One Zero Charlie: Adventures in Grass Roots Aviation - Paperback

by Laurence Gonzales (Author)

Galt Airport in northern Illinois is known to the people who fly out of it as "One-Zero-Charlie" (for its FAA designation as Airport 10C). This evocative excursion into a little-known part of the heart of America takes us to a place where a love of flying draws people together, and a fascination with its sheer exhilaration keeps them that way.

Back Jacket

Galt Airport in northern Illinois, known to its pilots as "One Zero Charlie" (for its Federal Aviation Administration designation as Airport 10C), is a microcosm of grass roots aviation. Through his years of flying, Laurence Gonzales flew out of One Zero Charlie and has come to know the flying men and women who have made it a sort of all-hours club, where someone is always brewing coffee, and the doughnuts are fresh from the bakery. By turns exhilarating, intimate, hilarious, and tragic, this book explores the most democratic America there is, the only qualification being that you have to be crazy to join. No detached observer, Gonzales is deeply involved in his Blue Highways of the sky. He skillfully rips through our illusions and gets at the perverse reality of aviation, in which science can turn to witchcraft in a flicker, and those who aren't quick to notice the transformation are quick to perish.

Author Biography

Laurence Gonzales is the author of the best-selling title Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. He has won numerous awards for his books and essays, including two National Magazine Awards, the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, and the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.