The first time I saw Acoma came as a surprise so great I wasn't certain that what I saw was real. At the time I was flying a single-engine plane, a Beech Debonair (N935T) on a tour of America from the air, and my friend and photographer, Jim Yarnell, was shooting with a Leica camera marvelous pictures of a country few Americans had ever seen. We crossed the great target areas in the desert where atomic bombs had been tested and huge mushrooms had grown into the sky, then passed over lava fields, empty desert and, suddenly, before us, a huge mesa with a city sprawled across its top! We circled what I came to learn was Acoma Pueblo—meaning Sky City. The huge vertical cliffs were imposing, like great battlements rearing vertically from a vast and dry ocean. It was easy to see why the Spanish expeditions had judged Acoma Pueblo a fortress that was "the strongest ever seen" and "an inaccessible stronghold."
Soon after my first sighting of Sky City from the air, I had the chance to visit Acoma from the ground. With that airplane available, we also gained permission to visit the Indian lands in the great desert country, landing on dirt roads and visiting a people who not too long ago in history were mighty warriors defending their homeland.
The wars are behind us. Acoma Pueblo flourishes again as it has not done for a long time. Its history has been preserved, its traditions saved for all of us.
But make no mistake—it is as imposing and mighty as it was when the Spaniards first saw this ancient city battlement rising high above the rest of the world.
A b o u t t h e A u t h o r
The author of nearly 200 published books, several dozen technical and flight manuals and several thousand magazine and newspaper articles and series, Martin Caidin is one of the outstanding aeronautics and aviation authorities in the world.
He has several times won the Aviation/ Space Writers Association top awards as the outstanding author in the field of aviation and has also been honored as a "master storyteller" by aviation and science organizations throughout the world. He is the only civilian to have lived and flown with the USAF Thunderbirds jet aerobatic team (and won high honors for his book on that experience). He is also a member of the TenTon Club of England for his supersonic flying in the earlier days of
"Mach-busting," and is as well known for his stunt flying and airshow performances as he is for his writing. He has flown dozens of types of military and civilian planes throughout the U.S. as a movie stunt pilot and airshow performer. Caidin is the former Consultant to the Commander of the Air Force Missile Test Center and was involved in rocket, missile and spacecraft development from its earliest days. Of his more than 40 novels, Cyborg became his best known work when it was developed into the "Six Million Dollar Man" and "Bionic Woman" television series. Caidin lives with his wife, Dee Dee M. Caidin, in Cocoa Beach, Florida.