Episode 173 – Jamie Dodson Knows Nick Grant

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Nick Grant adventures by Jamie Dodson

Guest Jamie Dodson, is author of the Nick Grant adventure novel series, including Flying Boats & Spies, and China Clipper. Jamie is a Technology Protection Officer for the Security and Intelligence Division, US Army, Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center (AMRDEC), Intelligence Division. He has over 30 years of experience in Intelligence Operations for the US Military. He’s served with Special Operations, Army Aviation, Airborne Infantry, and Military Police and has worked operations all over the world.

The week’s aviation news:

In this week’s Australia Desk report: Grant assumes high office, Virgin Australia introduces business class, Qantas announces A380s on the Sydney – Hong Kong route, Strategic Airlines re-brands as Air Australia, 3rd KC30A tanker enters RAAF service, they hijack Grill The Geeks!

Find the boys down under at the Plane Crazy Down Under podcast, and follow the show on Twitter at @pcdu. Steve’s at @stevevisscher and Grant at @falcon124.

This week on Across the Pond, Pieter welcomes back Gareth Stringer and Tim Robinson as they continue their conversation from last week and talk about the new proposed Register in the Channel Islands and the good friends at Ryanair. Find Gareth at www.globalaviationresource.com and Tim at www.aerosociety.com.

Mentioned in the episode:

Follow the @AirplaneGeeks on Twitter and on Facebook, send us email at thegeeks@airplanegeeks.com, or leave a message on our listener line: (361) GEEKS01.

Opening and closing music is provided by Brother Love from the Album Of The Year CD. You can find his great music at http://www.brotherloverocks.com/.

10 thoughts on “Episode 173 – Jamie Dodson Knows Nick Grant”

  3. Alex

    Max, it was a question posed by PCDU on this episode hijack “Grill the Geeks”
    Cheers
    Alex from China

  4. Turb Coriolis

    Great episode, and great to hear from Jamie Dodson. I’ve read his books and love them. Amazing to hear that the historical events upon which the books are based really happened (who knew the Clipper flying boats were so close to being sabotaged?).

    With regard to the listener mail question on eBooks… we recently came across an excellent eBook about Cal Rodgers, who was the first guy to fly across the USA. It was a difficult trip in 1911, resulting in Cal crashing his Wright Flyer (known as the Vin Fiz)… 16 times!

    It’s a great read and, as an eBook, only costs 4 bucks. Thanks to author Bob Boyles.

    Here’s the Amazon link to “Crashing Coast to Coast” by Bob Boyles:
    http://www.amazon.com/Crashing-Coast-ebook/dp/B005N047SS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319856159&sr=8-1

    And here’s the Junior Flyer page on Cal Rodgers:
    http://www.juniorflyer.com/posts/1911-cal-rodgers-first-trans-usa-flight/

  5. Brian Lusk

    Jamie’s discussion about the Pan Am clippers is fascinating. A couple of corrections. “Clipper Cove” was not at Alameda; Pan Am service moved to Treasure Island concurrently with the 1939 World’s Fair at the same location, Clipper Cove is the area between the man-made Treasure Island and the natural Yerba Buena Island. Clipper Cove still exists and is home to small boats. Even more importantly, the Pan Am terminal and hangars still exist.

    One other point of of clarification: China Clipper was one of 3 Martin M-130 Flying Boats operated by Pan Am between SF and Manila. China Clipper flew the first schedule transpacific mail service in 1935, but the first passenger flight was operated by the Philippine Clipper in 1936. The third M-130 was the Hawaii Clipper. Because of the publicity given to that first airmail flight and the evocative name, most people use China Clipper for the other two aircraft. The lion’s share of Pan Am’s clipper operation would be taken over by the longer range Boeing 314 flying boat. The first 314, Honolulu Clipper entered service in January 1939 on the SF to Hong Kong flight. 314s also operated PanAm’s transatlantic service, starting in June of the same year.

  8. Brian Lusk

    Jamie,
    that’s a great photo. Didn’t they build the Alameda Naval Air Station on that site? I had heard that somewhere.

  9. Jamie Dodson

    Brian,

    Yes, there’s a plaque supposedly where the 1st M-130′, the China Clipper actual, left on November, 22, 1935. Hard to tell – lots of concrete. Great museum too.

    Cheers! Jamie

  10. Dan W

    On aviation ebooks, there are also a few free options out there…

    NASA released a handful of aviation ebooks in various formats:

    http://www.aeronautics.nasa.gov/ebooks/index.htm

    If you don’t mind a bit older language, you can find books whose copyright has expired on Project Gutenberg:
    http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search.html/?query=airship
    http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search.html/?query=aviation
    http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search.html/?query=aeroplane
    http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search.html/?query=airplane

    A couple notables from there:
    The Early History of the Airplane by Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright – http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25420

    Aviation in Peace and War by Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes – http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25244

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