Rod Lewin, one of our former instructors, who was with HPA from 2000 through 2003, has returned after many travels which have taken him and his wife Marshal, from Australia to the Caribbean, from Wisconsin to Greece, from Florida to Alaska and finally back to Texas.

Rod was an MD-80 ground school and simulator instructor with American Airlines during 2001. He was laid off after 9/11, but he remained with HPA until the end of 2003, when he decided to return to his native Australia for a time. While there, he flew Caravan and turbine Otter amphibians for a friend and mentor, who had taught him to fly floatplanes more than thirty years ago. In September 2005, he married his bride Marshal, who is from Dallas, when she joined him in Western Australia. After two years ‘Down Under,’ Rod accepted a position as the assistant chief pilot of a start-up floatplane operation in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, again flying Caravan amphibians.

However, after only a year, the company was forced out of business by an already well-established seaplane commuter in the Virgin Islands. Then, in January 2008, Rod was hired by SC Aviation of Janesville, Wisconsin, as a type rated co-captain on Hawker 700/800s.

But in December of that year he again found himself out of work as the country – and in particular – the corporate jet business, went into a deep recession! Six months later, in the middle of 2009, he was hired as the chief pilot of another start-up seaplane operation in Volos, Greece. This time, he thought, he had found the ‘perfect retirement job’, flying a single turbine Otter from the harbor in Volos, to Athens, Thessaloniki, and the nearby Sporades Islands. So Rod and Marshal again packed up everything and headed for Greece.

Again, after a wonderful year in Greece, their dreams were shattered when the company, along with the rest of the country spiraled into bankruptcy, and Rod and Marshal returned to the U.S., where he was hired by a small overnight airfreight company based in Tampa, Florida. But by now, seaplanes were in his blood again, so in April this year he accepted a seasonal job in Juneau, once more flying the venerable single turbine Otter.

Rod and Marshal have just returned from Juneau, and of course, one of the first things on Rod’s agenda was to come visit us. We are glad to see them both back in the Dallas area, and to welcome Rod back to Higher Power as one of our instructors.

“Today, my friends, we each have one day less, every one of us. And JOY is the only thing that slows the clock.” Travis McGee, in THE SCARLET RUSE by John D. MacDonald, 1973.

“And JOY, my friends, is the trademark and keyword of Higher Power Aviation, and I can think of no better place to spend my ‘real’ retirement,” said Rod on his return to HPA.

FOOTNOTE: Rod’s motivational and inspiration autobiography, Steel Spine, Iron Will” is still available on Amazon.com, although it is now out of print. He is currently working on an aviation adventure novel, with a World War 11 PBY flying boat as the centerpiece of the story. If you haven’t heard Rod’s story of surviving a crash, laying in first his airplane then the hospital and being told he would never walk again, you will be amazed. He truly has a steel spine and an iron will and continues to walk and live in joy. Welcome back, Rod, or as we used to call you, “the Wonder from Down Under!”