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What's your favorite aviation book?

Bob Axsom

Well Known Member
I received the September 22, 2006 General Aviation News today and on page 33 Thomas F. Thorton list Must Have Books/10 Books to Treasure. They are:

Stick and Rudder by Wolfgang Langewiesche
Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de St. Exupery
Night Flight by Antoine de St. Exupery
A Hostage to Fortune by Ernest K. Gann
The Bridges at Toko-Ri by James Michener
Flight of the Intruder by Stephen Coonts
Sailors to the End by Gregory Freeman
Straight On Till Morning by Mary S. Lovell
The Battle of Britain by Richard Hough and Denis Richards
Tale of a Tiger by R. T. Smith​

This seems pretty lame to me - I doesn't even include "The Spirit of St. Louis" by Charles A. Lindbergh which is my personal favorite. What is yours?

Bob Axsom
 
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Bob Axsom said:
I received the September 22, 2006 General Aviation News today and on page 33 Thomas F. Thorton list Must Have Books/10 Books to Treasure. They are:

Stick and Rudder by Wolfgang Langewiesche
Sand Wind and Stars by Antoine de St. Exupery
...

This seems pretty lame to me - I doesn't even include "The Spirit of St. Louis" by Charles A. Lindbergh which is my personal favorite. What is yours?

Bob Axsom​


Agreed; and it is "Wind Sand and Stars," not "Sand Wind..."​
 
My top three...

Anyone who's a homebuilder should read
"You Want To Build And Fly What?" by Dick Starks

"Instrument Flight Training Manual" by Peter Dogan

And of course...
Stick and Rudder - W.L.
 
As others have said "Fate is the Hunter" is unquestionably the best aviation book of all time.

Others on my must read list are "Biplane", "Nothing by Chance", and "A Gift of Wings" by Richard Bach.
 
Favorite Book

This one is easy. "I could never be so lucky again" which is the biography of my life hero Jimmy Doolittle. I thought this man could walk on water before reading it, and after reading it I'm even more impressed. Any one of his accomplishments would give an ordinary man lifetime bragging rights, but this man lived the life of at least a dozen great men. Examples:

Professional Boxer
Mining Engineer (entered silver mines to rescue numerous miners Virginia City)
Army Pilot/Instructor Pilot
Air Racer
Test Pilot
Worked with Sperry to develope the first gyros
Flew first instrument flight with the canopy covered (T/O, closed course, LDG) which brought aviation into the modern age
First PHD in Aeronautics (MIT)
Largely responable for the developement of 100 oct gas for aviation
Medal of Honor among other awards, B25 raid on Tokyo caused Japans Navy, specifically naval aviation to become a defensive force and changed the direction of the war
Major General, Commander 13th and later the 8th Air Force (Army)
Largely responable for seperation of the Air Force from the Army
Board of Directors Shell, Mutual of Omaha among others
Advisor to more Presidents than I can count on one hand
Raised a son who is a sitting US Congressman


One time I took my wife to Monterey for dinner and we pulled up behind a big yellow Cadillac at a red light. My first thoughts were that this little old man who was looking between the top of his dash and the top of his steering wheel would be slow to react when the light turned green. At this point of my life and being young and having little patience I noticed these kinds of things. (I'm not proud of it now.) Sometime before the light turned green my eyes made it down to the license plate which did not list a state. Accross the top of the plate where the state would usually be listed it said "Congressional Medal Of Honor" and where the numbers and letters would normally be it said "007." As the light turned green and the General slowly pulled away I sat there in awe as the person behind me must have thought "What an idiot." It was clearly me that was slow to leave the light.

Best,
 
"Stranger to the Ground," by Richard Bach
"Thud Ridge," by Jack Broughton

...and assuming novels are OK:

"Space" by James Michener
"The Wild Blue," by Walter Boyne
"Rolling Thunder," by Mark Berent, and its sequels
"The Right Stuff," by Tom Wolfe
 
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"Cannibal Queen" by Stephen Coonts was a great barnstorming read.

