Archive for January, 2013


When No-One Else Would Fly – The Flight That Inspired The Title of Col. C. J. Tippett’s aviation pioneering biography

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January 31, 2013
Col. C. J. Tippett and the Beechcraft C45

The Beechcraft C-45, similar to the model pictured here, was Tip’s favorite twin-engine aircraft. He flew some amazing flights in it, and one of them is the inspiration for the book’s title.

The current leader for the idea of a title for my grandfather’s aviation biography is “When No-One Else Would Fly.”

It comes from a letter written to Col. C. J. Tippett by Dr. Gene B. Starkloff about a life-saving flight that Tip made in 1945.

Tip was living and working in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with his wife (my grandmother) and children. He had recently returned from flying a new Beechcraft C-45 from Washington DC to Rio on behalf of the US Government – the flight itself an amazing feat in that time in aviation history.

The Beechcraft was a gift, expanding the civil aviation mission in Brazil to twin-engine capability.

Dr. Starkloff was the Army Navy doctor assigned to the South Atlantic Command Headquarters in Rio, and on a dark and stormy night in June, he had received a desperate message from the American embassy in Paraguay. American personnel had been stricken with a wicked illness. They feared that it was polio, and several of the victims were children.

Dr. Starkloff needed both a pilot and a plane to fly him and his heavy load of equipment to Asuncion. There was hope if treatment could be applied soon, and Dr. Starkloff was the only doctor within reach who could deal with polio. But weather had grounded all flights; commercial, military, or private. The conditions were impossible, and the doctor could find no pilot willing to try.

The full story of Tip’s “flight of mercy” is beautifully detailed, in Tip’s own words, in the soon-to-be-released book. It is only one of the many record-setting flights that Tip made in the Beechcraft C-45 between 1945 and the 1950s.

Dr. Starkloff was able to help the children, and he credits Tip with extraordinary courage. He wrote: “We were the only airplane in or out of Rio de Janeiro that week… I will never forget that trip that you volunteered to fly – when no-one else would…”

“When No-One Else Would Fly” will soon join our cultural library of aviation history, and describe Tip’s life as an aviation pioneer.

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How Do I Keep Up With Blogging?

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January 29, 2013
cape meares oregon and the westchester press

Taking a wide angle view of blogging can help me see where I’m going as I work. (This is Cape Meares on the Oregon Coast, by the way.)

Along the way to learning how to self publish a book, I researched blogging, and saw that many resources suggested posting a blog every day.

Blogging every day sounded overwhelming to me.

It still does, which is why I don’t blog every day.

The whole idea behind blogging, or at least the one related to self publishing a book, is to use the right keywords (ones that readers will be entering in a search engine like Google) and write really interesting, useful, engaging, current, accurate, and readable content, and do it regularly. This builds traffic, and a readership, and an audience… for our books!

A good idea, but still. Overwhelming.

So I developed a system:

  • I brainstormed ideas, and wrote them down in any form. On paper, in an idea database, in a word document, in a spreadsheet… anything.
  • I organized those ideas into categories. Ideas usually can be grouped – and those groupings are the Category. Assigning the category in the blog platform makes it easy for readers to find the topics they are interested in.
  • I printed out a blank month from my calendar program – on paper. Enough with having everything inside the computer, I need to old-school it with paper and pen sometimes.
  • I added any seasonal holidays to that blank calendar sheet, so that I could tailor that day’s post to the season if I wanted to. Christmas always comes as a surprise to me, and this helps.

Since I have too many topics I am trying to cover, I assigned one day a week for each, minus Fridays. If I were blogging about one topic, I’d maybe assign a day for each category or such…
For instance,  I am blogging twice a week at www.TheWestchesterPress.com, instead of three times a week (I couldn’t keep up with three times a week – given my other blogging efforts which are about to be revealed in my next sentence)… actually, I can’t even keep up with twice a week.

Many of my ideas could be broken up into more than one short post, so the calendar filled up rapidly.
After all this, I take one day a week and write the posts, add a picture, and schedule it for the designated day.
I write the posts in advance – as many as I can do on a Saturday, for instance, and when something timely comes up, I can just move the pre-scheduled post to another day, and insert my extemporaneous post.

