Jim was a Civil Air Patrol cadet as a teen and won a CAP flight scholarship that took him to solo in 1967. In 1968, he started Army Warrant Officer rotary wing flight school, graduating on Wright Brothers Day 1968, and was in Vietnam the next month, assigned to the 192nd Assault Helicopter Company flying UH-1H Hueys. His 1204 flying hours in Vietnam in 1969 include combat assaults and single-ship missions. Back stateside in 1970, he flew Hueys for the First Army Flight Detachment at Fort Meade, Maryland, including some copilot time in Army ASEL. He even logged three hours as copilot in a U-21, the Army version of a King Air, amazed at how fast the VOR stations clicked past. He passed the FAA written exam for Commercial Pilot (Helicopter) and then flight instruction and exam for CP ASEL. After the Army, Jim had to put flying on hold while he worked a full-time job and went to night school, eventually earning a BSEE and MSEE while working at Kodak. In 1995, Jim and a friend at Kodak invented and patented the Camera Phone, US patent 5,666,159. Jim added a few hundred hours flying Cessna 172s with the Airdale flying club in LeRoy, New York.
