This Pilot’s Tune: Nancy in the Sky With Misgivings

First requirement for travel is a good companion.

Peter Garrison

Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 07:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

Nancy Salter and FLYING contributing editor Peter Garrison in 1976 [Courtesy: Peter Garrison]

Key Takeaways:

The article chronicles the author's decades-long flying adventures with his partner, Nancy, commencing in 1967, detailing her enduring, though often reluctant, presence on numerous flights, including challenging international journeys.
Despite a deep-seated fear of flying and a tendency to anticipate catastrophe, Nancy consistently accompanied the author for over a quarter-million miles, demonstrating remarkable courage through mechanical failures, severe weather, and long-haul travel.
Following critical incidents and over time, Nancy's reluctance to fly intensified, eventually leading her to cease participating in the author's aerial pursuits, prompting his reflection on their contrasting experiences of their shared adventures.

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I first saw Nancy Salter in the kitchen of a dilapidated three-decker in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in summer 1967.

The only utensils in the kitchen were a few wrenches scattered around somebody’s partially dismantled motorcycle. We didn’t talk then, but I worked up the courage to call her the next day—quite a trick, for me—and ask her to a movie. In spite of her having to get up early the next morning to catch the first of three buses for work at the Winchester Star, she consented.