Series are the most fun for me. Like, “Famous People Who Met My Grandfather” for my soon-to-be-released aviation biography, or “Egg Artist Spotlight” for artists doing amazing things with blown eggshells. My quest to turn my www.TheFreeRooster.com blog at into a book is a series of posts, as I use each tool I can find to accomplish the task.

My system makes an overwhelming task do-able. I see increased traffic every time I post. And I see growing traffic each month since I began to post regularly. If the content is useful, people will read it. If the keywords are correct, search engines will find it.

And now I’ve posted a blog about posting a blog – BlogElegant. Blelegant!

 

 

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The Cabo Blanco Fishing Club and The Boat Captains

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January 24, 2013
The Cabo Blanco Fishing Club and Col C. J. Tippett

Cloyce Joseph Tippett stands under the stuffed bluefin tuna on the wall of the Cabo Blanco Fishing Club’s main salon. He is posing with the boat captains and crew. The man in the checked shirt, to the right, is S. Kip Farrington Jr, founder of the Club. This picture was taken in the 1950s.

In the 1950s, in Cabo Blanco, Peru, world record catches were not unusual at the Cabo Blanco Fishing Club.

The club had been founded by the biggest names in sport fishing of the time, and members included rich and famous men. Everything about the club was focused on catching record fish, and the boat Captains were no exception.

The Cabo Blanco Fishing Club hired the captains and crew from the village, and the neighboring villages up the coast. These men had a lifetime of fishing experience, and additional training at the member’s expense in the fine art of world record fishing rules. 

Cloyce Joseph Tippett, who was pursuing a day job as the Director of the South American Office of the International Civil Aviation Organization, formed by the United Nations after World War II, was the also the Club’s director, and he often wrote of the dedication and enthusiasm of the boat Captains.

“The crews are quite depressed when the fishing is bad,” Tip wrote in a personal letter to a friend in the early 1950s, “They take it much worse than the guests!”

Fishing for black marlin and other big game fish was not just a job for the boat crews, it was a passion. The giant fish were often a food source for the village families, but it was more that as well.

The Club members were proving their sportfishing dedication by paying the extraordinary membership fee, but they were under-achievers compared to the commitment of the fishing boat crews.

This photo, showing Tip in the middle, Kip Farrington on the right, and the boat crews in the middle, is one of few images illustrating these behind-the-scene heros of The Cabo Blanco Fishing Club.

Tip’s book is coming soon – getting closer every day. It has a huge amount of fascinating detail about The Club, and Tip’s involvement with it. Join my growing list of people who want to be notified when the book is released by contacting us. We never, ever, sell your contact information.

 

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Successful Self Published Author Spotlight – Hugh Howey and WOOL

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January 22, 2013

 

review of wool omnibus

I bought the Wool-Omnibus e-book as a nook book, and it was a fantastic read. Hugh Howey is a do-it-yourself self published author, and I am a big fan!

Hugh Howey wrote Wool-Omnibus, which I just finished reading – and it is Really Good. I totally recommend it.
He used e-book technology to self publish a book. And he is on the bestseller list now.

Hugh started Wool as a series, and put it out himself as an e-book on Amazon. The book got a good response. He wrote more and in 2011, the story hit the big time – still as an e-book. Wool – Omnibus is the series, seamlessly pulled together as a full-length book. It sold enough copies to gain the attention of film producers and traditional publishers, and Hugh was able to negotiate a book deal he was happy with.

This is the kind of self publishing success story I have been watching for, where an author self publishes a book and then moves into traditional publishing based on the success of that book. Hugh Howey has done it with fiction, beating even more of the odds – since I think it is harder to sell fiction in any form, especially as a self publisher.

His success stems from

  • a really well-written book,
  • a uniquely intriguing original story,
  • and by having used the self publishing system and technology well.

Congratulations to Hugh, and as a Wool fan, I’m looking forward to more of the story!

Hugh’s website is also very cool – it’s got the kind of info and communication readers want from our authors – and is fascinating for anyone interested in self publishing a book.