Also, "Memoirs of a Triple Ace" a biography of P-51 Ace Col. "Bud" Anderson
 
jdmunzell said:
"Cannibal Queen" by Stephen Coonts was a great barnstorming read...

Bryan gave a personal reminiscence, so I will.

I was having dinner with a guy named Manfred Radius who used to do a lot of airshow glider performances. Each spring, at Hobbs, we would do grunt work, helping him hone up for the airshow season. He would take car tows with a 1,000 foot rope and we would hold the poles for his inverted pass ribbon cut. Yep, pretty impressive and I think he is the only one who has ever done this.

Well I had read "Cannibal Queen" a few months before, so at one point I asked him what his reaction was to having Stephen Coonts call him (paraphasing, because I can't find my copy) the best pilot he had ever seen. Bear in mind that Manfred is a furniture maker in Canada and just did the airshow stuff for his own enjoyment.

His answer was "what?" He hadn't even heard of the book.

So I went to Hastings Book Store that night, after dinner, and bought him a copy.

I imagine he enjoyed it some.
 
n5lp said:
...(paraphasing, because I can't find my copy) the best pilot he had ever seen....
Well I found my copy and sure did miss it some. But the gist isn't that far off.

The actual quote is "His mastery of his craft was total, his exhibition a tour de force."

Forgive me for getting it a bit wrong from carrier pilot Coonts.
 
Well, already mentioned is Cannibal Queen, my #1 choice.

Close #2, is "Flight of Passage", by Rinker Buck

Mike
 
It's Gotta be Gann

All the books mentioned are good/great and most are on the shelf behind me right now. But hands down my favorite over the years has always been "Fate is the Hunter" by Ernest K. Gann. I have read it many times and it never fails to move me. It is not a perfect book. Gann's ability as a novelist improved in his later books but for shear raw power there is, in my opinion, no finer aviation book. The theme woven through the story is the power of chance to decide our fate despite our best efforts as pilots. Survival in the sky depends on skill, knowledge (especially self-knowledge), courage, and....fortunate circumstances. "Where is the man without luck?" he asks. I am perhaps biased because, as a 16 yo student pilot, I CALLED ERNEST K. GANN ON THE PHONE! and had a nice chat about the book. Then he consented to allow me to interview him for a high school term paper! I flew a Taylorcraft out to Friday Harbor and he met me at the airport in his green 1950ish MG roadster. He showed me his airplanes, a Piaggio Royal Gull and a Bucker Jungmeister. I visited his office and saw all his Holywood memorabilia. He was good friends with John Wayne. All the while we talked flying. He was very gracious and extremely generous with his time. It was one of the most thrilling experiences of my life, up to that time at least. Because of my afternoon with Mr. Gann I started flying more responsibly. Now for the best part. Ten years ago a friend bought a DC-3 and I have been very fortunate to get to fly it, even getting typed. So I have been able to partly live out my literary fantasy of airline flying in the 1930's and 40's. I can recommend "Fate is Hunter" without reservation. If you haven't read it your aviation education is not yet complete.
 
The greatest Aviation book of all time is Yeager by General Chuck Yeager

By far and with out a doubt the greatest aviation book ever is Yeager by General Chuck Yeager! If you have not read this book, then you should get it now. Amazon has it for under $3.00. http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0553256742/ref=olp_tab_new/102-0261679-5625760?ie=UTF8&condition=new

For thoes that do not know. Here is a brief summary from the top of my head.

