Words on Wings Press LLC

11/22/2024

10/30/2024

Although there’s no mention of Captain Don McVicar or Captain Jesse Stallings racing their deHavilland Mosquitoes in the Bendix, this is indeed the year, 1948, in which they were entered, and described in “Mosquito Racer” and “More Than a Pilot,” both now available as ebooks and paperbacks on Amazon. A real treat to watch!

This vintage film "Pylon Dusters 1948" presents the National Air Races at Cleveland, Ohio beginning with the Bendix trophy race. It is presented by Kendall R...

10/20/2024

Sure made my day to see this! I've made a little montage of screenshots of Dad's book, "A Railroad from the Sky" discovered today on Amazon. "Best Seller Rankings" are everything in this world, and considering that many books are stuck with a number in the millions, to be ranked at less than half a million indicates it's selling. But even better to me is that it's ranked at only #29 in 20th Century Canadian History, and at only #63 in Canadian Historical Biographies. Took me forever to type in the +100,000 words, scan and place the photos and lay out the 273 pages, but totally worth it for the treasure trove of fascinating stories. Not just all the good airplane stuff, but his romance with his favorite copilot, my mom Loretta, how they got married and their honeymoon in which they flew their single-engine Bonanza from Montreal across Canada, 12,000 feet over the Rockies and all the way south to San Francisco, coming back by way of Nashville where they visited Jesse Stallings, owner of Capitol Airways. And of course, he tells the important story of one of the world's great airlifts to build a railroad into the wilds of northern Quebec to mine essential iron ore. More valuable and useful than gold! Dad's airline, World-Wide Airways, helped to build it. This is also when he bought an abandoned Lancaster bomber and made it into an oil tanker.
So it does indeed deserve pride of place in the top 100 of Canadian history! Good job, Captain Don McVicar, OBE!

09/30/2024

In his book, “More Than a Pilot,” Capt. McVicar wrote an interesting chapter about Howard Hughes, who was his contemporary.

The cockpit of the crashed XF-11 highlights how fortunate Howard Hughes was to survive. He crawled through the melted Plexiglas, helped by nearby residents who saw the crash. Notably, the XF-11 featured a 350-pound (159 kg) armored seat, cockpit armor, and self-sealing fuel tanks.

Win our RARE WW2 Willys Jeep! Enter the competition here: https://historiaprizedraw.com/products/win-a-rare-1941-willys-slat-grille-jeep

09/27/2024

Apologies for the not-great photo of World-Wide Airways C-46 CF-IQQ, working in the Arctic on the DEW Line in 1956. When my dad, Don McVicar, wrote his final book in his aviation memoirs, "Through Cuba to Oblivion," he adhered the original photo into the master manuscript kept with the printing company and the copy of his book that I have has only the photocopy of this important and historic photo. And then I scanned in this historic photo to use in the paperback I just published! I'm sorry if the foregoing is confusing! But Dad was not only an aviation pioneer, he was a self-publishing pioneer too. In both parts of his life, he was creative, determined, and relentless.
Anyway, I wanted to write a bit about this particular aircraft, because I've grown quite fond of her.
WWA was working on the DEWLine, eventually flying over 5,000,000 miles and carrying about 50% of the freight, and needed rugged and reliable aircraft. Dad bought CF-IQQ in Jan. 1956 from L.B. Smith in Miami for $168,057.80 and had her and CF-IQJ (same price!) turned into "Super-T Cats" with special features to handle the extreme conditions of the high Arctic; this was in his book "Distant Early Warning." https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DGGV5LDJ
IQQ became a true-blue workhorse; she even survived being hit by a "dumb Wheeler Airlines pilot" trying to land a DC-4 carrying 9 tons of dynamite as IQQ with Tommy Wong at the helm sat innocently on the runway at Val D'Or!
She made Canadian aviation history by carrying the replacement wing for a WWA DC-3, CF-JNN, from Dorval to the Arctic, strapped to her belly.
She was given a special Inuit name written on her nose with mystic symbols during Dad's Charctic Lodge misadventure on Baffin Island in 1959.
When Dad made a contract with Fidel Castro to fly essential supplies such as tens of thousands of yeeping baby chicks from Toronto to Havana, CF-IQQ was first to carry out the mission. When the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba jolted the world, IQQ and her pilots Guy Larose and Ron Lippert were all detained for a week while the rumors flew and headlines were screaming. I wonder what the Cubans thought of the mystic Inuit symbols?
I am seriously thinking about writing up a more detailed history of this remarkable aircraft. She deserves it. I feel very strongly that I must have flown on her as a small child, so perhaps that's why I have developed such fondness for the old gal. Who I believe ended her days in South America...
To learn more about CF-IQQ and the hard-working airplanes of World-Wide Airways, Inc., both "Distant Early Warning" and "Through Cuba to Oblivion" are now available on Amazon as both Kindle ebooks and paperbacks.
As Dad would say, good reading to you! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DH2SP1Y5

09/22/2024

Bound to be a gorgeous book!

