Donald E. Keyhoe took up writing while recouperating from an arm injury he sustained in a plane crash in 1922 while serving in with the Marines in Guam. Primarily just to pass the time while convalesing, he found he was good at writing, selling several stories to Weird Tales. Keyhoe’s injury forced him to leave the military in 1923, whereupon he went to work for the National Geodetic Survey and the U.S. Department of Commerce. He kept his hand in aviation, though, by managing a national Good Will Tour of the 48 States by Charles Lindbergh in 1927.

Keyhoe’s first book was about flying Charles Lindbergh around the states on his tour. Published in 1928, Flying with Lindbergh was an instant success. Between the tour and the book, Keyhoe was becoming a household name. So it only makes sense that the newspapers would come calling. Newspapers were constantly looking for ways to boost and maintain their readership. And what better way than to serialize novels of the day. In 1929 Keyhoe wrote a story as modern as the times it was written in. Set against the world of the burgeoning Air Mail service, Dick Trent is a young idealistic flyer on his first day as a Air Mail pilot who soon finds himself involved in a web of love, larceny and murder!

• Download “The Sky Raider” Chapters 1&2 (1929)

Check out the half-page spread The Ottawa Journal gave the first installment of Donald E. Keyhoe’s The Sky Raider when they ran the series starting March 30th, 1929.

And come back on Monday for the next installment and each subsequent Monday, Wednesday and Friday until we reach the exciting conclusion!

After you’ve done your Christmas shopping and eaten your Thanksgiving leftovers, settle down to the first installment of our serialized drama—The Sky Raider! Here is some promotion from back at the time. From the front page of The Ironwood Daily Globe, Ironwood, MI the Monday before the serial started:

    Donald E. Keyhoe, the flying ace, writes from his own remarkable experiences the first thrilling mystery serial of crime in the air, “The Sky Raider.”
    Colonel Lindbergh recognized Keyhoe’s unusual skill and fearlessness by selecting him as his flying aide on his great ‘Round America Tour. Keyhoe is not only a pioneer in the world’s newest adventure the conquest of the air, but he is the first to write a mystery story of the skies.
    Colonel Lindbergh’s flying aide has written a gripping story of romance, adventure, mystery, devotion and death in “The Sky Raider.” Don’t miss the first of many thrills coming to you soon in The Daily Globe.

We’ll be presenting the first two chapters Friday! We’ll follow this with two more chapters every Monday, Wednesday and Friday until we reach the exciting conclusion on New Years Eve!

Ad for Donald E. Keyhoe’s “The Sky Raider” from The Ironwood Daily Globe
(Ironwood, MI; Saturday. August 10, 1929)

Starting next Friday we’re embarking on something new here at Age of Aces. We’re going to be posting a serialized story by Donald E Keyhoe that ran in newspapers back in 1929—The Sky Raider!

Ad for Donald E. Keyhoe’s “The Sky Raider” from The Ottawa Journal
(Ottawa, Ontario; Tuesday, March 26, 1929)

Be sure to come back next Friday for the first installment!