Talmage E. “Tom/Tal” Miller learned to fly in the Enlisted Reserve under the CPT program, where he soloed in 1942. He graduated from the Central Instructors School at Randolph Field and was assigned to Tex Rankin’s Primary Flight Training School. The war was winding down and less demand for pilots closed the flight schools. Tex Rankin helped him get into cadet pilot training at Santa Ana, California. He got his wings in Douglas, Arizona, and was assigned to “bombing through overcast” school flying North American B-25s.

When the war ended, he returned to the farm, but he eventually landed an instructor job at Sky Ranch Airport in Colorado before being hired by Combs Aircraft, a Beechcraft dealer, to sell airplanes. He flew everything from the Bonanza to the King Air 200 turboprop and won many awards for aircraft sales. He later founded his own airplane sales company with Bill Haines, chief pilot for the Dillon Company. They sold many kinds of airplanes, from DC-3s to North American Sabreliner models 40 and 60 in many parts of the world. He collected many friends and stories along the way.

“From the Ground Up: From the Tractor to the Sabre,” written by Tal Miller with Di Freeze and published by Freeze Time Media in 2012, describes encounters with Olive Ann Beech, Roscoe Turner, Paul Mantz, Frank Tallman, Elrey Jeppesen, and many other well-known names in the aviation industry.