If You Ain't a Pilot...

By: Raymond J. Wright

Narrated by: Robert Ferraro

Cockpit chaos and classroom camaraderie fuel the entropic adventures of Second Lieutenant Ray Wright and his fellow classmates of UPT Class 88-07 at Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi. Though competing against one another for the flying assignments of their dreams, like the fearsome F-15 and F-16 fighters, a good mission sometimes takes a backseat to a good party or punch line in this classroom of cut-ups.

The high stakes, however, loom over Lt. Wright. In a program where one out of three students fails, not everybody who starts UPT will finish it. And not everybody who does finish will get a desirable flying assignment. Some won’t even escape the Columbus Air Force Base. Will Lt. Wright get his dream assignment flying a C-141 cargo plane based out of beachside Charleston, South Carolina? Or be forced to perpetuate the If you ain’t a pilot...system as the dreaded FAIP (First Assignment Instructor Pilot) in Columbus, Mississippi?

Though a military memoir, If You Ain’t a Pilot...is a story of youthful innocence, a happy tale of the best of friends. Beneath the story’s surface layer of how an Air Force officer’s aeronautical rating determines his worth, similar thematic layers unfold around gender, race, and other ways people define each other. At its core, this story is about people, our relationships, and how we choose to treat each other. While 30 years have passed since the memoir’s events - and our aircraft, our enemy, and our pop-culture ties have changed - we still struggle with our differences.

©2014 Raymond John Wright (P)2019 Raymond John Wright

Flying with Humor

This is a fun story of a group of friends going through the highly stressful environment of Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT). The author does a great job describing his experience with humor and humility. I think any person who has gone through that experience will connect strongly with the technical descriptions, but even non-pilots like myself can understand and really enjoy the vignettes inside and outside the cockpit.

Great listen! Ray Wright's audible is Excellent!

Ray Wright's book is a terrifically witty and humbly truthful rendition of his life as a US air Force student pilot. Ray and his classmates formed lifetime bonds as they pushed through the trials and tribulations of the year-long course while finding time for fun antics to keep their youthful faces in laughter.
Definitely a Must Read for all who enjoy aviation!

Boring

The narrator is HORRIBLE. Story about kids in flight school with very little flying.