This is not simply a story about flying in Vietnam; there are enough of those. It is a love story about flying.
The Joy of Flight presents the highlights of Captain Gary Wilson's experiences of flying for the US Army from September 1967 through July 1971. His adventures take you from flight training to Vietnam, where he flew for one year in a Cessna O-1 Bird Dog, logging 1309 total combat hours, 324 of them at night.
In four years of Army aviation, Captain Wilson flew 2,155 hours and saw and experienced many extraordinary things that mere land-bound mortals have never witnessed. His experiences encompass flying in the tropics and the extreme cold of arctic winters in single-engine and multi-engine airplanes-airplanes with tricycle gear, airplanes with tail wheels, and helicopters.
It doesn't matter if the sky is blue, gray, or black; the aerodynamic forces are in control, yielding only to thrust and lift to counter drag and weight. The sound of the engine becomes a constant and welcome music. The aircraft responds majestically to the pilot's control. There is a certain magic in the flight of any aircraft. It is felt, imagined, and experienced at a deeper level than any other; then, it is captured in the treasury of the pilot's memory bank.