“I’m breathing,” McKinley Conway retorts when asked about his health.

While he says his body is giving out part by part, his mind is sharp. Conway, AE 41, who turns 90 in November, recently completed his autobiography, A Bad Case of Old Age: Enjoying a Great Life One More Time, a textbook-size tome. It’s his 47th book.

“It’s a wonderful thing to be able to do,” Conway says of the time he puts in writing every day.

Conway had a wonderfully varied career. At age 29, in 1949, he became director of the fledgling Southern Association of Science and Industry, a 15-state regional development alliance. In 1954, he started Conway Data, which launched Industrial Development, the first magazine focused on corporate real estate and economic development and the precursor to his Site Selection. He founded the International Development Research Council in 1961 and the Industrial Asset Management Council in 2002 and served two terms in the Georgia Senate.

He entered Georgia Tech at age 15, served on the student council and was editor of the Technique. He was selected for the Civilian Pilot Training Program while a Tech student and became a licensed pilot at 19.

“In the 1930s, Atlanta was a small town. Georgia Tech was a center of activity. Social events were newsworthy. When a Tech fraternity held its big annual dance, that was considered fodder for the society page. I discovered that the Atlanta Constitution would pay for reports; I became their stringer for Tech social events. I wrote up major dances, listing who escorted whom, what band played, which ballroom was the scene, etc. When the item appeared, I clipped it from the paper. Every Saturday I took my clips to the newspaper’s pay window and collected several cents per word,” he writes in A Bad Case of Old Age.

In the fall of 1937 Conway organized the 10-piece band The Technicians, which started getting gigs that previously would have gone to the Ramblers, a group that broke up when its members graduated.

“This was the peak of the big band era,” he writes. “Swing was the thing. Over several years I put together a library of nearly 200 arrangements. Some were oldies left behind by the Ramblers. Most were newer ones by Glenn Miller, Count Basie, the Dorseys and many other big names. I got these via a local pawnshop operator who had New York connections. We paid only $2 or $3 per arrangement.

“We tried to tone it down when playing for afternoon tea dances in small rooms, but our main menu was made up of loud and rambunctious renditions — the kind that were favored by the jitterbuggers at the dances held in the Tech gym on Saturday nights after football games.

“One O’Clock Jump and In the Mood were all-time favorites. Popular ballads included Stardust, Night and Day, Deep Purple and Once in a While. Among more exotic numbers were Caravan or Indian Love Call. We tried to avoid such corny material as Beer Barrel Polka, but sometimes had to yield to requests by sponsors,” he writes, recalling that the band played at such venues as the Biltmore Ballroom, Fox Theatre, Dinkler-Plaza Hotel and East Lake, Brookhaven and Druid Hills country clubs.

“There was also a profitable side venture. Charlie McKinnon, who was my partner as business manager of the Technique, and I sponsored dances in the gym after home football games. We rented the gym, hired my band and paid a couple of freshmen to carry a sign around the track at halftime announcing the dance, which would be open to all for 50 cents a head. It worked. We had big crowds.”

Conway considered staying with the band following graduation in 1941. “However, I looked closely at some of the professional band operations in existence, and I didn’t like what I saw,” he writes.

“Musicians of ordinary talent fell into a rut and never realized their dreams. Only those with spectacular talent rose to stardom. I knew I didn’t have that talent,” he says.

Instead, he landed a job as a junior aeronautical engineer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics laboratory at Langley Field, Va., married Becky in 1942 and was transferred to the Ames lab in California in 1944.

“In 1954 I launched Industrial Development, a national business magazine devoted to economic geography, corporate facility planning and area development. It caught on right away. It had taken about five years to find a niche — tough times for the family as well as the business,” he confides in his book.

“The following year I made a deal to buy the long-established Manufacturers Record magazine, which had been published in Baltimore since 1883. The negotiations were held in the bar of the famous Algonquin Hotel in New York. The deal was laid out on a paper napkin.”

He bought a single-engine Cessna 170 in the 1950s, when he, his wife and two daughters began their worldwide adventures in a series of airplanes. Conway kept all his log books, and the trips — and photos — are chronicled in his memoir. He says the scariest moment happened in South America, when he was flying his family along the Amazon River in their twin-engine Aero Commander.

“When we got to the Tefe area, there were heavy thunderstorms covering the strip. Landing was impossible. Our only choice was to continue toward Manaus and hope we wouldn’t run out of gas. By the time we were within about 30 miles of Manaus both fuel gauges were showing empty — the worst crisis of my flying career,” he writes.

“It appeared almost certain that we would not make it to Manaus. Our best option would be to land in the river and hope we could survive. I had everybody don their life jackets and went over the procedure for getting out of the airplane. Then I got on the radio and called ‘Mayday’ for the first time in my life. Repeated calls brought no answer from the Manaus tower or any other aircraft.

“Soon we could see the taller buildings of Manaus on the horizon. Both gas gauges rested against the E peg. There was no jiggle to indicate anything whatsoever in the tanks. I held our altitude, thinking that when the engines quit I would glide toward the town.

“By what seemed a miracle, we got as far as the airport traffic pattern, where I saw a Brazilian military patrol plane lining up on final approach to land in front of us. Without hesitation, I cut in front of him — it was that close — and landed. … When the ramp crew refilled our 155-gallon tanks, it took a little more than 150 gallons. We were that close to disaster.”

As he nears the conclusion of the book, Conway writes of the decision to ground himself.

“It was a decision I knew I had to make but still was one of the most painful of my life. I know pilots are not immortal. Sooner or later we all have to stop flying. By 2003 I had logged more than 7,000 hours as pilot-in-command. I was a proud member of the UFOs (United Flying Octogenarians) and had a plaque from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association honoring my 60 years as a member. I had a good record — no FAA violations, no accidents and no injuries to crew or passengers.

“However, Becky was having an increasingly difficult time getting into and out of the tightly cramped cockpit of our airplane. She urged me to take trips without her, but I refused, knowing there would be no joys in that. After thinking it over and over, I faced up to the realization that the time had come for me to give up a way of life that had meant so much.

“So I quit cold turkey. I have not set foot in an airplane since. Even now, several years later, I dream about just one more flying expedition. That’s all it is — a dream.”