You're contacting media contact of this press release

Title: Burning Desire to Fly Heads to the London Book Fair with Explora Books, Marking Charles Cone’s 100th Year

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 21st Jan 2026 - Cone’s memoir does not read like a final statement. It reads like a record of staying with something for a lifetime. Born in 1926 and raised in rural New York during the Great Depression, he did not grow up close to airplanes or opportunity. What he had was a steady idea of flight, formed through radio shows, popular stories, and the distant sight of early aviators. Even when money, health, and circumstance stood in the way, he kept moving toward that goal. Those efforts carried him into World War II as a Navy aviation cadet, then through Korea, the Cold War, and active service in Vietnam, followed by decades of military and civilian flying. Cone writes about these years with a calm, careful voice. He describes carrier landings, long patrol flights, and aircraft that demanded focus at all times. He also recounts moments when things went wrong—engines failing, weather closing in, instruments losing their meaning. The tension in these scenes comes from their simplicity: a person, a machine, and the need to make the next right choice. The book also looks outward. Cone writes about postwar Asia with clear eyes, noting poverty, political violence, and the uneasy rebuilding that followed global conflict. He writes about the Cuban Missile Crisis from the base level, where planes waited and people prepared without knowing how events would turn. These passages widen the memoir beyond one career into a view of history lived from inside. Family life runs alongside every chapter. Cone’s wife, Jo, and their children carried the weight of constant movement and long separations. Their reflections later in the book give the story a second voice, one shaped by patience, worry, and loyalty. After retiring from the A...

This press release is issued by King Newswire