On Top of the Clouds

About the Book

“On Top of the Clouds”

The Story of an Air Mail Pilot

by Charles Jamieson

The Twentieth Century is the century of manned flight. The Wright brother’s successful powered flight in 1903 marked the beginning of the development of the airplane and the airline industry, as we know it today. The pioneers persevered and by and large succeeded in proving manned flight to be a practical form of transportation.

“On Top of the Clouds” is a historical novel about flying and the pioneer pilots that made it possible. A blend of fact and fiction, it is a family saga story about pilots and their airplanes. This is the first volume of a trilogy that tells the story of a pioneer air mail pilot.

The complete story in three volumes, is the story of how the airline industry came into being and the pilots who proved, in spite of everything, that one could successfully fly from A to B with scheduled dependability. It tracks the evolution of the industry, from the early experimental efforts to harness the flying machine, to the present time.

The dreamers and the doers lived and died, pioneering the infant business of flying. The dream that the skeptics thought impractical. The dreamers succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. In doing so, countless airmen paid with their lives and fortunes.

This is the story of pilots who by guess and by God . . . and by the seat of their pants lived and died pioneering a dream that has evolved into mass transportation throughout the world. The Brattson family was involved, from the beginning of the Twentieth century, to the end.

Steve Brattson, oldest son of a pioneering family that settled in Indian Territory before Oklahoma became a state, is mesmerized by the image of the early flying machines that fly like the eagles. He and his two brother’s dream of flying, stimulated by reports of the flying machine, and its development into a war machine in the First World War. Their hopes and dreams come to fruition in the postwar barnstorming days of the 1920’s. Coming from a hard scrabble childhood, Steve Brattson wanted to fly like the eagles. He became an airmail pilot. By guess and by God, and by the seat of their pants, he and his colleagues learned the way. The traveling public is the beneficiary.

About the Author

The author, C. H. Jamieson, is the son of a pioneer air mail pilot. His father and two uncles pioneered in carrying the mail in the days of by guess and by God by the seat of their pants, with little more expertise than determination to get the mail through. Jamieson grew up under the wing of a Curtiss Jenny in the barnstorming days of the twenties and learned to fly in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Jamieson began airline service as a co-pilot for Braniff Airways in 1948, flying the Douglas DC-3, and retired as a Senior Captain flying the Boeing 747 over routes to Europe, the Pacific, and South America. He and his wife, Nelda Jean, have two sons who are Captains flying for Federal Express, one based in Anchorage, Alaska, the other in Memphis, Tennessee. Another son lives in Boulder, Colorado. They have seven grandchildren.