09/17/2026
Meet Jim "Sonic" Baker. He flew the F/A-18 Hornet in the Marine Corps, and he is a graduate of Top Gun.
A Georgia native and a graduate of Berry College, Sonic came out of the Navy Fighter Weapons School and went on to serve as a weapons and tactics instructor. He later flew the AF-18 as a foreign exchange officer with the Royal Australian Air Force out of Williamtown, New South Wales, deploying across the Australasian region.
After 11 years of active duty he joined Delta Air Lines in 1989 as a flight engineer on the Boeing 727 and the Lockheed L-1011. He went on to fly first officer on the DC-9, MD-88 and Boeing 757, 767 and 767-400, and Captain on the MD-88, 737 and Airbus A320. He retired in 2020 with 31 accident free years and more than 21,000 hours behind him.
Then there is N301JB. He built it himself. Construction ran nearly fifteen years, on again and off again, and it flew in 2019. Plane Perfection painted it in 2021, to a scheme he worked out himself.
At home, married more than forty two years, with two sons, one a trauma orthopedic surgeon and the other a Navy flight instructor, and five grandchildren. He is a woodworker when flying leaves him the time.
Twenty one thousand hours in the air, and the airplane he flies with us is the one he built in his own shop.
So who wants to fly on his wing ?
Photos by Olivia Lowman and Howard Spaeth.