Yeager enlists in the army from a small town in West Virginia at 17. He later signs up to be an aviator. He flys P51 Mustangs in Europe. He is shot down over France. He escapes France by hiking over the Pyrenees. His hiking partner is shot in the knee by the Germans. Yeager amputates the knee while under fire with his pocket knife and then escapes with his unconscious partner down a log slide. Yeager saves the man?s life by carrying him for the next two days up the Pyrenees into Spain. Yeager goes all the way to Eisenhower to get permission to continue fighting in Europe. Yeager then becomes a test pilot only by an accident location and his great flying skills. He is the maintenance officer who flies the airplanes after they have been fixed at Wright Field in Ohio. He becomes a test pilot without an engineering degree because of his flying ability. One of his test pilot missions is to determine why Ailerons were locking up at full deflection on one particular airplane. This had caused a few deaths by military pilots. Yeager takes the problem type aircraft for a test flight. Sure enough he locks up the ailerons with full stick deflection. Read the book to see how he gets out of this situation. He later breaks the sound barrier as a test pilot. Breaking the sound barrier is only a day in the life of Yeager. He later goes to the Korean conflict and later still he flies over 100 missions in Vietnam. While stationed in Japan he flies under radar into Vietnam (why he does this in the book) to visit his son who is Army infantry. Yeager goes on patrol in the bush with his son?s platoon just for kicks. When Yeager becomes a general he is assigned to Pakistan as the Ambassador?s military liaison. He basically trains the Pakistan air force and then when war breaks out between Pakistan and India Yeager is again up flying combat missions. Yeager goes on a top secret mission inside the Soviet Union with the cover as the Co-Pilot of Jackie Cochran(an other recommend aviation book). While sitting a banquet he is recognized by the Russians. The Russian take him to some of their airfields and he is expecting to be taken prisoner at any moment. Yeager and Cochran are allowed to fly out of Russia. Yeager has secret military photography equipment which he uses when flying over the Russian military bases. Yeager ends his career in the safety department of the Air force where he changes the way military accidents are investigated and corrected. Yeager has stated that his biggest achievement in the Air Force is restructuring of maintenance departments that he has under his command. His men?s aircraft have unheard of deployment ability. Under his command he and his men have many half way around the world deployment where all of the aircraft complete their mission. This is back in the 50 and 60 where it is extremely difficult to keep these early jet flying. Yeager credits this accomplishment; because he always considered himself a maintenance person going all the way back to when he was a maintenance office at Wright Field in Ohio.
 
Favorite Books

For the non-fiction books:

-I agree with everyone: Fate is the Hunter- Gann
-Cannibal Queen- Coonts
-My all time favorite: Thunderbolt!- Robert S. Johnston

Fiction Books:

-Flight of the Old Dog- Dale Brown
-Flight of the Intruder- Coonts
-Termite Hill- Wilson

I'll add more as I think of them...I'm having a mental block right now.
 
"You want to build and fly a what?" by Dick Starks (a quick and fun read)

"No Parachute" by Arthur Gould Lee" (a true account of WWI flying)
 
OOPS!

Sorry 'bout that....I should at least get the title right.

"To Fly and Fight ...Memoirs of a Triple Ace" a biography of Col."Bud" Anderson's career as a fighter pilot, starting with his training days out west and late entrance into WW2 with the mighty P-51 and taking him through jets through Vietnam. Great read!
 
Favorite Books

Fate is the Hunter--- Probably the best.

I can't believe no votes for Skunkworks!!!

Any of the Dale Brown series are great entertainment especially,

Flight of the old dog.
 
Non-Fiction:
Spirit of St. Louis - Lindbergh
Fly Low, Fly Fast: Inside the Reno Air Races by Robert Gandt
Kill Devil Hill - Harry Combs
Zero Three Bravo - Mariana Gosnell
Voyager - Jeana Yeager
Bax Seat - Gordon Baxter
Flying Carpet - Greg Brown
True North - George Erikson
Adak - Andrew Jampoler
Gift of Wings - Richard Bach

Fiction:
Piece of Cake - Derek Robinson

http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/1U05Z3VUS3NHR/104-3074665-5075969?_encoding=UTF8







Piece of Cake by Derek Robinson
 
The FAR/aim

Is propping up the short leg on my bed

Van's assembly manual
30 seconds over Tokyo...I think this was the first book to feature the doolittle raid on Tokyo?


