Out of the Blue
Description
Do you know who flew the plane in the Sky King series of TV shows? How many different "Songbird" planes were there? What happened to the "missing episodes"? What did Kirby Grant do after the TV series ended? Did you know Kirby Grant was a singer and a concert violinist?
Sky King began in the late 1950s.Those of us of a certain age grew up with theshow. The old black and white TV series inspired a lot of aviation careers, from pilots and flight instructors to airline pilots to NASA astronauts.
I had the personal pleasure of meeting and getting to know Kirby Grant and his wife after they retired to Central Florida in 1971. After his heart surgery in 1978, Kirby Grant spoke to me about the book he was "writing", taking the title "Out of the Blue" from the iconic opening of the television show. It was only much later after Kirby's passing in 1986 that I learned from his wife, Carolyn Grant, that the "book" had existed only in Kirby's mind and good intentions. This book is the long over due fulfillment of a promise to Carolyn Grant.
Even if you are too young to remember the show, you will find this book an interesting journey into the early years of television history as you get to know one of its heroes.
More details
Person
Tim Trott has always had a love for writing and teaching. His first writing for publication came in High School when he wrote reports on a YMCA trip to Monterey, Mexico which were published in the Orlando Sentinel. Fast forward to 2016, when his fascination with drones led to purchase of a DJI Phantom 2, and writing about the experience in The Droner's Guide, which was replaced by FAA Remote Pilot Study Guide a year later, and expanded to online training at TheDroneProfessor.com.
Still on the aviation theme, Tim wrote about Kirby Grant, the star of the 1950's television series, "Sky King" in Out of the Blue. Tim became acquainted with Kirby through a mutual friend when the Grant family moved to Central Florida in 1971.
Tim is also involved with hosting and designing web sites, and has used that experience to write Guarding Against Online Identity Theft, with a Spanish translation, in 2022. Now retired and living on Florida's East Coast, and still staying with the non-fiction trend, T is for Treason traces the history of that topic from Benedict Arnold to the present day.
