Many prefer Spring to Fall. I get it: the rebirth and renewal of Spring coupled with the sweet Summer and Fall soon to follow. However, I prefer it the other way around: if I have to choose between the two, I'll pick Fall, the season in which we find ourselves as I write this. I assume it's because I have finally squared myself with the notion that I'm an indoor person rather than an outdoor one, for the most part. At the very least, when it's cold and snowy outside, I feel less guilty about the number of hours I spend at this keyboard.

My fondness for Fall is one of the reasons I chose the cover photo for this month: it seems to have the characteristic light of this particular season. This, despite the fact it was captured at the Barnstormer Carnival2 in Springfield, Ohio in mid-July — the height of the Midwest summer of 2024. This photo, along with many others from the same event, was captured by Richard Zulu Souza on a shoot for Full Disc Aviation. More on that in About That Cover Photo to follow.

I fell in love with the picture before I knew either where or when it was taken. That it turned out to be tied in with barnstorming is karma. Whenever I see biplanes, I always think of Richard Bach's book Biplane. In turn, it makes me think of my favourite book in the early Bach era, the barnstorming-themed Nothing by Chance. Taking the photo's light and striking composition along with the backstory into account, it was a lead-pipe cinch for the October cover, which you'll also enjoy all month long at the top of our socials.

Regular readers will likely already know about my healthy obsession with Richard Bach. An unhealthy obsession would lack self-awareness. I'm perfectly aware of my obsession with the author, and I'm not shy about it. As I see it, there are worse things about which you can be obsessed.

Can you keep a secret? I've toyed with the idea of writing an adaptation of Nothing by Chance for the silver screen. What qualifications do I have for such an undertaking? Absolutely none. But if boundless enthusiasm for the subject means anything, then I figure I should be able to get through it.

For the moment, let's set aside that there's already been a Nothing by Chance movie, released in early 1975. It was more or less panned after having been released straight to network television without a theatrical run. It was a documentary in format with the cast, including Bach, playing themselves.

The setting for the book is 1966, and I see no reason to try and bring it forward to the current day in an adaptation. In fact, there are lots of reasons not to do that, as they relate to the aviating parts of the film. It was a simpler time, and simple is good when it comes to both aviation and moviemaking. Glen Powell would be a shoe-in for the Bach role and could likely do the aviating part himself — no stunt doubles required.

I would want to be faithful to the book as best I could, with one exception: I can see weaving in some magical, time-travelling, Field of Dreams-like elements. This would enable a new, entirely fictional character from the present day — perhaps an indoorsy dreamer obsessed with Bach's book? — to ask some of the big, unanswered questions from the original text. Less self-indulgently, it would also enable the movie to connect with some broader, universal themes, as well. I'm speculating, but I'm thinking Bach would be okay with the magic part.

Lest you think this is nothing but idle daydreaming — which it mostly is, I'll admit — I actually went so far as to try and establish in whose hands the movie rights can currently be found. Turns out that's really complicated. Back in 2017, I exchanged emails with Bach, and when I asked him about the rights, he provided a cryptic reply:

You might contact Hugh Downs about the question. If anyone knows who owns the film, he would.

I have to admit, I'm not sure what Bach meant by this, and despite my follow-up questions, he provided no further insight. Hugh Downs did narrate the 1975 movie, so perhaps that's it in some way. I tried to contact the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University, where I assumed some residual knowledge of the movie rights might now reside, given that Downs himself passed away in 2020. So far, their email replies are the equivalent of looking at me like I have two heads.

So, now, I'm turning to you, the multi-faceted and multi-talented BluFly community, to see if you might have any thoughts as to how I might track down the movie rights to the classic book. If they're already in the hands of a talented moviemaker, that would be almost the happy ending for which I was hoping. More than anything, I just want to see a well-made movie version of my favourite book of all time.

If not, then I guess I'll have no other choice than to make that movie myself.

Perhaps surprisingly, feedback received in the BluFly home office quite often relates to the use of American English versus British English. Usually, because one camp thinks the other has it wrong, and hence BluFly has it wrong as collateral damage.

You know that of which I'm speaking: the seemingly superfluous u, for example, being tossed overboard in words like labour and honour to become the much more economical labor and honor. There's also the use of the much zippier z in words like institutionalize and homogenize spun off from institutionalise and homogenise and their use of the soporific letter s. There are even some differences in punctuation: I'll get to at least one of these in the next section.

First, allow me to lay plain my bias: having grown up the son of English parents, there is no debate: British English rules the day. I live in Canada or, as I prefer, the quaint-sounding Dominion of Canada from the days of empire when British English was spread around the globe, including here. I'll do my best to set aside this bias, given I would hate for my philosophising to polarise the debate by demonising those who might feel differently.

I acknowledge there is a huge and important BluFly constituency who prefer the super-streamlined and modernised American English, and I sincerely want to be respectful of these folks. After all, if you look at the world as it is in 2025 as opposed to as it was, for instance, two hundred and fifty years ago or even when the sun finally set on that empire, who's to say who and which of these is right?

So we're going to do both. Vive la différence.

That's the goal anyway. Starting with this article, we're experimenting with a new system — internally, we call it Vernacular — where the adjustments will be made on-the-fly depending on who's reading it. For an American audience or simply those who prefer American English — as indicated by having their browser language set to en-US — you will see harmonise, with a z. On the other hand, if your browser is set to en-GB — or anything else, for that matter — you will be seeing it with an s, just the way it was in the good old days.