Canada’s Aviation Book of the Year !

The Royal Canadian Air Force: 100 Years of Service
Volume 1, By Larry Milberry and Hugh A. Halliday

The RCAF’s 1924-2024 Centennial is being highlighted by airshows, dedications, commemorative coins and book launches. Adding to the list and having produced the RCAF 60th Anniversary history in 1984, CANAV Books is pleased to introduce its 2-volume Centennial set, The Royal Canadian Air Force: 100 Years of Service.

Beautifully produced, Volume 1 of “100 Years” begins with Canada’s earliest aerial experiments, covers WWI where Canadians excel in the air, then moves to formation of the RCAF in 1924. The RCAF gains renown on training, forestry, fisheries photography and mapping duties, and daunting northern expeditions. Like today’s Snowbirds, its “Siskins” demo team spotlights the small but impressive RCAF.

Our story moves through the 1930s, when the RCAF modernizes just as war erupts again. Vol.1 covers all this from the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan to the U-boat war plus everything overseas from the Battle of Britain to the Far East. All the action and heroism are here, much detail for the first time. With war’s end, the RCAF shrinks to a shadow of its wartime self, but new world troubles arise -- a hint of things to come in Volume 2 (1946-2024), which is taking shape “as we speak”. “100 Years” is based on official RCAF records, aircrew logbooks, scrapbooks, photo albums, published histories and interviews. Anyone keen on our military heritage will revel in this incomparable tribute to the RCAF’s Centennial!

Specifications (Volume 1)
• 384 pages, 9 x 12 inches hardcover • ISBN 978-0-921022-46-6
• Dust jacket, 20 chapters, 300,000 words
• Retail price $75.00 + shipping and tax
• Maps, Glossary, Bibliography, Index

Ordering ...
1) Order your book from canavbooks.com
https://canavbooks.com/rcaf100v1/

2) Pay to [email protected] with PayPal or Interac

3) Mail your order with cheque or MO to:
CANAV Books, 51 Balsam Ave., Toronto, Ontario M4E3B6

Contact CANAV
Tel: (416) 698-7559
Email: [email protected]
Blog: www.canavbooks.wordpress.com

09/21/2024

Thanks for the birthday wishes! As some of you know, my late husband Tom Kazo and I shared September 21st as our birthday, so of course I am thinking about him today. That's our 1992 "Mom & Tom" birthday cake made by my small daughters Christianna and Jamie. What's different this year, is that I can read my memoir, "Tom Kazo and Me: Love, Strength, Miracles" with pride and relief that I captured not just our escapades, but his biography as well.
It's also the origin story of Wildlife Research Team; Tom's dream that helped him rise from what they told him would be his deathbed, that I helped make come true. And it explains just why I try so damn hard to keep it going.
However, one sentence in my chapter, "Do the Hard Thing First" kinda sums up the book: "His lust for adventure was going to lead to my watery demise." Several chapters end with, "and hey, I didn't die!" Remember this was a man who as a teenager won powerboat races at 100mph, was a Green Beret and combat policeman in Vietnam, a deputy sheriff in the roughest parts of Miami and then a senior detective in the Organized Crime Bureau who trained drug-sniffing dogs that were so successful he and his best dog, Trep, had a price on their head. So how did a man who'd once owned property in at least four countries become a homeless veteran in his early living in a locked ward with dementia patients? How did the most dangerous man I'd ever known become my loving soulmate?
And how did we end up sharing a canoe?
Perhaps I answered my questions in that chapter: "He believed in me." More than I did, myself. Tom Kazo empowered me, and I hope to do the same for others as long as I live.
Sorry if this is winding up to be a sales pitch, but yeah, you need to buy my book about me and this crazy amazing man who loved me so well. Who also loved animals and nature and worked until the end of his days to get people to understand why we all need to work together to save Mother Earth. Happy Heavenly Birthday, Tom!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D9YTGH69

09/18/2024

As some of you know, a few days ago I achieved a long-desired goal: to publish all nine of Dad's (Captain Don McVicar, OBE) books as paperbacks on the Amazon KDP print-on-demand platform. In February of this year I'd published them as ebooks which I call "Streamlined Editions" because of having to leave out some things, often because of formatting issues with "flowable" ebooks. So my new series of Don McVicar paperbacks is mostly based on my Streamlined Editions. And yes, I am tired, but very happy, because I did it!
However! For the paperbacks, I dove back into Dad's original books to be sure I wasn't missing anything. Like this one!
The photo is of John McGrail, World-Wide Airways General Manager, with our DC-3 CF-JIZ on skis, and is a lousy photo because it's a scan of a photocopy, which was all I had, in the pages of Dad's final installment, "Through Cuba to Oblivion." Although I vastly prefer to scan the original photos, this one is acceptable, because of its historical importance. How many DC-3s were put onto skis?
And it's also important because I now know for a fact I flew on this particular aircraft as a five-year-old child. All the way to Baffin Island, where Dad was a co-owner of "Charctic Lodge" which is also described in "Through Cuba." That was the kind of adventure even a little girl will never forget.
I also remember, as an adult, meeting Mr. McGrail, who served as Dad's radio operator in RAF Ferry Command on many a hairy mission. He was well-known for his wild sense of humor, although you can't tell from this photo! But he appears throughout the series and I am so glad, because they don't make guys like him any more. Or my dad, or a lot of the men who were Dad's aircrew and who deserve to be remembered for doing their bit to end the war.
Anyhoo, here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DH2SP1Y5

