Thomas Block
Captain Thomas Block retired from US Airways in April 2000, as a senior Trans-Atlantic pilot flying wide-body jets to Europe. Block has been a pilot since 1959. He has also had a successful second career as a writer that began in 1968.
Thomas Block's writing has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, including nearly 20 years at FLYING Magazine (Contributing Editor from 1970-1982, and again from 1995 through 2002), and as Contributing Editor to Plane & Pilot Magazine from 1985 until 1996. Block is currently Editor-at-Large for Piper Flyer and Cessna Flyer magazines.
During his long career as an aviation writer, he has written on a wide array of subjects that range from interviews with government officials to evaluation reports on most everything that flies. He has piloted gliders, seaplanes, the Goodyear Blimp, warplanes and many large transport jets, to name a few. He has owned over a dozen light airplanes over the years.
1979 marked the hardcover release of Block's first novel, Mayday (with his boyhood friend Nelson DeMille), an airplane adventure story. Mayday was acquired by more than a dozen foreign publishers and achieved bestseller status in many of those countries as well as in the United States and United Kingdom. The novel was updated and released again in paperback by Warner Books in January 1998.
In 1982, Captain Block's second novel, Orbit, was published. It was another airplane adventure story that featured the NASA Space Shuttle. Orbit was chosen as a Literary Guild Book Club selection and has been optioned for a movie.
Following those novels were Forced Landing (1983), Airship Nine (1984), Skyfall (1987) and Open Skies (1990).
In conjunction with his novels, Block has participated in countless media events throughout the world, including major TV and radio appearances in the United States, United Kingdom, Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand. In addition, he has given a great many newspaper and magazine interviews that have been published in more than a dozen languages. In addition to his continuing relationship with aviation magazines, he has returned to the field of the adventure novel by providing on-going technical assistance to author Nelson DeMille. Block also intends to do additional novels of his own in the high-tech/aviation genre.
