What's your favorite aviation book?

[jrs14855]

Jerrie Mocks airplane was a Cessna 180. It is on display at Air and Space. She is 87 years old.

[Bill Dicus]

Have really enjoyed Shute's books and my favorite was SLIDE RULE. It's a wonderful and factual story. Sorry if it was mentioned before and I missed it!

[rjtjrt]

Bill
I haven't read it for many years, but Neville Shute's book "Requiem for a Wren" was a good read.
I also enjoyed reading "Heaven Next Stop" by Gunther Bloemertz, even though on that major Internet book seller it has poor reviews.
A more recent book, by a WWII German ace (275) is "My Logbook" by Gunter Rall, who went on to a long career in the modern German Air Force, and eventually to become its Commanding Officer in the 1970's.
Regards
John

[Bob Axsom]

I grew up during WWII and I've read a lot of books about it but this one takes it to a level I had never seen before.

Bob Axsom

[eddieseve]

Full Throttle by John R. Deakin
Stick and Rudder
Yeager, Autobiography
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe

[Dundee Downunder]

by Eric Brown
Quote from Wikipedia:
Captain Eric Melrose "Winkle" Brown, CBE, DSC, AFC, Hon FRAeS (born 21 January 1919) is a British former Royal Navy officer and test pilot who has flown more types of aircraft than anyone else in history, piloting 487 different aircraft.[1] He is also the Fleet Air Arm?s most decorated living pilot and holds the world record for aircraft carrier landings ? 2,407.[2]
Certainly an interesting perspective on military aviation.
Cheers,
Rob Montgomery

[Bob Axsom]

Originally Posted by fodrv7

Thanks Bob,
I have added it to the list which I shall update from time to time.

I bought “Carrying the Fire” by Mike Collins from Amazon on someone's recommendation.
I read a book a week (Lately, mostly about American politics and Foreign Policy) and I must say “Carrying the Fire” is one of the most moving books I have read in years.

Pete.

Whoa, take your time reading this one Bob, I sense that it is special! I finished reading "The Man Called Intrepid" recently and about the same time I bought it I bought several others dealing with WWII. I was a young school boy on WWII and was saturated with it as the all consuming focus of our lives. The Man Called Intrepid was to put it mildly, an interesting book with a perspective different from any I have read before. It was so straight and in such detail far removed from the typical biographical hero book that every sense of need has been saturated at a level that is hard to describe. I tried to start another and I just had to put it aside. But... I need to read, so I go on Amazon to see what I can find and in the process I saw "Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins and something stirred in me. I did not consciously remember your recommendation. The book was in the mail box when I got back from the Firecracker 100 race in Marysville, Ohio yesterday. Exhausted from that adventure, I slept for over five hours straight for the firs time in months. So I finally got up after that blissful experience and fixed my usual Sunday bacon, egg (beaters) and biscuit breakfast and open my new book. I read the Forward by Charles Lindbergh and the Preface to the 2009 edition and I know I have a WINNER! I worked on Project Mercury and Skylab and I consider them and Apollo the real pioneering manned space flight projects in my time. I worked on and around a lot of unmanned space flight projects at JPL before I retired and the words of Lindbergh and Collins struck some deep significant responsive chords already. I had to come on here and find out if there had been a recommendation and I found your post. Thanks Pete.

Bob Axsom

[fodrv7]

Thanks, Bob. I enjoyed it, but it must be very special to you.

Meanwhile, what I have been reading lately,

By coincidence, not by deliberate selection, I have just read four books in a row about flying fighters in WWII. Not only that, they were, in order, by an American, a German, a Brit and a Frenchman.(One of them was actually fiction). Altogether this combination of stories really knitted together a picture of what both sides went through and provided a real insight into the aircraft, the pilots and their flying life.

The first was ?A Piece of Cake? by Derek Robinson. Although this is a novel, it is meticulously researched and the characters very well developed and they really come alive. Definitely worth reading.
Next was ?Wot a Way to Run a War? by Ted Fahrenwald, a series of rambling letters home to the USA, covering his day to day life as a fighter pilot in Europe. Whilst there is not a lot of flying in the book it does give an insight into the life of an American fighter pilot in Europe and in particular, England, during WWII.
This was followed by the excellent ?I Flew for the Fufrer? by Heinz Knoke. Really descriptive of both the flying, the aircraft he flew, the fighter pilots life and progress of the war from a German perspective.
But the one that stands out was the last. ?The Big Show? by Pierre Clostemann, a Frenchman flying in the RAF. Probably the most comprehensive book with the, best insight into the life of a fighter pilot I have read. The description of the aircraft he flew, the battles, tactics, losses, pain, fear and successes are masterly. He flew the Spit for a few years with great success and yet describes his frightening first flight in the 2500hp Hawker Tempest. Clostermann also had a few periods between missions as an advisor to the top brass in London, where he gleaned a deal ?intelligence? and so is able to explain much of what was going on behind the scenes. Clostemann doesn?t pull and punches and is often scathing, most notably of the French senior brass?s incompetence. It?s now on the top shelf of my library.

Pete.

[rjtjrt]

Pierre Closterman also wrote a book called "Flames in the Sky".
This is a collection of stories about famous air battles rather than personal reminiscences. It is a good book, but no where near the same quality as The Big Show.
John

[TXTaildragger]

Low and Slow / Mabry Anderson