Say Hello To ANN E-I-C Jim Campbell!

With the final days before the official start to EAA AirVenture 2008 counting down all too rapidly... and, not quickly enough... ANN's senior staff is all-too-aware of the Herculean task ahead of us in reporting EVERYTHING that's news at The World's Greatest Aviation Celebration.

Fortunately, this year we'll have some help... and some really GREAT help at that. Over the next several days, we thought we'd take the time to introduce you to the staff members -- both full-time, as well as our "stringers" -- who will be bringing our readers and listeners all the news from Oshkosh that's fit to pixilate, orate and videotape this year.

And now, without further ado...

ANN Editor-In-Chief Jim Campbell

James R. "Zoom" Campbell may be the world’s busiest aviation journalist, having had his adventures and/or stories documented in US Aviator, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Time, Air Progress, Glider Rider, Sport Pilot, Kitplanes, National Geographic, Private Pilot, Gulf Coast Aviator, Pacific Flyer, The Aero-News Network and over 100 other publications. The author of over 2000 magazine articles, tens of thousands of news dispatches, the photographer of well over 200 magazine covers, and arguably one of the most experienced aviation journalist/ test pilots in the aerospace/aviation writing business, Jim Campbell is driven by a passion for aviation that few can match.

A commercially rated pilot who has earned Flight Instructor ratings (CFI/A/I/ME/H) in fixed and rotary wing aircraft, Campbell has logged over 17,000 flight hours in over 1100 different ultralights, jets, multi-engine A/C, helicopters, gyroplanes, autogyros, sailplanes, seaplanes, kit aircraft and general aviation birds.

Among Campbell’s many other lofty accomplishments are his 1981 Ultralight World Record High Altitude flight to 21,210 feet over Lakehurst, NJ; flying on behalf of President Ronald Reagan as an airshow pilot during the 1981-82 Air and Space Bicentennial; several years of film and TV aviation stunt work; his 1981 Ultralight Flight Across America; 17 published books in the aviation field (with three more in the works); and is often the first aviation journalist to solo and evaluate a number of exciting aircraft, many of them still quite experimental. He is hard at work on the next edition of the "SportPlane Resource Guide" and some aggressive aerospace literary projects. He is also heavily involved in a number of television, radio and other media projects utilizing his aviation expertise.

In 2004, Campbell led the news and photography team that provided primary media pool services for the Ansari X Prize competition, including most of the SpaceShipOne air-to-air photos that were published all over the world following the three successful suborbital flights of Burt Rutan’s world-changing spacecraft. He has also served as principal Zero-G photographer during several hundred parabolas for the Zero-G Corporation's Zero-Gravity flights, and was the photographer that took some amazing photos of Professor Stephen Hawking during his Zero-G adventures last spring.

A graduate of the National Test Pilot School, he was named in 2005 to be one of the four founding rocket pilots for X Prize founder, Peter Diamandis’ Rocket Racing League. Most recently, Jim has been heading up the team that unveiled Aero-TV... an aggressive and innovative effort to continue what ANN has been doing for a decade, to change the face of aviation news – and the most exciting aspect of that is the many aggressive changes and upgrades that are being prepared for this fall.

FMI: www.aero-news.net, www.airventure.org