Undocumented Procedure

by Brian Christofferson

The thrill of takeoff, before an approaching thunderstorm closes the airport, is palpable as is a smooth ride across the darkness of the Bob Marshall Wilderness with the shine of the Milky Way for entertainment. The day job of this airmail pilot-turned husband and father proves to be just as challenging; raising children in northwest Montana has its own opportunities for mayhem. The deaths of 10 of his fellow pilots drives home the dark side of this memoir with the realization that inattention to detail killed a number of them. He develops his own procedures to deal with the mind-numbing boredom…procedures intended to keep him safe.

352 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 8, 2014

About the author

About the profile photo: at the tail end of the first book in the Montana Pilot series, "Something you need to know About Pilots," comes a boy-meets-girl scene where a newly hired airmail pilot is doing dishes to pay for his dinner. A lovely lass, a friend of the cook, passes through the kitchen and with a sweet smile says, “Hello.” As she disappears, the fly boy chokes out, “Hello!”
Later that night, as the pilot takes off into the Montana skies to deliver the mail, the young lass may have gone out for a night of dirty dancing, but she soon surrenders to the man who would wash her dirty dishes for the next 40+ years.
The Hardy Boys provide the hook in grade school and reading becomes the primary inside pastime with time out for Gunsmoke on Sunday nights. Ian Fleming makes the teen-age years even more exciting and when the James Bond flicks make it to the local theater, life transforms into unbearable deliciousness.
Following a stint in the Air Force during the Vietnam era with Heller and Vonnegut as guides, the foundation is laid for the Montana Pilot series by a marriage, the sprouting of a family and a thirty-year career as a professional aviator.