In particular, Hugh Howey’s path was through e-books. He underpriced his books, making it very easy for a reader to take a chance, give it a whirl. The list price was not much of an obstacle, and the power of his storytelling gained word-of-mouth momentum. His bio on his website indicates some computer background, and so doing the e-book himself was clearly within reach. Only now, with his consistent presence on bestseller lists, is he coming out with physical books. Those are being produced by Simon and Schuster, the traditional way.

I look forward to adding spotlight authors to this series of posts – Successful Self Published Authors. Writers are making it work, and it isn’t pure luck. It’s about a great story, the right technology, and not giving up…

 

 

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Where In The World Was Cloyce Joseph Tippett – on the day, January 11th

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January 17, 2013
Cloyce Joseph Tippett and The Westchester Press

What was Cloyce Joseph Tippett doing on January 11th, 1935? And who else was doing something remarkable just ten miles away on the same day? Aviation pioneer enthusiasts want to know!

(I was going to release this post right ON January 11th, but the system missed the post. So instead, let’s pretend today is January 11th.)

On January 11th, 1935, Cloyce Joeseph Tippett was doing something interesting.

Tip was 22 years old, in the Army, stationed at Luke Field, Hawaii, trying to get into the cockpit of just about anything that would fly – and on his way to becoming a legendary aviation pioneer.

As a private at the HQ detachment, 5th composite group, Luke Field TH (Territory of Hawai’i – because Hawai’i was not yet a state in 1935 – and they spell their state name like that, both now, and then… plus that’s how the military spelled it in 1935), Tip was busy doing KP and cigarette-butt detail, and studying hard.

In addition to night courses at the University of Hawai’i, Tip successfully completed a course titled “Military Law – The Law of Military Offenses” as well as “Military Sanitation and First Aid.”

He was making progress.

On the same day, less than ten miles away at Wheeler Field, another legendary aviation pioneer was taking off on a record-setting flight.

Amelia Earhart climbed into her Lockheed Vega and took off to begin the first successful solo trans-Pacific crossing. Not just the first solo crossing by a woman, but the first ever.

It was success all round at Pearl Harbor on January 11th, 1935.

Tip’s memoir is full of soaring stories like these, and more, and is coming soon!  

 

 

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How To Turn Your Blog Into A Book…. my review of Blog2Print.com

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January 15, 2013
The Free Rooster for Just A Couple Of Chickens

This is the actual cover from the pdf book generated by Blog2Print. There were plenty of cover color options, but no font options. Yellow matches the book that the blog supports. “The Free Rooster” supports “Just A Couple of Chickens” and is trying to become a book on it’s own. A Blook!

Many of us, especially authors supporting a self published book, are putting a lot of great content into our blogs, as I am doing with my “how to self publish a book” series, and it would be fabulously great to find an easy and affordable way to turn a blog into a book.

That’s called “blook” in this new language of bloggery.

So I am testing each of the blog to book methods I can find, and my standards are pretty high. I’m finding that I may have to choose between my desires:

  • I want a nice looking book, but I don’t want to have to spend hours formatting it, because I could do that manually, the same way I usually make books.
  • I want the photos to look good, and that’s going to be a challenge because while 72 dpi looks great on screen, it doesn’t look great in print.
  • The book probably needs to be in color, because of all the effort I’ve put into the photos, and color print books are expensive to produce… but, ebooks!  It could be an ebook.
  • And I want to be able to access the book file. For cut and paste, for other uses of my materials. I want to create a file that I can take anywhere, print anywhere.
  • Plus a final and new wish… for it to be affordable, especially if I intend to sell it.
I’ve already reviewed Blurb.com’s blog to book service, and found it nifty but expensive and laborious – at least for how my blog slurped into it.
So onward to Blog2print

This service will work for blogger.com, wordpress.com or typepad.com. It won’t work for self hosted blogs, or any other platforms. Hmmm, (foreshadowing headsup… in this continuing series of blog posts about How To Turn Your Blog Into A Book, I have found some services that will pull from an RSS feed, so don’t despair yet if you are self hosted, but make sure you publish and know the address of your feed…)

Since my chosen blog for this project  is on Blogger.com, I’m in-like-flynn!

There is no charge to get started… once again, I would only pay once I order the book or download the pdf.

  • It offers to take all my blog posts
  • with pictures,
  • from oldest to newest,
  • and also offers to grab comments.

