title: Barnstormer Jim: and the Golden Age of Aviation
author: Al Christman
description: For most of his professional career, Al Christman was a writer and historian for the U.S. Navy. He retired as historian of Navy Laboratories. His books include "Sailors, Scientists and Rockets," "Grand Experiment at Inyokern," "Naval Innovators: 1776 to 1900" and "Target Hiroshima: Deak Parsons and the Creation of the Atomic Bomb." As a combat engineer in the 99th Infantry Division, Christman saw action in World War II in the Battle of the Bulge, Remagen Bridge and the Ruhr Pocket. He was commissioned in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and retired as major. He graduated from the University of Missouri with degrees in journalism and English and from California State Dominguez Hills in the humanities.
zlib_text: **Z.A. Maxfield, Josh Lanyon, Laura Baumbach**
  
  
  **Jumping Off**
  
  
  **Places**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## **Z. A. Maxfield**
  
  
  ### 56
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## **Because of the Brave**
  
  
  As if he needed one, Peter Hsu discovered another reason to hate flying
  
  
  commercial. The first, and most obvious, was that they wouldn’t let him jump
  out
  
  
  of the plane.
  
  
  He also hated being trapped into the tiny but affordable coach seats, even
  
  
  though he wasn’t the biggest guy in the world. A man needed breathing room. He
  
  
  was torn by his desire to watch the sky out the window and the need to
  establish
  
  
  his right to get up and move around the cabin from the aisle seat, something
  he
  
  
  hated to do over two sets of knees. He’d opted for the window today because
  fast
  
  
  moving clouds would be opening up to glimpses of cultivated green farmland.
  
  
  Since he was flying into Minnesota, the land of ten thousand lakes, it would
  look
  
  
  like someone dropped a mirror, the bright scattered bits and chunks blown all
  to
  
  
  hell on dark earth