Cover shot

Bruce Vinal Jr.'s portrait of Gin Fizz

Now that Flight of the Gin Fizz is all scanned and (mostly) proofread for upcoming ebook re-publication, and the Afterword that updates the book is well in research, it's almost time to design a "jacket."

Book covers are as important for ebooks as they are for tree-books. On a monochrome Kindle or Nook they may not be so vital, but in the online catalogs they're necessary for catching the eyes of prospective readers.

I rummaged through my photo gallery for shots of N5859E, the 1959 Cessna 150 I used for the transcontinental odyssey that was captured in hardcover in Gin Fizz back in 1997. Nothing really good jumped out at me.

Then I went online and Googled "N5859E," hoping to get lucky. And I did.

Fourth from the top of the Google listing was photographer Bruce Vinal Jr's Aerial Perspectives page—and clicking on the link yielded a beautiful shot of Gin Fizz climbing away from the runway at Nashua, New Hampshire. It was taken in February at about the time the airplane's current owner, Eamon Fee, earned his private pilot's ticket in her.

Clearly Eamon has taken good care of the airplane. She looks as if she has just emerged from the paint shop—and that livery was put on her away back in 1999.

The shot is perfect, just perfect.

I asked Vinal for permission to use the photograph on the "cover" of Gin Fizz, and he granted it.

Some days are better than others.

CORRECTION: Eamon tells me the photo is dated 2/23/11, not 2/23/12, as I'd thought, and the pilot at that time was Gin Fizz's then owner, Bill Sanchez, the fellow I sold her to.