I’m a lazy researcher, but I tried very hard to do my homework this time. Three pilots — Michael Russo, Frank Soares, and Douglas Damon — helped me to get my facts straight and keep them straight. They were real sports, once I promised not to break anything.

Have I gotten everything right? I doubt it. Not even the great Daniel Defoe did that; in Robinson Crusoe, our hero strips naked, swims out to the ship he has recently escaped... and then fills up his pockets with items he will need to stay alive on his desert island. And then there is the novel (title and author will be mercifully omitted here) about the New York subway system where the writer apparently mistook the motormen’s cubicles for public toilets.

My standard caveat goes like this: for what I got right, thank Messrs Russo, Soares, and Damon. For what I got wrong, blame me. Nor is the statement one of hollow politeness. Factual mistakes usually result from a failure to ask the right question and not from erroneous information. I have taken a liberty or two with the airplane you will shortly be entering; these liberties are small, and seemed necessary to the course of the tale.

Well, that’s enough out of me; step aboard.

Let’s fly the unfriendly skies.

Chapter 1

Bad News for Captain Engle. The Little Blind Girl. The Lady’s Scent. The Dalton Gang Arrives in Tombstone. The Strange Plight of Flight 29.

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