Trivia

Brother of writer/producer Rod Serling.

Was made United Press International's (UPI) aviation editor in Washington, D.C., in 1960. The success of his first novel, "The President's Plane Is Missing", allowed him to quit UPI and become a full-time writer.

After the war, he was a reporter for the United Press International based in Washington D.C. covering air crashes and was later aviation editor at U.P.I. and the manager of it's radio news division.

During World War II, he served in the United States Army Air Forces as an aircraft-identification instructor.

He earned a Bachelor's degree in political science from Antioch College in Ohio in 1942.

Father of Jennifer Serling and Jeffrey Serling. He is survived by four grandchildren.

His younger brother Rodman followed him into WWII after Rodman got his high school diploma.

He personally collected commercial airline models (more than four hundred during his life) and material on aviation research.

He earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Antioch College in Ohio in 1942. During World War II, he served in the Army Air Forces as an aircraft-identification instructor.

Resides in Tucson, Arizona where he is still writing. He recently released the history of Alaska Airlines and is currently working on a non-fiction book on flying and other various projects including Twilight Zone stories. (September 2008)

Member of the Society of Air Safety Investigators and the Aviation/Space Writers Association.

Received the Trans-World Airlines, seven awards, 1958-65, for aviation news reporting, Strebig-Dobben Memorial Award, 1960; special citations from Sherman Fairchild Foundation, 1963, Flight Safety Foundation, 1970, and Airline Pilots Association, 1970; Aviation/Space Writers Association, James Trebig Memorial Award, 1964, special citation, 1967, award in fiction, 1966, for The Left Seat, and in nonfiction, 1969, for Loud and Clear.

Unlike his famously liberal brother, Robert was a conservative Republican. At one point in the mid-late Sixties, he got into a heated argument with Rod and his wife Carol on the subject of affirmative action that resulted in the siblings not speaking to each other for nearly a full year.

Although most in his family died very early in life (Rod himself died at fifty), Robert lived to be 92.