Jack Rhymes

Jack Rhymes is about flying, and it’s both fiction and non-fiction.
The latter stems from the years I spent flying fighters. I’ve written, in separate episodes, accounts of things that happened to me in those cockpits. Whether coping with a flamed out engine, falling off a wing in weather, escorting a Russian diplomat, or any of several other events, the accounts are all true, all recorded as they happened.
The fictional part arose when I concluded that a manuscript full of unrelated episodes, regardless of individual content, lacks continuity and interest. That got reinforced when I took it to market and learned, both from good advice and long experience, that an episodic manuscript is not salable in today’s market, least of all by an unknown author.
A narrative that would tie the episodes together didn’t exist in reality, so I concocted a fictional story line about a pilot who flew Spitfires in the Battle of Britain. He shows up and wants a ride in a jet fighter, but that’s more than this mere squadron pilot can manage. Meantime, he also wants to hear all about jet operations, and listening to my experiences, he demonstrates an uncanny knack for artfully restating observations about aviation, and these episodes in particular.
That intensifies the interest and the exposure, and it soon becomes apparent that this fellow’s life story parallels that of another Spitfire pilot, whose life would have gone unremarked had he not left behind an immortal sonnet. The similarity is so close that the two seem one and the same, and a disturbing anomaly surfaces; that other Spitfire pilot died in the Battle of Britain.
The urge to learn this new friend’s real identity and to resolve the mystery turns into a chase of sorts, and it glances off the sonnet, the Rubáiyát, and Rudyard Kipling along the way. It concludes years later, in a cockpit on the other side of the world.
Building the fictional scenario and fitting it into real events was at least as challenging and entertaining as recording those long-ago adventures, but I’ve missed my mark if it diverts from the business of flying fighters. That’s all this is, so you won't be reading about how I pushed back the frontiers of space, formulated defense policy, or even enraged a Congressional committee. I have friends and classmates who did all those things, and you’ll have to find their books for that.
This one is about the adventures and misadventures of a plain vanilla fighter pilot, and if that has any appeal, grab a wing. I’ve got some things to tell you.