The great Bill Kershner is dead.
Others will describe his life in great detail. I will just say that he was a great writer and a great educator.
Kershner’s many training books made complex subjects simple. If he wrote it anyone—even I—could understand it. Once I was arguing with two rocket engineers about the finer points of flat spins. I called Kershner. He clarified the entire question and explained the answer, all in a few minutes.
Kershner was also admired and liked by everyone he ever met, and that’s a rare man. He was in the very first group inducted into the Tennessee Aviation Hall of Fame, and I was fortunate enough to be there. He was, as usual, delightful.
My contacts with Kershner were few and far between, and that was my mistake. My Alabama location was just a bit south of his Tennessee location for many years, and I truly regret that I didn’t take the opportunity to spend more time at the feet of this great master.
Kershner also wrote fun-to-read stories. In my favorite he pulled the throttle back and asked his student, "Now, where you gonna land?" The student picked a field and Kershner explained exactly why that field was totally inadequate and would not work. Then Kershner pushed the throttle back in and the engine went quite dead. Kershner landed that airplane in the very field he had said wouldn’t work.
The student timidly said, "Uh, I thought you said that field wouldn’t work." Kershner’s next written line was brilliant. "Shut up, I carefully explained." That line ranks right up there with Gordon Baxter’s line, "Instrument flying is an unnatural act probably punishable by God."
Long may his books live on.
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