Mariana Gosnell (1932–2012)

Mariana Gosnell takes the reader along on her extraordinary voyage across the U.S. in her single-engine Luscombe Silvaire, Zero Three Bravo. Enticed by the ribbon of sky that she could see from her Manhattan office window, she took a leave of absence from her job and made a three-month solo flight, navigating by use of landmarks and landing in America's little-known, back-country airports. She traveled south from her home airport of Spring Valley, New York, down to North Carolina and show more Georgia, west across Texas to Los Angeles and north to San Francisco, and then east over the Rockies, the plains, and the farms of the Midwest until she was back home.
What results is a lyrical description of land, sky, and water interwoven with experiences among small-town folks, maverick crop-dusters, banner towers, mechanics, and airport loiterers. With each landing there is a story to be told: the deaf-mute pilot who grounded himself until the eggs in the bird's nest lodged in his plane's engine had hatched, the woman running an airport by herself after losing both her husband and son to flying accidents, and the pilots and "hangar bums" who tried to hide their surprise when they saw a woman pilot flying cross-country solo. show less

Sort of a Blue Highways of the Sky. Gosnell has a passion for flying, especially in small, single engine planes into uncontrolled airports. She describes the myriad of interesting characters she meets along the way, each with a unique story to tell, and she retells them well.

She learned to fly in Africa where she and a friend had gone for several months. Since the only way to get around is by small plane, she was once flown from hither to yon in a small Cessna and a young woman pilot. show more Together they swooped down low over herds of elephants and other wildlife and scenery. Gosnell was enthralled and vowed to learn how to fly.

Back in the states, she continued her lessons and purchased an old Luscombe, a very serviceable, if antique tail-dragger. (She discusses at length the advantages and disadvantages of the "conventional" v tricycle type landing gear.)

Her stories reminded me of flights with my uncle when I was barely 10 (This was in the late fifties). He was in the Civil Air Patrol (which I also later joined as a radio officer -- but that's another story) and took me up in his Super Cub, many of which are still around.) Fun.

She beautifully captures the pathos, loneliness, and eccentricities of the people who man the small, often deserted, little airstrips around the country and the yearning many of them feel for the outside world. Particularly poignant was Laura, a thirty-five-year-old mother of Dawson, Georgia, who had learned to fly on a whim and now wanted nothing more to escape the parochialism of the small town where the goals and aspirations for women were pre-determined a century before. Ridiculed and shunned by the community for daring to do something women just don't do (fly a plane), she latched on to Gosnell as a symbol of freedom she didn't have the courage enough to embrace, but which Gosnell (perhaps because she was a cosmopolitan New Yorker) had adopted.

Loved this book. show less

I loved Zero Three Bravo right from the start. I tried to read it slowly, knowing that I would be sad when it ended. 03B is all about the author's trip, in the 1970s, in her Luscombe airplane across the US, stopping almost exclusively at small, non-towered airports. The author is somewhat of a hero to me now, because that is very similar to a goal of mine once I get my license and an airplane of my own. We've actually both flown in and out of SAF airport, the only towered airport on her long show more trip. This book was recommended to me by a flight instructor who knew that I was interested in traveling all over the place once I'm able. I'm so glad that he suggested it.

Mariana captures the essence of all aspects of her trip. The airports, good and bad landings, weather, other pilots, FBOs, sleeping under her airplane's wings, food, wildlife, being a woman pilot, etc. It was definitely a different time then, and many of the interesting people she met were already relics over 30 years ago. So this isn't necessarily a trip that any of us could recapture these days. But still, you get a flavor of general aviation, small towns, and life back then.

I highly recommend this book to anybody interested in general aviation, whether you're a pilot, interested in becoming a pilot, or just interested in looking through a window to the small towns of the past. show less

This is one of those single-item books that were in vogue before Malcolm Gladwell-esque One True Ideas took over, like Cod and Salt and Mauve and the like, except that this one is twice the length, clocking in at just over 500 pages. It’s not particularly well organized, with chapters like “Ground Ice I” and “Ground Ice II”—why not one long chapter on ground ice? It’s a mystery, like ice itself, which turns out to be a deeply weird and changeable substance, though not weird show more enough to sustain this book; for many of the weird behaviors she describes we just know they exist and not really why, and I didn’t need quite so many descriptions of the different shapes ice can take. show less