee delivery of the books to all who purchase a book or a set of books in advance of the publication date,
Each book will retail at C$ 19.95 for the First Edition.
The trilogy is priced at C$ 50 for the First Edition.
As a special one-time offer, the AEA 2005 Inc. and Windfall Associates will absorb shipping and handling charges for the First Edition for Canadian orders.
Special rates are available for bulk orders of 10 or more separate books or 10 or more sets of the trilogy.
The AEA 2005 Inc. has assigned to Beaudoin exclusive world rights to the story of how we built the Welland Silver Dart replica. He in turn has indemnified the AEA 2005 Inc. group of any legal responsibility relative to each book – or set.
The following brief paragraphs describe the trilogy and each of the three books.
They each contain new and never-before published material – including photographs – that dramatically document contributions made to Canadian and international aviation by very remarkable yet very ordinary Canadian men and women. Their extraordinary efforts gave Canada and the Commonwealth of Nations an incredible century of controlled powered flight.
These dramatic documentary books featuring their exploits and efforts and adventures prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that supposedly very ordinary Canadian men and women also have the extra-ordinary Right Stuff!
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About the Walking on Air Trilogy …
These books offer readers new and never-before-published photographs, along with amusing and sometimes gut-wrenching anecdotes and factual information and details about Canada’s rich aviation and aviation pioneering history.
• In the first book, Pilot of Fortune, many revelations surface as to how extensive the Canadian civilian involvement has been in the development of Canada’s vast contributions to the world’s overall international aviation infrastructure, starting with WW I in 1914 - less than five years after the original AEA pioneering flight of Feb. 23rd, 1909. This dramatic aviation documentary / biography focuses on a remarkable Canadian pilot who repeatedly made international headlines. He was a real pilot of fortune who never pushed the limits of his family name … Luck … Sheldon Luck, that is. Sheldon was a real-life blend of many silver screen pilots of adventure and other swashbucklers and adventurers… as sometimes portrayed by Harrison Ford, John Wayne, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable and Cesar Romero. Unlike the screen swashbuckling pilots of fortune who were nothing more than flickering images best seen on a screen in a darkened room, Sheldon Luck was a tall, swarthy-looking, handsome, rugged flesh-and-blood real live human being. A real pilot. A pilot among pilots. Some of the questions this book reveals …
• how most North American airline pilots first got their stripes
• what it was to land a fully-loaded airliner safely … on a sandbar
• what it took to be a real pilot of fortune, and not some silver screen hero
• what to do when four of your many passengers leave the plane? In flight? And two of them without a parachute, thousands of feet in the air?
• what it was like to fall from your moving airplane … into the water?
• how a passing wind in a cockpit can ground an airliner … world-wide?
• how one can earn a King’s Commendation?