09/15/2024

Interesting headline about my dad, isn't it? It was in The Financial Post, Oct. 31, 1964. If you'd like to learn how things got this way, his book "Through Cuba to Oblivion: One Man Against Four Countries, The Battle to Save World-Wide Airways Inc." is now available as both a paperback and Kindle ebook!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DH2SP1Y5

09/14/2024

So as of late last night I fulfilled a promise I made to my dad. I have now published all NINE volumes of his memoirs on KDP in paperback and as Kindle ebooks, for the first time ever!!!
Don McVicar's books have been highly regarded by the aviation world ever since his first, "Ferry Command" was published in 1981. I was horrified, though, to see it full of typos and misspelled names, considering the publisher was a highly regarded firm in the UK and it was a hardcover! All corrected now, thanks to my perfectionism lol
Sure feels good to know my dad is smiling down on me. I am so proud of him for not only having survived what killed many others, but having the guts and perseverance to write it all down so well.
This last one, "Through Cuba to Oblivion," was the hardest for me, because it's when Dad's airline, World-Wide Airways, was fighting hard to keep flying. But he had four countries against him, including his native Canada. I was just an innocent child and unaware my life was about to be destroyed by the corrupt politicians in Ottawa who Dad refused to bribe. So...yes, I've shed many tears in this process...

Also, I now have 29 books for sale on Amazon, 26 of them published within the last 14 months! Ebooks, paperbacks, and a hardcover (my memoir that's also a biography of my late husband Tom Kazo). Just go to Amazon and type "Donna McVicar Kazo" into the search bar.
Now, back to fundraising for Wildlife Research Team...

09/09/2024

Sure made my day to go to my dad's book "Distant Early Warning" and find this review. Fourteen years of work on my part to bring his nine books back to the world, every second was worth it.
I mean, Don McVicar was my dad, warts and all, but it wasn't until I embarked upon this labor of love did I discover to others he was "a flying legend" among other accolades...

09/05/2024

Please welcome my new line of blank notebooks, created with a little nudge to help you remember the best things that drift through your mind every day! I'm so happy to have found a good way to use the amazing photos I took almost ten years ago of a skyfull of Altocumulus undulatus clouds, to use on the covers of my lined notebooks. Only $6.50, a convenient 6" x 9" for you to keep handy.

09/02/2024

Friends, hope you saw my previous post about my cloud photos. This is the second notebook I've published using one of them as its cover. The quality of the paper is very good, based on my own experience. My journal writing practice goes back 25 years, and it's a valuable tool for my creativity. But this 6" x 9" notebook is for YOU to keep handy to make note of your daydreams. Sure, you can jot them down in a dollar store notebook but something as precious as your daydreams deserves a beautiful container!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DFWQJT21

09/02/2024

Dear Friends, I have exciting news! Well, it was almost ten years ago that Christie called me on her way home from work to go outside and look at the sky. I grabbed my camera and was thrilled by what I saw: clouds which had been formed by winds aloft into long rows, almost like furrows in a plowed field. Later I learned these are called altocumulus undulatus. So for all these years, I wondered how best to share these photos.
Now, thanks to Amazon KDP, I have been doing it!
I've begun to create blank, lined notebooks to sell on-demand from Amazon, and my cloudscapes make perfect covers!
Your dreams deserve to be remembered, and now you have a beautiful notebook published by a small business for that purpose.
So here's its link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DFWBGHQ2

08/14/2024

Feeling the heat? Mid-August is the perfect time to read "Ferry Command Pilot" by Captain Don McVicar, OBE! The photo shows Capt. McVicar emerging from a tent during an Arctic survey flight for the RAF Ferry Command, after the two Norseman aircraft were forced to land in a blinding snowstorm. Thrill to chilling stories of PBYs and Lockheed Hudsons flying over the Greenland ice cap, making history as the first to use the secret Crimson Route to the U.K. via Iceland.
Even cooler: the price of the Streamlined Edition ebook of this classic aviation adventure has been reduced to $2.99!
"South Atlantic Safari," "North Atlantic Cat" and the six volumes of Capt. McVicar's highly regarded aviation memoirs fill out the Kindle Streamlined Edition at only $5.99 each!

08/12/2024

Only the one review so far, but it sure made me happy.