Although my hobby is taking shots of military machines, I have been posting a lot of general aviation planes of late, and will post a lot more. I have been putting "photo taken for aircraft recognition training" on the shots. So now let me tell "the rest of the story."

After three years training at Chicago Center, in August 1981 during the ATC strike I was sent to DuPage Tower, West Chicago to train there (they asked me to return to the Center in December, but I liked the tower better). I soon realized that a VFR tower was busy with GA airplanes and it made one's job a lot easier if he knew his aircraft types. The only problem was that I taught myself military aircraft recognition, and if it was a GA plane I hadn't flown or that didn't have a military counterpart, I had no clue. So the first month there I got back into my own recognition handbooks and also got the Jane's books from the library and within a couple weeks I knew them all. The manager had seen me with the books during breaks studying and comparing planes while working and he asked me if I could train the other new controllers coming in to replace the strikers. I suggested a slide program and he provided me with funds for film and processing.

So by October of 1981, with a letter of authorization from the airport authority to be on the field with my hand-held radio in my car, I was taking photos with my Pentax K1000 at DuPage, and also at airports all over the Chicago area in order to get all the photos I deemed necessary. Then I wrote up a text describing each plane and sometimes included the history to show the ancestry to help make sense. By April 1982 I had a slide program ready and it was quite successful. Aurora and Palwaukee towers both requested copies of my program so all my slides were duplicated for them. After using the program all year and finding where improvements could be made, I revised it that November. Then Chicago Center, Midway Tower, Meigs Tower and Las Vegas, NV Towers all requested copies. Word was getting around.

By now I realized I was on to something and I revised the program again and offered it as a national program to the FAA in 1983. The FAA paid me $1000 as a "Suggestion Award" and took my original slides after I made a copy to keep at DPA and printed all the slides for my own reference as to what went out. As is usual with the Washington suits, they ended up dropping my slide program and came out with an 8X11 glossy recognition book. The problem was, it was rife with error and I wrote to them telling them as much. That book died after a few years and that was about the extent of the FAA's recognition training.

I continued to revise my program and in May of 1984 Flying Cloud (FCM) requested a copy as did Carbondale (MDH). In 1987 Muskegan, MI tower also got a copy.

By now I figured I could do a book myself, and I wrote a manuscript titled, "General Aviation Aircraft Recognition For Controllers" based on my text for the slides. I then chose the format of B&W photos (5X7) for the manuscript and from 1987 through 1989 I was slowly working on my manuscript and taking photos, with a friend processing them for me.

Then I discovered that getting published wasn't as easy as I had hoped. I submitted my manuscript to one publisher after another, each time being told there was no market. Finally one publisher offered to take on the task if I provided $4000 up front to offset the costs. I couldn't afford that and since then my manuscript has sat in a box with all the photos printed from the slides.

After finding A-D, I posted photos of all those whose N-numbers were still current, and some that weren't but which had interesting paint schemes.

Well, I have to retire April 30th because of the age limitation for ATC. Some of the new kids coming in to Cedar Rapids tower can't tell a Cherokee from a pickle, so I thought I'd brush off my course and update it and make a CD for training. That's why I got into my slide-prints again. I figure I can post them on A-D first, then download them back with the data and copyright stamp on them! I'm posting all of them, and then choosing which photos I like best for the course. A big thing is now shooting new birds with my digital camera. It seems there are about twenty or so new bizjets and quite a few other GA machines since 1990 that I don't have shots of. It will be an arduous task to complete within the next month, but it should be fun also.

And now you know, "the rest of the story."