Crazy in the Cockpit: A Novel

Kendra Davis falls in love with flying as a college student, but as she pursues a career as a professional pilot she faces harassment from instructors and fellow pilots in a male-dominated profession

No one ever would have predicted Randy Blume would become an airline pilot. Maybe a doctor, lawyer or journalist like the other nice, intellectual girls from the suburban New Jersey neighborhood where she lived until sixth grade, the American School in London which she attended in ninth grade, and Santa Fe Prep (in Santa Fe, New Mexico) from which she graduated in 1979 but not...a pilot.

Although her family denies genetic responsibility, Randy somehow developed an adventure gene. It happened her junior year in high school when she saw a brochure for Outward Bound and decided to enroll in one of their mountaineering courses. Never having spent a night in a tent, carried a backpack, or climbed a mountain, she found the expedition agonizing beyond her wildest dreams. But she completed the course, and the euphoria was so profound she began to seek other challenges. Challenges like climbing more rocks and mountains, racing on the downhill ski team, and finally, in her junior year of college, flying. Flying was terrifying. Flying was exhilarating. Flying was beautiful. And flying filled her mind and body in a way that made her feel more alive than ever before.

Which is why, after graduating from Wesleyan University in 1983, Randy moved to San Francisco, where she spent six months in flight school and the next two years as a flight instructor, charter pilot, and freight pilot. In 1986 she moved to Boston to fly for Business Express, a regional airline. In 1987 she was hired by Continental Airlines and spent two years based in Guam before returning to the Boston area and flying out of Newark. She eventually left Continental to be home with her son and to write.

No one is the least bit surprised that Randy is now a writer. The daughter of best-selling author Judy Blume, she grew up surrounded by books. From the time she could read, she devoured stacks of novels each week. From the time she could write, she kept journals and wrote short stories. She is never without a book in her backpack, and an exciting evening out is, to her, dinner and browsing in a bookstore.

And no one is surprised that Randy's first novel, Crazy in the Cockpit, is about a woman pilot. Even though she no longer flies professionally, her heart is still in the sky. And, if an airplane is passing overhead, she is definitely looking up.