Shark Bait (Paperback) | Released: 31 Oct 2014

Shark Bait: The "Misadventures" of an Oceanic Ferry Pilot is the saga of the dangerous world of ferry flying: piloting small, single-engine airplanes across the ocean. Why is it hazardous? Because there is only one engine, at least the airplanes I flew. If it quits, well, you are just in the water. Plus you are sitting there surrounded by cabin fuel tanks filled with volatile 100 octane aviation fuel. And what is it like when the engine actually stops at night, mid-ocean? Your heart stops with it. What are the sea conditions below? Twenty foot waves? At night you will not know. Maybe you will have time to declare an emergency. Then what? Your survival chances in that cold North Atlantic: slim and none. You think of these things at night, alone over the ocean. The number of night sounds the engine makes is downright frightening. Is it about to quit? And what is it like to arrive in a foreign country at midnight where you don't speak the language or understand their money? You don't have to be crazy to be a ferry pilot, but it helps!
About the Author: James A "JC" Creighton was born and raised in East Tennessee on the Cumberland Plateau in Jamestown. After high school and playing at college, he enlisted and spent a four year tour in the U.S. Navy where he was trained as an instrument trainer instructor teaching naval aviation cadets the finer points of instrument flying in synthetic instrument trainers, the old WWII "blue box" Link trainer. While in the Navy he earned an FAA Ground Instructor-Instrument rating. After the Navy and a short stint at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Institute in Daytona Beach, Florida as the Link trainer supervisor, Ozark Airlines in St Louis called and JC moved and worked for them for twenty-one years, first as a link trainer and ground school instructor and later as a FAA licensed flight dispatcher. There followed fourteen years as a flight dispatcher for TWA after their merger with Ozark. After TWA was bought by American Airlines JC spent five years with AA as a flight dispatch instructor and international flight dispatcher, forty years total in the airline business. In early 1970 JC became serious about flying and over the next four years earned his commercial pilot certificate with instrument rating and multi-engine land ratings, flight instructor airplane, flight instructor instrument, and flight instructor multi-engine ratings. JC began flight instructing in his spare time and soon was working toward the infamous level: 500 hour Twin Comanche Survivor. Along the way he earned a commercial rating in gliders and single and multi-engine seaplane ratings. JC's ferry flying came about as a result of a strike at Ozark and thanks to a friend, Scott Nielsen, who owned an aircraft ferry company, was offered the chance to earn a little money and experience the "fun" of international travel on someone elses nickel. The experience proved priceless.You will enjoy JC's story. The "JC" came about because initials are used to issue or validate an amendment to a dispatch release delivered verbally; or to end a flight plan filed with air traffic control. "Amend you release...signed JC." It stuck. Soon I was just JC and have been since.