Philip Handleman

Philip Handleman is a longtime pilot, author of seven books and frequent contributor to magazines such as Flying, Vintage Airplane, and Warbirds.

With retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Harry T. Stewart, Jr., he co-authored Soaring to Glory: A Tuskegee Airman’s Firsthand Account of World War II.

As the president of Handleman Filmworks, he has produced and directed numerous documentaries about aviation and warfare, including the Emmy Award-winning Remembering the Holocaust. He is also an avid photographer, capturing stills featured on U.S. postage stamps, including the 2004 commemorative stamp honoring the fiftieth anniversary of the United States Air Force.

Handleman maintains one of the United States' premier private libraries of aviation books, housing over five thousand volumes. Yet he does not just read aeronautic history—he lives it. As owner of Handleman Sky Ranch, he owns and flies two aircraft of military vintage, a Boeing Stearman N2S-3, an open-cockpit biplane primary trainer from WWII, and a Cessna 180H, which has been restored as a U.S. Air Force U-17C.

He is also a member of more than thirty-five aviation organizations, and has served on more than thirty civic and charitable boards. Additionally, he is the director of the Michigan Air Guard Historical Association, which manages the state's largest military air museum.

Handleman received his bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis. He completed the Executive Academy at the University of Michigan's Graduate School of Business Administration in Ann Arbor. He resides with his wife in Birmingham, Michigan.

Articles by this Author

Triumphs of a Tuskegee Airman, Summer 2023 | Vol. 68, No. 4

Col. Harry Stewart downed three advanced Nazi fighter planes in one day, then surprised the Air Force when he and his Tuskegee teammates won the first "top gun" competition.

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