What's your favorite aviation book?

[dmn056]

Nevil Shute's "Stephen Morris" has the best description of an aircraft design process that I have ever read. An extract:

Two days later Morris started work in the design office of Rawdon Aircraft Company (1919) Ltd. He did not find the work very difficult after the first few days. The whole business of designing an aeroplane he found to run on certain very definite lines. First of all, certain broad considerations governing the design of the machine came to the designer. Thus if it were a passenger machine for an air line, the air line had certain definite ideas as to what they wanted; the carrying capacity, the speed, the landing speed, and the ?ceiling? or maximum height that it was possible for the machine to attain. Such considerations as these would be settled in conference with the designer, who would indicate tactfully where they were asking for technical impossibilities. If the machine were a military one for the Air Force the procedure was, in general, much the same, with the difference that the purchaser had a habit of asking for technical impossibilities and refusing to discuss the matter. This made the design of military machines a very specialized business.

The conditions for the machine being determined, the chief draughtsman would draw a pretty picture of what he thought such a machine ought to look like, neatly indicating on this first layout the really important features of the machine, such as the way the door opened and the system of heating the cabin. This rough layout would be shown to the customer for approval; in the case of a commercial machine it would be passed without much question.

[rvanstory]

"The Aviators" by Winston Groom.

Gives detailed accounts about the lives of 3 of aviations innovators and heros. Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle and Charles Lindbergh. Found all of their stories to be fascinating.

https://www.amazon.com/Aviators-Rick...+aviators+book

[jeffw@sc47]

My favorite aviation book is usually the last one I completely finished.

The last one was Glacier Pilot, biography of Bob Reeves by Beth Day; some things that she heard from her research effort may have been misinterpreted a little but it is an easy read of recounts of the amazing early days of aviation in Alaska.

I am currently reading a very interesting book I found at the EAA Book Store this year at AirVenture '18. This Winged World: An Anthology of Aviation Fiction, 1943, Coward-McCann, Inc. New York. I generally stick to biographies and autobiographies. These are amazing short stories or snippet's (36 stories) from longer works about men flying throughout history starting with Daedalus and Icarus; including works by authors Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. Wells. Very unique and well worth finding.

[hohocc]

Airborne by Neil Williams, best bit of aviation writing ever in my opinion.

[AJPope]

After you finish A Higher Call, another well researched book by the same author is Devotion. The biography is about the first black carrier pilot and a Medal of Honor recipient flying Corsairs in Korea.

[kyhunting]

+1 for both of Adam Makos’ books.

[Saville]

"The experiential ones are often alike with long lists of flights flown and battles fought."

I find that the books don't cover what I want to know...what training and tactics were they exposed to? What did they learn on the job?

Mostly these books are a travelogue of sights they saw with an occasional air battle.