Don Ledger

Riding The Fire Don Ledger

Riding The Fire is the biography of businessman, David McCulloch. One reviewer wrote of this book, "Holy crap. You've got more lives than a cat. This book is awesome...you're something else, David McCulloch." McCulloch uses his skills as a pilot to make his fortune and grab adventure where he finds it. With nearly ten thousand hours in his pilots logbook-a feat in itself-and several dozen aircraft purchased over the last 50 years he lives to fly and flies to live. He is comfortable flying propeller driven or jet powered aircraft. He has used a light, twin-engine, propeller powered aircraft to achieve world record flights; his most spectacular being a Cessna 414 which he used to fly westward around the world. Imagine flying over 1,900 nautical miles from San Jose, California to Hawaii with an aircraft only onr-third that distance, overloaded with extra fuel. Basically a flying bomb. Then repeating this feat several times as you hopscotched several more times from Hawaii to the Marshall Islands to Australia, to Asia, to India the dangerous Middle East and across the Atlantic, to Nova Scotia and then home. McCulloch cut his teeth on flying sales trips into Canada's Yukon, North West Territories and Alaska in a Cessna 150 and a Cardinal. Not content with that he used his planes in South America. He flew across the Atlantic via Labrador, Greenland, Iceland to England so he'd have the aircraft to travel around Europe; London, Paris, Spain, Rome and then Africa. He stacked up over 180 countries in his travels. Then he thought it would be a good idea to circle the North Pole. All of his trials and tribulations are related in this biography that reads more like a novel; a rags to riches saga. From small prop planes to fighter and business jets. McCulloch always reaches out for the next business or flying adventure. His life is one of escapism from the bindings of normal everyday living.