Toby Speed

You may wonder what flying has to do with writing. In my case, it has everything to do with it.

A few years ago I began writing a murder mystery, my first novel for adults. I came up with a good plot and a few quirky characters. All of a sudden three pilots appeared in the story. They were my main character's uncles, and they just showed up at dinner and refused to leave.

Then I realized there was going to be a dramatic chase scene in the sky. Now I had a dilemma. I didn't know a thing about airplanes nor did I know a single pilot. How could I write such a scene convincingly?

I tried to write the pilots out of the story. They wouldn't budge. One of them--Uncle Ned, and I can see him to this day--stood jauntily in the archway to the dining room, toothpick in his mouth, staring at me, daring me to kick him out. It wasn't happening.

I asked around. I made some phone calls. One thing led to another and I was put in touch with Michael Mancuso, a famous airshow pilot who lives in my area. He agreed to talk to me, and I drove over to Brookhaven Airport, which I had never even heard of before, to meet him.

Before I went, one of my coworkers agreed to go up for a ride with him and come down and tell me what it was like so I could write about it. No way was I stepping inside an airplane that was smaller than my bathroom and could flip upside down.

To make a long story short, after I talked to him, he asked if I wanted to see his plane (an Extra 300L), I agreed, and bam, it was love at first sight. I asked him to take me for a ride, he did, and two weeks later I put down the novel and started flying lessons.

I earned my private pilot's certificate about a year later, on July 16, 2004, flying a Cessna Skyhawk. After that I had ten months of dual aerobatic instruction in a wonderful tailwheel plane called a Super Decathlon. I received my tailwheel endorsement and learned basic maneuvers such as aileron and slow rolls, inverted and knife-edge flight, spins, loops, steep turns, hammerheads, you name it. Wonderful stuff.

My next step was to purchase my own airplane in August 2005. Which brings us to Swee'pea, a loveable pup who tugs at her tiedown ropes and wags her tail when she sees me coming across the ramp to fly her. In the winter when it's cold and clear, she practically jumps into the sky. In recent months she's flown me to Martha's Vineyard, Block Island, Newport RI, New Bedford MA, Hartford CT, Poughkeepsie NY, Cape May NJ, Lancaster PA, and up and down the Hudson River at a thousand feet, alongside the skyscrapers and past the Statue of Liberty.

I look forward to getting my instrument rating and to flying Swee'pea for a long time to come.

Oh, and by the way, now I think I can write that flying scene. :)