A magical, airborne story of father and son.

Jonathan Rotondo was 28 when his father, Antonio, died. Numb with grief, Rotondo decided to track down the object that had once given his father so much joy: a tiny single-seat biplane called Charlie Foxtrot Foxtrot Alpha Mike.

Thus began Rotondo’s journey to retrace his father’s life from Italy to Canada via the plains of East Africa. In his search for Foxtrot Alpha Mike, Rotondo meets a host of colourful characters: an Australian expat living in Kenya who inspired Antonio’s love of flight; a soft-spoken Swiss-Canadian who managed to get Foxtrot Alpha Mike into the air; a free-spirited dreamer who bought the plane to dogfight with his mates.

In this uplifting story of a father and son, Rotondo catches fleeting glimpses of his father and rediscovers his own passion for flight. All the while he captures "the rush of speed, the exhilaration of the wind’s breath rushing through the cockpit and along the fabric flanks, the surreal sensation of gravity’s pull and lift’s might."

Jonathan Rotondo is a writer, recovering journalist, and biplane pilot who spent his childhood hanging off airport perimeter fences throughout Ontario and Quebec, where his passion for flight first took hold.

He has worked as a journalist and television producer and in military public affairs and media relations. A long-time aviator, Jonathan spends his free time teaching other pilots aerobatic maneuvers, retracing his father's flying in his 1978 Smith Miniplane, and writing about aviation for the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association and Canadian Aviator magazine. He lives in Ottawa. Airborne: Finding Foxtrot Alpha Mike is his first book.

Jonathan Rotondo's profile page

"A pure delight to read. ... a well-written, thoughtful tribute to a father."

<i>Miramichi Reader</i>

"Memoir of absent father takes flights."

<i>Winnipeg Free Press</i>