Donald J. Porter is the author of A Jet Powered Life: Allen E. Paulson, Aviation Entrepreneur; Howard's Whirlybirds: Howard Hughes' Amazing Pioneering Helicopter Exploits, and three other books on aviation. He has also written for Air & Space/Smithsonian and Vertical magazines. As a former product support engineer, one of his specialties involved analyzing why certain parts of aircraft systems had failed. He has appeared on C-Span2's BookTV.