Name this pilot and win nothing!

[Jim Logajan]

Earlier this year I bought a copy of this person's autobiography. It was definitely a book with enough flying that I suspect many pilot's could relate to it - and someday I may find time to write a book review on it. In the mean time, I thought I'd throw this little snippet out (with a couple parts elided) and see if anyone can name the pilot:'In 1964, just after my first airplane solo, I was fortunate to be in the original television pilot of Star Trek. No one then imagined the phenomenon it was to become, but my part in it began when the creator of the show wandered over one day at Paramount to the set of the Bonanza episode I was guesting in.

"[...]", he said. "Hi. I'm Gene Roddenberry."

I knew his name, for I'd acted in some TV shows he'd written, but we hadn't met before. Gene had been an airline captain with Pan American who'd begun writing scripts as a hobby whenever he found himself on three-day layovers in Beirut or some exotic place. Soon he discovered he was making more money with his hobby than with his job, so he left the airways for the airwaves. He was a large, affable, and unpretentious man, and he was now excited.

"I've just finished writing the pilot for a new series I'm going to produce and it has the most wonderful role [...] and I'd love you to do it."'
So who wrote the above? You can win even more nothing if you can name the book!

 

[Jim Logajan]

Harrison Ford?
Jay Silverheels?
Leonard Nimoy.
David White

Negative contact. At this rate I think this will be a long thread!

 

[Jim Logajan]

William Shatner
John Hoyt?

Negatory.

 

[Jim Logajan]

OK, because it refers specifically to the PILOT of Star Trek (and not the rest of the series), I'll go with Jeffrey Hunter. Also a pilot, also on Bonanza.

Yeah, the snippet in question does use the word "pilot" in two senses, but the author was a pilot (and the book is nominally about flying, though doubles as an autobiography) and the author had soloed but not yet passed the private pilot check ride by the time of the first Star Trek pilot.

This wasn't Nimoy's autobiography. Not sure when Nimoy got his certficate, but I think well after 1964.

Need more hints?

 

[Jim Logajan]

Majel Barrett?

No. Did she ever get a pilot certificate?

 

[Jim Logajan]

So, not Jeffrey Hunter?

Sorry - no. Sadly he died rather young.

 

[Jim Logajan]

What I meant was that quote referred to the pilot only, and not the series. So I started thinking of Pike, as he did not come with Roddenberry to the series.
And I can't see GR personally recruiting minor characters (could be wrong, though).

It's a big hint and a way to mess with my hope of making this a long thread, but I will say the person only appeared in the first pilot. And as I said, it wasn't Hunter.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Another snippet from the book, written by the author/pilot who appeared in the first Star Trek pilot. In this case the pilot is taking off from an airfield in a Greenland fjord while flying solo across the North Atlantic in a single engine airplane - and happens to be launching into low ceilings bound for Iceland with another single engine plane; the geography and weather requiring a circling climb to hopefully clear skies:
'I monitor my instruments intently and rely on the indicated steady angle of bank and the revolving numbers to keep me turning and turning in the same tight pattern I began with.

Now I hear 39 Charlie come in load and clear. He has just taken off. For safety's sake we keep reporting our altitudes to each other as we make our climbing three-sixties. It's crowded in here! Although I can't see him, it's reassuring to hear his occasional voice.

Round and round and round. Then, Hosana! I break out of the thick fog, still circling.

But suddenly everything is socked in below and there is nothing now but a giant cloud bank sitting over where I've just come from, and endless sky around.

Oh, no!

I cannot believe it! Not only have I just lost all visual reference, but now, with sudden fear attacking me, I realize I've no radio beacons either. I suspected I might lose NA, which is so weak and unreliable, but surely the stronger Simiutak should be working! Alas, SI is nowhere to be found this morning. I check and check the radios. Nothing. Dead silence.

What should I do?

Think it out, Xxxx. There are two things to remember here. One is to get correctly launched on your heading of 114*. The second is to get to a safe altitude. The flight plan calls for a climb direct to cruise altitude of eleven-thousand feet. Though the terrain isn't that high right here, the chart reads - for the area just south of my route - "Peaks of 9,000 feet reported in this area."

[...]

There's nothing left to do now but fly by dead reckoning, right from the start.

It's back to fundamentals again. All right, so the radios don't work and I've even lost my helpful electric compass, fortunately I still have one primitive basic navigational instrument left, the plain old magnetic compass.'

 

[Jim Logajan]

Susan Oliver!

Damn, she was one hell of a flyer! Now I gotta go get the book.
What's the name of it?

DING DING DING!

You win! I am sending your prize via Neutrino Express.

Her book is no longer printed. It is "Odyssey - A Daring Transatlantic Journey".

I managed to snag a used copy from Goodwill Books on Amazon earlier this year - cost me something like $7 and another $7 for postage. But prior to that the only people selling were asking hundreds of dollars per copy. I was all set to simply go down to the local public library and check out a copy (which they allegedly have.) The day before I was going to do that I went to the Amazon web page to get the ISBN and was astounded to see Goodwill selling a used copy for a measly $7. Naturally I ordered it as fast as I could.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Susan Oliver!

Damn, she was one hell of a flyer! Now I gotta go get the book.
What's the name of it?

One other thing - there is an unlisted ~30 minute video on Youtube of a 1972 episode of "The American Sportsman" titled "Soaring at El Mirage in 1972" that chronicles her efforts to learn to fly gliders. It contains period commercials and such, but I thought it interesting to watch. (Nice contrast to the fictional characters she played.) Since it is unlisted I don't feel I should provide the URL publicly against the up-loader's wishes, but if you or anyone else would like to view it, ask me privately and I'll provide the link.

There is a public video of her in the Aero Commander 200 she flew across the Atlantic: