Walt McDonald: Served in the USAF as a pilot flying T-34, T-28, B-25, T-33, and T-39 aircraft. During his career he served briefly in Vietnam in 1969-70. He also taught English at the USAF Academy and received a Ph.D. from Iowa between tours at the Academy. He was the Texas State Poet Laureate for 2001 and Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of English and Poet in Residence at Texas Tech University. He’s published eighteen collections of poems and one book of fiction with publishers including Harper & Row and such university presses as Massachusetts, North Texas, Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Pittsburgh. He has published more than 1,900 poems of which 120 are specifically about flight. Six of his poems are included in this anthology. Dr. McDonald wrote more aviation poems than any other poet I’ve come across. Further information about Walt is available at his home page: http://english.ttu.edu/faculty/McDonald/