At a Mailbox Nearby
05/14/2006 It’s a welcome surprise. We’ve sold over 10% of the entire printing in the first 3 days. Thanks for your support! The intent from the beginning was to get the information out there and that is obviously happening.
Much of the initial rush is from instructors and resellers so it will decrease to a more sustainable level. Those first few days were hectic, to say the least. Thanks again.
It’s Here!
Updated 05/09/2006 The truck arrived at 9pm. It took 3 people and a rented tractor to get all 151 boxes of them into the warehouse, but they’re there! Shipping has commenced and, Lord willing, all advanced orders will be filled by the middle of next week. Thank you so much for your patience!
Progress Report
Updated 05/08/2006: The truck is in Pennsylvania and, barring disaster, will have arrived at the warehouse by the time you read this. Orders should start going out Wednesday or Thursday. Those patient souls who pre-ordered will, of course, go out first.
Thank you for your support!
Shipping
Updated 04/26/2006: For the first time, we have a planned ship date from the printer: May 5. They will take a week to arrive at the Pennsylvania warehouse and then filling of orders will begin. Once they are actually at the warehouse, we will again start taking advanced orders on this website. The introductory price will remain in effect for now.
Thanks for your patience!
Shipping
Updated 04/12/2006 Pilots got their first look at the book during Florida’s National PPG convention, run by Scott Adair. The picture at right shows the first time any of us got to see the books. After Scott teased me with the box, we opened it and it was fun to lay eyes on the first two laser printed samples. They look great! Of course the finished product will look better because it’s being done on higher quality paper using a 4-color ink process–much nicer than laser.
Close inspection did reveal quality issues with some of the pages referencing sectional charts. These are extremely important pages and, given some of the small print, they must be readable. There were 4 pages that wound up needing to be redone, a process that took us over 30 hours. The charts had changed and so some text had to be changed or moved. The charts were re-scanned at higher resolution and color enhanced to aid clarity. If it takes a magnifying glass, you better have clarity! Plus the color separations on the earlier pages was diffuse and it was difficult to tell magenta from blue–a critical distinction. The corrections and approved proofs have now been sent to the printer and, theoretically, actual printing should be underway.
Printing and binding take two weeks. Then, if the truck doesn’t run off the road, they’ll be in the warehouse in Pennsylvania by April 28 and start shipping out right away.
Thanks so much for everyone’s patience.
Updated 03/02/2006 The printing process is underway! We are told that it should be 3 weeks to get the books produced and another week to get them delivered to the Sport Aviation Publications warehouse in Pennsylvania. Shipping will occur immediately for advance orders. Thank you, oh patient ones.
This is the home stretch and a significant turn in that there is nothing else to be done beyond waiting ’til they arrive. The books are being printed on 60# high-quality paper with 4-color process throughout.
Updated 02/17/2006 After intensive efforts and a marathon session with Dennis Pagen, the PPG Bible is finished and press-ready files produced. The originally planned printer was not able to produce the 4-color work desired and so a new printer is being sought. That should take about a week and then it will be however long it takes to get them printed and delivered to the warehouse. Sport Aviation Publications is handling all distribution.
This website will have a section devoted to readers of the book and contain more up-to-date information that was not available at press time.
Updated 11/25/2005 Final editing is now well underway, a process that is making enormous improvements in several areas. One is from someone who is familiar with aviation (you’ll see who when it comes out) but is not an expert on the subject of PPG. She IS an expert with words, having an English major and having spent portions of her former life as a newspaper writer. Anything not clear gets tagged and rewritten (frequently using her suggestions). Then it goes to Dennis who knows both words and content. It’s amazing to me how much better each chapter is when this process is complete.
Several chapters also went to people who are familiar with certain aspects of the sport that I am not. They helped make those chapters much, much better.
See the current table of contents at left and sample chapter. The sample chapter (6: Trike Flying) is one of the book’s shortest chapters, Trike flying. It has undergone most editing now and is in a near final form.