It's a work in progress. We're developing it one step at a time and rolling it out incrementally so at least some of its benefits can be enjoyed sooner rather than later. That also means it will screw up occasionally. When it does, I know, given the helpful nature of the BluFly community, you will let me know and your feedback can get fed into the iterative process of continuous improvement.

Although I'm not sure it will ever be fun, as Daniel Keyes opined in the title above, but it is a subject about which I have been asked almost as often as the American/British thing as above. Specifically, BluFly's seemingly random approach to the use of the various types of quotation marks: in particular the ‘ and ’ (single quotes), the “ and ” (double quotes) and, above all else the funky, Gallic « and » (guillemets). There's a method to the madness, and if you're interested in this subject, read on.

As my elderly and wise cello teachers — Mrs. Persson and Miss Piggott, may they rest in peace — told me, in various ways: ‘first you learn the rules, and only then can you break them.’ Although they were referring to musical rules, of course, it's the same for punctuation, I believe. For those who want to cite one style guide or another and tell me I'm doing it wrong, you might well be right. Maybe I am doing it wrong. But having learned the rules and applied them relatively faithfully for most of my life, I now see fit to gently but consistently break the rules in pursuit of what I believe is more clarity. So here are the rules for quotes as I define and use them:

Single quotes are reserved for two scenarios: the first is when I'm paraphrasing — attributing speech to someone without claiming it's a direct quote but rather, capturing the spirit of what was said rather than the precise words. Like what my cello teachers told me above. The second scenario is trickier: to provide emphasis, often with a hint of sarcasm, as would be the case for my use of the word « rules » in the previous paragraph. In popular culture, you might now refer to them as air quotes or, as some prefer, scare quotes.

Double quotes are actually easier. I reserve them when I'm denoting words uttered by a human being and captured as precisely as they were originally spoken. When I use them, I mean for you to almost imagine hearing someone's voice in your head. It's up to you whether you imagine it's Bono's, Beyonce's, your own or somebody else's voice — I will leave that entirely up to you. For my part, I always hear Bob Hope quotes in Bob Hope's voice. But that's just me, of course.

Finally, there is the use of the sideways, double-chevron guillemets: this is where I'm admittedly at my most quirky. I employ them when what lies between them is a cut and paste from some other source. This started when writing the brutally terse prose required for social media. There, it was a kind of short hand for ‘I’m just cutting and pasting from somebody's else's text’. It serves as a sort of attribution, in a way, as well as keeping the responsibility for the words where it belongs: in the hands of the original author.

In Vive la Différence, above, I mentioned that there are also some differences in punctuation between American and British English. Well, at least one so far: it's the formatting of the aforementioned scare quotes: in American English, these are bracketed by the “ and ” characters, whereas in British English, the ‘ and ’ characters are used. Good news: the Vernacular system makes that on-the-fly adjustment as well.

A closing thought on this arcane set of rules: if BluFly is creating in-house material, such as this article, the rules above are what's used. If, however, we're editing the work of a third-party author virtually the first question asked is how these matters above should be handled with their work. We will use whatever set of rules they want used: the above, one of the official manuals of style or something else.

Given Halloween falls in the month of October, my first instinct for a cover photo was something connoting this spooky celebration. Google to the rescue. However, most roads, in this regard, led to the De Havilland Vampire with vampire fangs that haunted Waterloo Warbirds for a number of years. This particular aircraft was captured by many photographers, and it's really eye-catching without a doubt. We have featured it previously, though. This time last year, I'm pretty sure.

When this door closed, another one opened: an article entitled The Art of the Build3 and this photo therein by Full Disc Aviation's James Woodard, seemed to fit the bill perfectly given I often favour illustrations which make the beholder work a bit to figure out precisely what they're looking at. All good on that front, as well. If you look at this photo long enough, it's possible you can figure it out — along with the aviation connection — even if that's not obvious at first. Perfect.

It was then I realised I was suffering from an editorial version of tunnel vision: so fixated on my original idea, I forgot to look around and see what else might be going on. That's where Full Disc Aviation, the website where I found the photos, comes in.

Candidly, the quality of both the photographs and the prose that accompany them is at a standard to which BluFly aspires in its wildest dreams, however futile that might be. Once I poked around their pages for a few minutes, I realised there were so many other photos on their site that would actually be better choices than my original idea — which, in any event, I was able to incorporate into this section of this article, at least in a supporting role.

The affable Zulu gracefully agreed to approve the use of both his photos of the Barnstormer Carnival that lead off this article, and also facilitated James Woodard granting permission to use the skeleton-on-the-Spad photo immediately above. I am eternally in their debt and I would jump at the chance to work with them again in the future.

Please take a few moments to visit the Full Disc Aviation website as soon as you can and you'll be glad you did. Support them in whatever way you can. I think we can all agree we need more websites like theirs.

Oh, and by the way, despite the American roots, please note their quirky use of the word Disc. It just warms my heart. 🛩️

Do you prefer Spring or Fall? Are you an indoor person or an outdoor one? What aviation book would you like to see made into a movie? Or is there anything else aviation-related on your mind you would like to share? I'd love to hear from you.4 For the time being, thank you so much for reading and also for engaging with BluFly’s posts on Bluesky and LinkedIn.5

Fair winds and blue skies.

Terence C. Gannon
Managing Editor

This is what we managed to put together for you for October, with most recent at the top:

Note that the embedded posts above are from the Bluesky 🛩️ Custom Feed 6 which is the reference feed for BluFly.