The Ardent Writer Press
and Bliss Knight
Air Affair II
FROM THE AUTHOR
Adventuring Spirit
For as long as I remember, I have wanted to be a writer but needed life experience to have something to write about.As a young girl, the eldest child of a colonel stationed at the Army’s Arctic Test Branch in Big Delta, Alaska, our family of six lived in a one room log cabin on the Alaska Highway. Alaska wasn’t a state yet, there was no television, so we played Scrabble and Chess. I read…about far off places, and found that I yearned to see the world.
I looked out our cabin windows at the clouds and the sky, and dreamed of a way…
seeing my dad off on yet another Pan Am Boeing 337 operated by crews with worldly expressions made me wonder…So, at the tender age of eight, I decided that I would become an International Airline Pilot. This would allow me to see the world, and give me things to write about. Pursuing this goal gave my life purpose and direction.
Living in a one room log cabin without the amenities of running water or indoor plumbing, we bathed once a week in a galvanized tub centered in a great room, all in the same water. This was embarrassing for a pre-pubescent girl.
We had light from a single bulb when the generator would start, but when it wouldn’t, I did my homework by kerosene lantern. Attending a one room territorial school in the early 1950s, I listened carefully to what the older children were learning.
I found I wanted horses in numbers and took to breeding and training warmblood horses. As a child, Black Beauty was among my favorite books. My mother always said that Horse was my middle name. It wasn’t really. My middle name is Bliss, the one I go by. I was named after an Army Post in El Paso, Texas called Fort Bliss. I guess it is good I wasn’t born at Ft. Huachuca.
My second marriage was to a businessman who developed a high sulfur oil refinery until 2012 when over-the-road vehicles were required by Arizona to operate on low sulfur fuels. He had a fleet of corporate airplanes which we flew – Ted Smith’s Aerostar, a Mitsubishi Solitaire, Beechcraft King Airs, a Lear Jet and a Westwind.
One of the nicest things he arranged was for us to attend Clatsop College in Astoria, Oregon – located at the confluence of the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean – to obtain the necessary schooling for our inland and open waterway US Coast Guard Ships Master licenses. On his yachts, we sailed up the Inland Passage from Ballard on Lake Washington, Seattle — to Alaska and points west from May through September, with clients and friends aboard for 12 years. Our Flying B Ranch was cared for in our absence by our capable foreman, Tito Gonzalez.
I couldn’t figure out how to raise children well when always away and leaving them in another person’s care — to not see them take a first step or hear them say their first word would be unfathomable, so I have no children. It is a regret, as in my dotage, I have no one but a dear younger brother, Greg, to look out for me.
Instead, I have animals: Lovebirds, a feral black Persian tomcat named Lou, dogs, horses, a little green frog named Jeremiah who lives above my bathtub in the greens, six large, laying white Leghorn chickens, a registered Black Angus bull named Benson and his consorts, Betty and Minnie, and Belted Galloway cows for color in the herd.
With special names to describe their personalities: Odessa and Grizzi, Irish Wolfhounds, and Leo, an Anatolian Shepherd who protect my animals from predators: coyotes and black bears.
Presently, I have only three horses: a large, dark Hanoverian for Dressage I call Tiara, a white Arab named Leidi for chasing cows and trail riding, and a gift, Princess Buttercup, who is a miniature horse, a chestnut pinto, for driving carriages.
Life has had a lot of firsts for me. I was a first child. I flew for one of the first Air Ambulance companies airlifting patients and medical teams for Stanford and the University of California, San Francisco Hospitals.
I was the first woman Smoke Jumper pilot for Intermountain Aviation in Marana, AZ, on De Haviland 300 — Twin Otters and an Air Tanker pilot with the first-in-the-world Initial Attack Rating for women on the Lockheed P2V-5 Neptune out of Minden for Evergreen on contract to the USFS.
I flew and instructed for several airlines (Japan Air Lines, Scenic Airlines, Western Airlines and Delta Air Lines) as one of the first women pilots, and retired from Delta as a Captain. I got to fly the elegant Lockheed 1011 Tri-Star internationally as Second-in-Command.
Appointed as an FAA Designated Pilot Examiner for the Intermountain region, I administered tests and issued most flying licenses in aviation.
My dream realized — I got to see the world — and now have things to write about. I have written about my adventures in aviation in my first book called Air Affair. I write on a laptop with a view of my ranch and the Sierras around Lake Tahoe. I have written about my adventures in a first book entitled Air Affair and now my second, Air Affair II published in December 2021.
Air Affair II
A Courageous Journey of Adventure and Reality for a Woman Aviator
The Amazon link for the paperback version is HERE.
The Amazon link for the hardcover version is HERE.
The Amazon link for the eBook version is HERE.
One of Bliss’ planes she uses for recreation
Bliss Knight as First Officer on Boeing 727
Bliss’ love of airplanes and horses was a lifetime event. Here she participates in an equestrian event in Arizona.
Bliss Knight, author of Air Affair II, as a young child learning about airplane maintenance from her father