"Skate" Parks

Skate is a fighter pilot who loves to read thrillers. Lately he has taken his passion a step further and started penning aviation thrillers himself.

He's not the first aviator in the family. One grandfather worked on airplanes in WWII. A second grandfather was a military pilot, flew in Vietnam, and earned the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for fifty years of active flying. His father is still working as a test pilot and flies small planes for fun. He has a sibling and cousins that are also pilots and an uncle who was a navigator. As a matter of fact, everyone in Skate's immediate family has a pilot's license. You will find his family, including his grandfather and cousin, are contributors at True Airspeed blog.

Writing novels is not new to his family, either. He is the son of Sandy Parks who also writes aviation thrillers and science fiction, and his aunt, Julie Moffett, writes geek and YA mysteries.

When Skate is not finding new ways to bring the thrills of supersonic flight onto the pages of his books and blogs, he enjoys traveling to find the next perfect setting. He's traveled in Asia, the Pacific, Europe, South and North America and lived various places around the world like Japan and Korea.

His adventures started at the US Air Force Academy where he did his best to hike, fish, and ski in between studies in mechanical engineering.

Lastly, for those curious, Skate is his call sign chosen by his flying commrades.