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Consulting Editor
 Russell Munson is a freelance photographer and writer who has been contributing to Flying magazine for some 40 years. He wanted to fly for as long as he can remember, and knew by age 14 that he would spend his life making photographs. In fact, his first photographs with the family Kodak at age 12 were of airplanes.
After getting his private pilot license 45 years ago, Russ combined his two loves of flight and photography by specializing in aviation photography. He went on to earn his commercial, multiengine, instrument and DC-3 type ratings and has over 4,500 hours, much of it in his beloved 1962 Piper Super Cub that was his companion for 37 years, and a delightful Beech Bonanza V35 he owned for 10 years. Much to his surprise, Russ succumbed to the siren call of a new love after writing and photographing a Flying article on the improved Aviat Husky for the February 2006 issue. He now owns a 2006 A-1B-180 and has to be forcibly pried out of it by his wife at meal times.
Russ wrote and photographed his book, Skyward: Why Flyers Fly, took all the photographs for Richard Bach's classic book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and produced a DVD, Flying Route 66, which he wrote, photographed and narrated.
For Russ, the main purpose of an airplane is not to go from A to B, but simply to go up, providing its pilot with a sense of freedom unknown on the ground.
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Tom Benenson, who has logged more than 3,500 hours in general aviation airplanes, began flying as a high school student. He took his first lesson in 1958 in a J-3 Cub at Maryland's College Park Airport. He eventually soloed in an Aeronca Champ at Rock Country Airport while a student at Beloit College in Wisconsin. After spending some time in graduate school and the army, Tom earned his private pilot license at New Jersey's Morristown Municipal Airport, going on to earn his commercial certificate with multiengine and instrument ratings and his instructor, instrument instructor and advanced ground instructor ratings.
