By: Fader, Sunny, Huntley, Edward (Ted)
ISBN: 978-0-88839-550-4
Binding: Trade Paper 
Size: 8.5" X 5.5"
Pages: 184
Photos: 21
Illustrations: 1
Publication Date: 2004

PHOTO Highlights: 8 page color & b/w photo section.

Description: The Adventures of a Fledgling Bush Pilot in the 1950s. A memoir. An adventure tale. It is the spring of 1951 and a twenty-year-old pilot named Ted Huntley begins his initiation into the world of bush flying, realizing a boyhood dream. It is by a stroke of luck that he becomes a last-minute replacement in a team of bush pilots headed for Alaska to work for the Coast and Geodetic Survey, which has the daunting task of mapping the territory of Alaska. The youngest in a team of seasoned pilots, Ted's journey unfolds over two summers in Alaska, as he hauls surveyors and their equipment in a brand-new Super Cub. But it takes one more summer to complete his education, this time in British Columbia, flying men and equipment off and on a glacier for a prospecting company. Land Here? You Bet! is a true coming-of-age adventure tale and provides an entertaining primer on bush flying, but it is also a story about having the courage to reach for your dreams. Ted's story is not just an inspiration to aspiring pilots; it's an inspiration to dreamers everywhere reaching for their own stars.

 

Sunny Fader, BA, is a freelance writer currently residing in Los Angeles, California. For the past fifty years, she has worked as an editor and writer in print, and a writer and field producer in video, television and radio. While in recent years, her career has been devoted to documenting the struggle of children and families in Third World countries, this story of her friend, Ted Huntley, is especially close to her heart. She hopes that readers of this book will find as much inspiration in Ted's amazing tale as she has.

British Columbia History Vol. 38 No. 4 2005 
Mike Higgs, retired Canadian Pacific pilot 

Land Here? You Bet! Is the work of Sunny Fader, a professional author and writer in many fields. She was a friend of the Huntley family for five years before the death of Edward Huntley in 1996. He was then a retired Captain of Delta Airlines, and his story, told in her words, is a zestful and evocative return to the days of basic bush-flying in the early fifties. 

Here is the case where enthusiasm became almost obsession, and the narrative carries us smoothly from the teen-ager working long, long hours to pay for his flying lessons, to the skilled and experienced arctic pilot of a few years later. The adventures are colorful, as are the excellent illustrations, and they follow each other like beads on a string: unexpected landings in the wilderness, contract flying for the Coast and Geodetic Survey, adventures with bear and moose, helicopters and storms, appalling weather and engine problems, fuel shortages and breakdowns. The almost boyish good nature of the young pilot, and the first-rate detail in the story, are fascinating. Read this? You bet!