Roger
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"Our sun is just a star. The stars are all suns too, with their own worlds to shine down on."
Male
63 years old
Sussex
United Kingdom
Last Login: 9/13/2008
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http://www.myspace.com/interstellarvoyager |
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Roger's Interests
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| General | Lots really, but things I keep coming back to after months or even years are writing, building homebuilt aircraft, flying light aircraft, Astronomy (I have a couple of reasonably large scopes - a 10" Newtonian I made myself and an 11" Celestron computer pointed monster.) Physics and Maths (I got a 1st class BSc honours degree with the OU, and I'm an associate member of the Institute of Physics) I try to keep up but the calculus is pretty rusty now. (Who am I kidding; It's gone!)
Latest craze is Diving. I've done 11 dives abroad, and I'm now halfway through a PADI course in UK. Since I only setup this site so that Xcite books could link to it I'd better say more about the writing. As I love SF and have a science and technology background, the obvious thing to try writing was 'Hard' SF. Running With the Stars AKA The Wrath of Sparta is a work in progress that has been 'running' 20 years - but it was just too raunchy for the Hard SF market last time I tried it. Now that my erotic short stories are generating interest, maybe it's time to give her another make-over. Running with the Stars is not just a metaphor - if you run against the spin of a rotating artificial gravity environment i.e. "with the stars" - you will fly weightless relative to your surroundings. RWTS is set aboard Sparta, a rotating space colony of terraformers taken over by religious fanatics. One of my current erotic short stories The Examiner, is a spinoff from RWTS, and another, The Hole in The Oak-Panelled Wall is classic time-travel SF. SF and erotica can combine nicely imo, opening up plenty of interesting ideas. | | Music | I'm slowly getting fed up with the Moody Blues - not enough variety. Still love the Beatles - plenty of variety there. Best song ever? Probably Lennon's Imagine - the words are just sublime.
My youngest daughter keeps me listening to modern music. Quite like Gorillaz and Snow Patrol. I'd better not mention that when I was flying for my living it was difficult to keep me from singing Karaoke, notably at the infamous "Truck" of Narita, Tokyo. The Truck is/was a marvellous, airline-crew only portacabin in the carpark of the ANA hotel, graced with open-air urinals and aircrew from every corner of the globe. A real-life Starwars bar!
| | Movies | Best film ever has to be Alien. It's just the incredibly accurate atmosphere of a working crew in a realistic lived-in craft. Ms Weaver is gorgeous oc, but generally (as my stories might suggest) I like my women more voluptuous...
For sheer spectacle, the latest War of The Worlds with Tom Cruise justifies the term awesome. The way that Tripod erupted from the ground...
I loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy. All that Magic, yet no religion! Great!
| | Television | Ok, watched Frasier & Friends with my kids, but UK comedy... They have lost the plot.
Create your own visitor map!
| | Books | The 20 Partick O'Brian Sea Stories would be my "Desert Island" choice. The film Master and Commander conveys their flavour well. | | Heroes | Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future. Jeff Hawke, First citizen of the space age. British Strip cartoon heroes from the 50s and early 60s. A real-life Hero? Well, for sheer courage, my wife. She's put up with MS almost as long as she's put up with me. |
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Roger's Details
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| Status: | Married | | Here for: | Networking | | Orientation: | Straight | | Body type: | 5' 11" | | Religion: | Atheist | | Zodiac Sign: | Leo | | Children: | Proud parent | | Education: | Post grad | | Occupation: | Writer | | Income: | $75,000 to $100,000 |
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Roger's Companies
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British Airways
London, Heathrow UK
Captain
747 Fleet
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1966 - 2000
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Roger is in your extended network
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Roger's Latest Blog Entry
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Two stories in one Xcite book
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Yet more stories published by Xcite (Yawn...)
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Another story sold to Xcite Books!
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More naughty stories
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Nick's Restaurant, The Lord Nelson's House Hotel
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Roger's Blurbs |
About me:
(This goes on a bit!) Born a few days after the end of the first nuclear war, I moved around with my parents through about 15 different locations (and schools) before I was 15. This is what happens when you pick a Royal Marine Sergeant Major for your dad. But it was Dad’s 2nd career as a Navy recruiter that alerted him to the fact that I might be “Officer material” – RAF officer of course, as I had always been nuts about aeroplanes.
I passed pilot selection at Biggin Hill but got offered a Direct entry commission instead of a Cranwell officer’s career. (This may have been connected with my too honest responses when comparing my loyalty to the royal family against my own family!) Anyway, I went civil flying instead and in 1965 started at Hamble College of Air Training (now defunct).
I found the course tough – and lost a lot of friends and acquaintances along the way, mostly “chopped,” but one nice guy spun right into the deck whilst solo in his Chipmunk. Having scraped though Hamble, BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation - before it merged with BEA to form British Airways) was a young pilot’s heaven. I thrived in the real world of airline flying. Trained by the most pleasant and experienced flying instructors in aviation – ex wartime Lancaster bomber pilots, mostly, I jumped straight from 4 seat, twin piston-engined Apaches to 150 seat, 4 jet VC10s.
That started my 18,000 hour, 33 year “Golden” career in BA on VC10s, L1011s and various types of 747.
I had an 18 month break from 1980 when the VC10 was grounded due to it's poor economics. I started writing games and flight simulations, initially for another publisher, then founded my own software house, Doctor Soft. The best seller was "747" running on the Acorn BBC computer - it actually got to No1 in the Beeb charts for a few months. Then suddenly I had a flying slot again and went back to the real thing.
When I retired from BA in 2000, I decided to continue flying with a few "Cowboy Outfits" - passenger and freight outfits who accept older captains. That fizzled out late summer of 2005 shortly after my 60th birthday – not a coincidence! But I don’t regret that interesting career extension – when I visited those dodgy airfields, with dodgier freight or personnel, flying clapped-out Jumbos and carrying a case full of 100 dollar bills, it made me realise just how spoilt I’d been in BA all those years.
Oh yes, I almost forgot, I flew the last aircraft (an L1011 Tristar) to "escape" the 1990 Kuwait invasion. I passed the incoming 747 from UK an hour or two out (The one alleged to be full of SAS guys). The captain asked me if it was ok to land there. "Fine, no problem," I said... Well, it was when I left, honest Guv. (They had a rough time,and Sadam eventually blew up their empty jumbo.)
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Who I'd like to meet:
Isaac Asimov, but unfortunately he's dead and, like him, I don't believe in an afterlife. I have scores of his books, mainly non-fiction, science related. My favourites are his essay collections. A great man and a great explainer.
Who else? Richard Dawkins, perhaps. He seems to talk a lot of scientific sense when there is so much crap, superstition and mumbo-jumbo in this so-called age of reason. An age where otherwise intelligent young men can think that their god will send them to a literally fucking paradise for burning thousands of innocent people in a pair of skyscrapers. Oops! Started to rant a bit there! No wonder I have no friends...
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