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6 days ago | 
aopa.org | Julie Summers Walker
Look familiar? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. This is Danielle Parton, niece to singer Dolly Parton, and she is an accomplished pilot and combat veteran.
They look alike and sound alike, but this Parton says her famous aunt does not like to fly. This Parton, however, loves to fly. “Piloting is the only thing I’ve ever truly loved,” she says. “I love everything about an airplane. I like the way they smell, the way they sound.
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6 days ago | 
aopa.org | Julie Summers Walker |Antoine de Saint-Exupery |A.J. Baime |Anne Millbrooke
Aviation novels and instructional books are a great part of your flying life—when you can’t be in the air, you can be in your reading chair living vicariously through the exploits of others or learning from their experiences and expertise.
We asked our AOPA pilots for their favorite books, and many cited the same works. Ernest K. Gann’s Fate Is the Hunter was a top pick.
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4 weeks ago | 
aopa.org | Julie Summers Walker
AOPA members can now book and manage all travel services at discounted rates, with no booking fees. Book discounted hotels, rental cars, and commercial airline tickets, all in one place with AOPA’s newest partner FlightBridge.
Julie Summers Walker
AOPA Senior Features Editor
AOPA Senior Features Editor Julie Summers Walker joined AOPA in 1998.
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4 weeks ago | 
aopa.org | Julie Summers Walker
Once upon a time in a world that today is hard to believe, a young pilot cut a hole in the underside of his airplane, fitted a transistor radio tucked inside that hole with a microphone, and flew over his fellow man, preaching and entreating them to come worship with him at his church alongside Lake Ontario in New York.
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1 month ago | 
aopa.org | Julie Summers Walker
As a little girl in rural Montana, aviation was simply a part of her life.
Julie Summers Walker
AOPA Senior Features Editor
AOPA Senior Features Editor Julie Summers Walker joined AOPA in 1998. She is a student pilot still working toward her solo.
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1 month ago | 
aopa.org | Julie Summers Walker
In 1981 Crow began acquiring hotel chains including Howard Johnson’s and Day’s Inn to become today one of the largest hotel franchises in the world. Wyndham has partnered with AOPA to offer exclusive members-only discounts at its thousands of hotels across 95 countries. The more than 9,200 hotels in the Wyndham franchise network include 25 brands such as Ramada, La Quinta, Trademark Collection, Wingate, and Registry Collection.
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1 month ago | 
aopa.org | Julie Summers Walker
Robert (Bob) “Rooster” Schmidle is a decorated Marine Corps lieutenant general, TopGun graduate, and, get this, he commanded the largest Marine Corps strike of Operation Desert Storm. That attack took place on the first night of the war, and he received the Distinguished Flying Cross with Combat V for valor.
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1 month ago | 
aopa.org | Julie Summers Walker
Cal Fire’s fleet of more than 60 fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft make it the largest civil aerial firefighting fleet in the world. These aircraft, pilots, and aviation support staff are located throughout the state at 14 air tanker bases, 10 Cal Fire helicopter bases, and the San Diego County Sheriff’s helitack base. The recent wildfires in Los Angeles and Ventura counties are some of the worst fires Cal Fire has been called upon to defeat.
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1 month ago | 
aopa.org | Julie Summers Walker
Harmon’s granddaughter, Erin Miller, launched a grassroots social media and lobbying campaign to get the decision reversed. Miller describes the successful outcome in her book Final Flight Final Fight: My Grandmother, the WASP, and Arlington National Cemetery and wrote a children’s book What Grandma Did about her grandmother. But Miller herself was not a pilot until a chance conversation with aerobatic pilot Patty Wagstaff that prompted Miller to start flight training.
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2 months ago | 
aopa.org | Julie Summers Walker
That was my first thought when it was proposed that we fly across the state of North Carolina in search of the best barbecue. And when I say “no one cares,” I don’t mean that pork-eating carnivores don’t care about who has the best barbecue—oh, they do—but BBQ aficionados don’t care about what I think is the best barbecue. We needed an expert.
BBQ Destinations
Jim AuchmuteyOf course, Senior Photographer David Tulis knew a guy.
