Hang on and Fly
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Hang on and Fly is the forgotten and emotional story of the first deadliest year of passenger plane crashes in America: 1951. Pearl, George, Lt. Bischof and eleven others are trapped on a mountain after a violent crash that killed twenty-six, including four pilots. Not only has their plane gone down, but no one can find them! They are the largest group of plane crash survivors stranded for a long period of time in North America without rescue.
They argue over food, and someone commits a crime on a dead passenger. When they can't be found after three days of fog, one of them courageously walks out through the snow to find help from Ruby, a farmer's wife with a deadly secret of her own.
Their plight reaches all the way to the White House and is the origin of our perception that we're always safest in the back of a plane. It's the first time the nation's top crash investigator personally visits a plane crash scene, setting a precedent for all major crashes of the future.
Hang on and Fly is twenty-two chapters of impassioned drama and more than forty pages of photographs, many which have never been published before. This exhaustively researched original story portrays the deadliest year in the early stages of passenger flying, and the most significant period in the evolution of passenger aviation in American history. It is expertly narrated with tragic emotion, heroism among survivors and political intrigue as the nearly free-flying early budget airlines are reigned in to make air travel safer for everyone.
"This is one book you can't put down."
-CDR Donald Budrejko, USNR (Ret.)
"Hang on and Fly is North America's Alive, 20 years earlier."
-Bill Shull, Author of Philadelphia Television
They argue over food, and someone commits a crime on a dead passenger. When they can't be found after three days of fog, one of them courageously walks out through the snow to find help from Ruby, a farmer's wife with a deadly secret of her own.
Their plight reaches all the way to the White House and is the origin of our perception that we're always safest in the back of a plane. It's the first time the nation's top crash investigator personally visits a plane crash scene, setting a precedent for all major crashes of the future.
Hang on and Fly is twenty-two chapters of impassioned drama and more than forty pages of photographs, many which have never been published before. This exhaustively researched original story portrays the deadliest year in the early stages of passenger flying, and the most significant period in the evolution of passenger aviation in American history. It is expertly narrated with tragic emotion, heroism among survivors and political intrigue as the nearly free-flying early budget airlines are reigned in to make air travel safer for everyone.
"This is one book you can't put down."
-CDR Donald Budrejko, USNR (Ret.)
"Hang on and Fly is North America's Alive, 20 years earlier."
-Bill Shull, Author of Philadelphia Television
Appearances/Updates/Media Coverage for Hang on and Fly
Hang on and Fly trended as #1 for Book of the Day.
--August 13, 2016, 9 am - 3 pm. Personal appearance at the Henderson Historical Society's Henderson Heritage Day, Henderson, New York. Books for sale and discussion. For more information, click on the links above or see my Facebook posting, here.
--May 12-14, 2016. Hang on and Fly is featured at Book Expo America in Chicago.
--May 2016. Hang on and Fly radio interview broadcast on World Christian Broadcasting Network is the Gold Winner of the Hermes Awards, a division of the Addy Awards. For more details, see the Hang on and Fly Blog.
-- April-May, 2016. Interview and profile on Tim Lake and Hang on and Fly in Book of the Day web site. Read it and find out more about Book of the Day, here.
--Wednesday, January 27, 2016. Profile and mention of all three books, Hang on and Fly, Association Island, Henderson Harbor, in the South Jeff Journal, Adams and Watertown, New York.
--Friday, January 16, 2016. Profile in Boeing 747, Airbus 330 Pilot's Blog, Flight to Success. "(Tim Lake) is one of the most prolific writers I know." Read it here.
--Off The Beaten Path Bookstore in Lakewood, New York is carrying Hang on and Fly and can order your print editions of Hang on and Fly.
--A mention in Painted Hills.org, a website for genealogists interested in Western New York and Northwestern Pennsylvania.
--Sunday, December 27, 2015. Front page feature story on Hang on and Fly in the Jamestown Post-Journal, Jamestown, New York. Read the article here.
--Saturday, December 12, 2015: Tim appeared for book signings, discussion at Chester County Book Company, West Goshen Shopping Center, 967 Paoli Pike, near West Chester, Pa. 11 am - 1:30 pm.
--December 4, 2015. Article in Chester County Ramblings Blog about scheduled book signing appearance at Chester County Book Company. Read the article here.
--Saturday, November 7, 2015: Hang on and Fly trended as #1 for the Non-Fiction title feature on Book of the Day. Click here for details.http://bookoftheday.org/hang-on-and-fly-tim-lake/
--Saturday, November 14, 2015: WJTN Radio, Jamestown, New York. The Times of Your Life with Jim Roselle from 10-11 am. For details, click here: http://www.radiojamestown.com/pages/wjtn-jim-roselle-pages
--November, 2015. Interview in three parts with Paul Ladd of World Christian Broadcasting Network. Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/paulnews/sets/hang-on-and-fly-3-parts
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Passenger planes are crashing three and four times a month in 1951 just as Americans are beginning to fly. Then, a loaded plane disappears in the night and can't be found. Panic and frustration reach all the way to the White House.
Twenty-six are killed in the most spectacular crash that no one heard on a mountain frosted with snow and fog. Fourteen survivors are the largest group of plane crash victims to be lost and stranded in North America. The stewardess holds a baby in her arms until it dies. They huddle beneath a parachute tent arguing over food and how to get out. One commits a dastardly criminal act upon the dead. When rescuers don't arrive after 40 hours, a hero passenger stumbles out of the snow-filled woods to find help from a farmer's wife with a secret deadly threat of her own. Distracted by blazing headlines, crash tourists, and a federal probe, simple farm families are intertwined with urban crash survivors leading up to more tragedy on the plane crash mountain. Hang on and Fly is a dramatic tale of the most incredible year of aviation disasters that made Americans plane crash jumpy. Passengers in rope seat belts are eaten by sharks; a pilot with heart disease flies into a hill; three crashes close a major airport; a lost pilot mistakes Lake Ontario for the Atlantic. It's the origin of our belief that we're safest in the back of the plane. It's the beginning of modern plane crash investigations, inspired Hollywood's airplane disaster movie genre, and caused safety regulations we all take for granted today. Tim Lake tells the gripping story of America's first budget airlines as only he can. His family was there. |
Characters & Elements
Other books by Tim Lake
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