"ROBOTECH: Attention on Deck!" - About the Author

Jake and a Legacy

Captain Smitty: In Santa Monica, CA with an Embraer EMB-135BJ "Legacy" Corporate Jet like the one flown by the author.

About Jason:

"Smitty" to his friends, Jason Smith is the author of "Attention On Deck!" a popular ROBOTECH "cult" novel, that focuses on the life of a naval aviator during the three Robotech Wars depicted in the 1985 Harmony Gold televsion series of the same name. He is also a contributing writer to the ROBOTECH REFERENCE GUIDE and consultant to Harmony Gold and ROBOTECH.COM. A Certificated Flight Instructor, Certificated Instrument Flight Instructor, and Multi-Engine Instructor (CFI, CFII, MEI), Smitty is also an Instrument-Rated Single- and Multi-Engine Commercial Pilot and holds an ATP in the Embraer 145 Regional Jet.

Since his earliest memory, Jason's one true passion in life has been aviation, and this love of flying can be clearly seen in his writings. Research for "Attention On Deck!" is time-consuming and inexhaustible so that the reality of Naval Air Operations is brought home to the reader with as much accuracy as possible. Popular conceptions of Jason range from "Psychotic Jarhead" to "Amicable, Nice Fellow." The truth lies somewhere in between.

Jason's father, Weldon Smith, was a pilot for the United States Border Patrol. Flying in his dad's Ercoupe (N99977) and Piper Tri-Pacer (N9843D or N7843D) as a toddler is where Smitty was bitten with the flying bug. Although Weldon was killed in-the line of duty on October 19, 1979, when his Piper Super Cub crashed and burned while tracking illegal aliens near the King Ranch in South Texas, Jason's passion for aviation remained undiminished.

Smitty soloed on his 16th birthday (1989) and earned his Private Pilot's License in May of 1990. Although less-than-perfect vision ultimately doomed his desire to fly jet fighters for the military, a chance meeting with a school friend's father (Captain Dave Skinner, Southwest Airlines) in 1990 redirected his focus toward becoming an airline pilot.

Jake and the RJ

Regional Airline Days: Captain Smitty in an Embraer EMB-145 Cockpit

As an active member of the Boy Scouts of America, he attained the rank of Eagle Scout (only 1% of all scouts earn this award) in 1991, and was an Assistant Scoutmaster with NETSEO Trails Council Troop 401 for six years (where he served as Aviation Merit Badge Counselor and earned the prized wood beads of a Wood Badge Trained Scout Leader). An avid outdoorsman and accomplished archer, Jason earned the CAA's American Archer Award in 1986. An NRA Certified Riflery Instructor, Smitty competed in several champion rifle teams at both the national and state level during his high school years, and has qualified as an Expert under half a dozen separate classification systems, both civilian and military.

Jason graduated third in his class from Harlingen's Marine Military Academy in 1991 with a long list of academic honors, including an appointment to the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. In 1995 he received a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration (Human Resource Management) from East Texas State University, ranking third in his class (his 3.99 Major GPA placed him first among business school graduates), and was awarded the Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation's highly competitive annual scholarship that year. In May of 1998 he earned an MBA (Economics) from Texas A&M University-Commerce, again graduating third in his class. With gracious assistance of Dr. Ira von Neuhuasenhoffen, Jason earned his advanced ratings (Instrument through MEI) and spent time in San Antonio, Texas as a full-time Flight Instructor training pilots for the Mexican Alas de Americas program (his students referred to him as Jason "PUT-YOUR-HAND-ON-THE-GAWDAMNED-THROTTLE" Smith and "The Spin Master," among others.)

Smitty has flown several different types of aircraft, civilian and military, including the T-28 "Trojan", PBJ-1J "Mitchell", and Embraer 145/140/135 Regional Jet.

When asked by an AOD fan if being afraid when flying was abnormal, Jason related a personal experience. Although at one time (irrationally if not mortally) afraid of spinning airplanes, he quickly learned to enjoy it and used this an example for his students.

"The concept scared me completely to death. I was lucky to have had a very sympathetic instructor. He was quite understanding and knew what I was going through. After my first spin entry I was hooked! Instead of doing six spins, three each way, I think we did twenty. My instructor had to drag me back to the airport kicking and screaming. Literally! It was a good life lesson for me though. Fear when it comes to flying is completely normal and is something all pilots face at various stages throughout their careers. When I first started teaching stalls I was incredibly uncomfortable because there was nobody there to pull my rear out of the fire if I screwed up... My anxiety was almost certainly transmitted to my students and it probably scared the first few. But with exposure it became easy and my students fed off my confidence in the airplane. Because they worked hard and persevered, they were all great pilots by the time they finished training. They are flying all over the world in ATR-72s, A-300s, DC-9s...you name it. If you press forward through the difficult phases the rewards are great. You can, and will, overcome the difficult moments if you put your head down and push forward. Anyone who wants to can learn to fly and learn it well. It's not rocket science!"

Jason is an experienced flight instructor with over 1000 hours of dual given and is an Embraer EMB-135BJ "Legacy" Corporate Captain. He is also the proud father of two beautiful children.

If you would like to contact Smitty about aviation, AOD, or any other topic, feel free to use one of the email addresses below (please, NO HTML MESSAGES!). Fan-mail, hatemail, whatever it is, send it on down! Click HERE for the latest information regarding Jason's novel, "Attention On Deck!"

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RETURN TO THE AOD HOMEPAGE:

Primary Site - http://www.robotech-aod.com
Alternate Site - http://jaddams.csw.uic.edu/aod/altaod.html

This story, all original images, characters, situations, events, etc., Copyright © 1995 by Jason W. Smith

Robotech (R) is the property of Harmony Gold. This document is in no way intended to infringe upon their rights.
The author has not accepted any remuneration for this work.

HTML by Robert Morgenstern
***rmorgens@mitre.org***

Copyright © 1996 Robert Morgenstern

Copyright © 1998 Jason W. Smith
HTML by Jason W. Smith

Last Updated: 3 February 2004