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  Air Born: Two Generations in Flight (Davis)

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Author Topic:   Air Born: Two Generations in Flight (Davis)
DavidH
Member

Posts: 1272
From: Huntsville, AL, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted 02-17-2023 03:14 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for DavidH   Click Here to Email DavidH     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
From the Astronaut Jan Davis Facebook page:
Exciting news! I have a book deal for my book "Air Born", which will hopefully be published this summer. It is about my father, who was a B-17 pilot and POW in WWII, and about me. The intersection of our lives in aviation is an interesting story!
I talked to Jan earlier today and she said she'd just submitted the first draft of the manuscript to the publisher.

Robert Pearlman
Editor

Posts: 51242
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 07-02-2023 02:16 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Air Born: Two Generations in Flight
by Jan Davis
Two aviators making history. Two Americans serving their country. One incredible story spanning fifty years and two generations.

Ben Smotherman, a B-17 pilot in World War II, valiantly fought in the European Theater of Operations before being shot down over Holland in July 1943. After enduring twenty-one months as a prisoner of war, he was finally reunited with his loved ones and was able to start a family. Years later, after perusing his Wartime Log, his daughter Jan made discoveries about her father's experiences that shed light on her own life path. As a Space Shuttle astronaut, Jan Davis went through intensive training, flew NASA jets, and completed three spaceflights, spending over 673 hours on orbit. Her experiences and emotions during her launches and space travel echoed those of her father during his combat missions, highlighting the unshakable bond between father and daughter.

With "Air Born," you can join in on a flight through history as Jan Davis relates her father's heroic service and draws connections between his combat missions and her own spaceflights. Discover the ins and outs of pilot training in the 1940s alongside Ben Smotherman and bear witness to his harrowing capture, interrogation, and imprisonment at Stalag Luft III. Rejoice with the POWs as World War II finally ends and the prisoners are returned home to continue pursuing their life's goals. Shadow Jan Davis as she expertly navigates a career characterized by space exploration, scientific experimentation, and phenomenal feats of engineering. And draw inspiration from the intersection of two completely different yet uniquely connected worlds brought together by a common link of family and flying.

  • Hardcover, 336 pages
  • Ballast Books (September 26, 2023)
  • ISBN-10: ‎1955026769
  • ISBN-13: ‎978-1955026765

Philip
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Posts: 6228
From: Brussels, Belgium
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 08-07-2023 03:07 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Philip   Click Here to Email Philip     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Very interesting, thanks for sharing!

Marwin2
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Posts: 174
From:
Registered: Oct 2006

posted 10-24-2023 06:46 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Marwin2   Click Here to Email Marwin2     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Interestingly, Jan Davis in her book does not mention that on her mission STS-47 she flew with her second husband, astronaut Mark Lee. There was a lot of speculation on this topic back then in the media. In the entire book, the author mentioned Mark Lee only twice, and there is not one word about this marriage. This was the first and only simultaneous spaceflight of spouses.

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