Since I don’t have any comments that I want to keep, I did not check this option and so haven’t tested it. But including comments is an important feature to many bloggers, and it would be worth testing that feature before getting too excited about this service.

I can choose a cover color, plus front and back picture, title and spine title, but I can’t select the font or size, so it looks a little …well… hokey?  But there I go again with my standards. I am learning that if I want it mostly automated and very affordable, then I can’t have it look exactly like I want.  For that, I will have to put some effort in – wah.

Blog2Print assembled the book quickly and made a nice table of contents, I have 88 posts, most with pictures. The pictures in this Blog2Print book are small, and I can’t change the size. I also can’t change the page breaks. I can select posts to not be included, and I can add some pages after the service has pulled the posts… but I don’t have any editorial control really. However, it has arranged things neatly and in order.

The pricing is easy to see.  As a softcover, I could have the 136 pages, with front and back cover, in color for $55.55, and hardcover for $65.55, both of which are far outside my means and intentions for this project. I could have it in B&W for $22.55. But it isn’t clear what size those books would be. There is a pdf download option for $7.95, and I am going to take it!

The checkout is easy, and I can (must) preview the pdf book before I order it. It came via email, and downloaded quickly. The book size is 8.5 x 11 and so if I want to try and print it at some print-on-demand service, I’ll have to fiddle with the book size. A pdf is not an e-book, but I can send it to my e-readers and view it there, like any other pdf doccument.

It’s pretty good – even if I didn’t get everything I’m looking for. I got an inexpensive pdf download of my entire blog, with pictures (and possibly with comments) with very little effort.  The system worked well, no surprises and no disappointments. Blog2Print goes into my list of possible tools, but I am going to keep looking for something I can edit and better control.

 

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Cloyce Joseph Tippett and the Heath Parasol

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January 3, 2013
The Westchester Press and Cloyce Joseph Tippett and The Heath Parasol Airplane

The Health Parasol was a home-built kit plane, and Cloyce Joseph Tippett flew it in 1930 – or tried to fly it. Thank you Wiki for the photo!

Before he flew a Heath Parasol home-built, Cloyce Joseph Tippett learned to fly in a Curtiss JN4 biplane in 1929. He learned from a traveling barnstormer, and by the seat of his pants, which was enough to convince him that aviation was the life for him.

Both the Great Depression, and the fact that he was only sixteen, limited his options of extending his flying ability. He had to take any opportunity that came his way to keep flying.

In 1930, Tip was headed for college and accepted his Aunt’s invitation to stay overnight on the road trip from Port Clinton, Ohio, to Detroit, Michigan.

But when Tip discovered that Aunt Daisy’s husband, Mr. Laberdee, was a mechanic with a garage full of OX5 aircraft engines, the trip to college was put on hold. Tip had his hands on the engines and was getting experience he wouldn’t find in college.

In the back of the shop, Tip found dozens of motorcycle engines that Mr. Laberdee and his fellow flight enthusiasts were putting into Heath Parasol kit planes that they were building in their spare time. It was heaven for Tip, who was considered an experienced pilot among these kit-building mechanics.

Tip’s description of his first Heath Parasol test flight in a Michigan potato field is delightful. In the soon-to-be-available book that he wrote about his flying life, he says “The home-built plane was more agile than the lumbering old Jenny and responsive to the controls. It was quite stable for the short time we were airborne.”

And then he almost crashes when the Henderson engine quits mid-air.

Tip’s perspective of the home-built planes, and the other aircraft within his reach is riveting. He was involved in a time of aviation that is a fascinating side story to mainstream aviation pioneering.

The Heath Parasol was reportedly easy to build and easy to fly, and could be assembled with materials and tools commonly found in 1920s and 30s workshops or garages. When civil aviation became organized enough to require licensing of both pilots and craft, the Heath Parasol was the only kit built aircraft that could be licensed.

The wings were constructed of wooden spars, and the airplane cover was fabric. It was powered by the Henderson motorcycle engine, or equivalent, producing 25 hp and 19kW.

Tip found that the glide path, after that engine quit, was adequate for getting back down to a potato field if required. If you’d like to read more, contact us to sign up for the book release notification. We never share your information, and we have a lot of fun aviation stories!

 

 

 

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