I picked up my latest copy of Forbes (the subscription was free, and it will lapse soon, and I loathe the magazine in general) which contained the Spring 2000 issue of “Forbes FYI” which seems to be a lifestyle magazine for the Forbes crowd.
Normally I just toss it, but emblazoned on the cover was “Flying With Jim Fallows.” A very entertaining article about learning to fly (for non-pilots). And he even snuck in a mention of the SR20 at the end. Good article, Jim!
Thanks, the story was a lot of fun to do – almost as much fun as the NYT Mag one.
Only two points of chagrin: 1) Much like the NYT piece, it had to shrink by about 40 per cent at the last moment, so many of my Deep Insights had to vanish; 2) I spent most of that flight, like most of all flights, smiling and feeling happy, but the photos managed to make me look furrow-browed and concerned, not to mention the charming shot-from-the-rear as I lean against the tow bar to drag the old spamcan out of its parking place. (Photos also give a little reminder of why it’s so easy to get IMC training in the Seattle area.) But I admit I’m having to search to find things to complain about. It is fun to write about this side of life. Jim F
Thanks, the story was a lot of fun to do – almost as much fun as the NYT Mag one.
Only two points of chagrin: 1) Much like the NYT piece, it had to shrink by about 40 per cent at the last moment, so many of my Deep Insights had to vanish; 2) I spent most of that flight, like most of all flights, smiling and feeling happy, but the photos managed to make me look furrow-browed and concerned, not to mention the charming shot-from-the-rear as I lean against the tow bar to drag the old spamcan out of its parking place. (Photos also give a little reminder of why it’s so easy to get IMC training in the Seattle area.) But I admit I’m having to search to find things to complain about. It is fun to write about this side of life. Jim F
Jim: I hesitate to ask this, lest I be unwittingly proposing a crass breach of journalistic etiquette, but would it be possible for you to share some or all of the “editted out” portions of those articles with us? Thanks in any case…Kevin
Thanks for asking, in principle I’d be happy to pass along the unexpurgated version of the story. It wasn’t cut for censorship reasons or anything – just at the last minute, several stories in the mag each had to become a page or two shorter, I think to fit in an extra story (maybe on Joseph Heller’s death?). In reality, I did the trimming in a fashion similar to the “audio compression” trick you hear about in radio, where you try to squeeze time out between words and even between syllables. The written counterpart is making each six-line paragraph four lines long, so what’s removed is a bunch of snippets that would look weird on their own.
I prefer to retain the air of mystery about the Lost Version of the Story, rather than puncture that illusion by showing what was actually taken out. (It did include a little more ranting about how cruddy today’s rental fleet is, though.)