Frank
 
An excellent nonfiction account of an Alaskan bush pilot can be found in the book: "Wager with the Wind" . Great story of his life.
 
"West With the Night" - Beryl Markham
This may be the best book I've EVER read.

Rolf (RV6 finally at the airport!)
 
Agree with West With the Night- a great read about exceptional people. Another favorites is Reach For The Sky by Paul Brickhill. Bill
 
Thank you for the recommendation

vanplane said:
One of my all time favorite "aviation" books is Round the Bend by Nevil Shute. Shute was a pilot, aeronautical engineer and started a semi-successful airplane building company in prewar England -- all the while publishing a series of novels that were wildly popular in their day. He died in 1960 so his aeronautical stuff is a bit dated, but he's a wonderful story teller who got better with every book.

Thank you so much for the recommendation. I have read several Nevil Shute books and loved every one of them. "On the Beach" may have been the first. I have just placed an order through Amazon.com for "Round the Bend".

Bob Axsom
 
Great reads

Sorry to do this in stages. Agree with previous about Kill Devil Hill - this book made the greatest impression on me of any human achievement account ever. Also wonderful is the Autobiography of Eddie Rickenbacker. Probably a lot of us loved Nevil Shute's novels, but his factual account of engineering and building a British airship to compete with the German Graf Hindenburg (sp?) and Zepplin (as well as another UK government competitor) called Sliderule is superb and really not dated - defiinitely worth the effort to find. Amazon found Kill Devil Hill for me; it's been in and out of print at least 2 times. Thanks to Amazon I've given a lot of copies to flying friends. Bill
 
Artful Flying by Michael Maya Charles has quickly become one of my favorites. It probably should be read by aviators of all experience levels.
 
Shakespeare

At the ripe age of 16, when I was meant to be reading Shakespeare in the school library, I found a copy of 'Where Know Birds Fly' by Phillip Wills- World Glider Champion. Much better reading.
It ignited my latent love of aviation.
Years later I was absolutely ecstatic to be drinking champagne from the huge World Glider Champion Trophy Cup, when I was invited to a party to celebrate Ingo Renner?s win.
There, amongst all the winners was Phillip Wills, winner 1952, Spain.
I doubt I could name a favourite, but one not mentioned so far is 'Failure is Not an Option' by Gene Kranz. Brilliant. Bet Paul has a copy.
Pete.
PS. Both the above are available at Amazon as is Carrying the Fire by Mike Collins
 
Signed Copy

Mike S said:
O.K., Darwin-------how about "Sled Driver"?

Mike


Great book. I have a signed copy that a friend got me for my birthday many years ago.
 
Unlocking the sky

OK, all my top favorites have been mentioned (especially Fate is the Hunter, Flight of Passage, and Cannibal Queen), but here's one I bet not many have read. "Unlocking the Sky: Glen Curtis and the race to invent the airplane".

With all due respect to the Wright Brothers achievement of simply demonstrating that flight was possible, the planes we fly actually owe a heck of a lot more to Glen Curtis than the Wright Brothers. He invented everything from the aileron to the seaplane (and even the motorcyle twist grip) -- all on an elementary school education.

Oh, and if you ever run across a copy of "Flying the Old Planes", by Frank Tallman, snatch it up. He'll tell you what it was like to fly the "Curtiss Pusher" (you can actually fly it backwards!).
 
rv8guy said:
All really great, but I did not see "God is my Copilot" the one that hooked me

I read that one in high school when I should have been doing home work...

Lot's of good books listed here however top of the list at present is the RV-8 prebuild manual....:)

dd
 
jonbakerok said:
With all due respect to the Wright Brothers achievement of simply demonstrating that flight was possible, the planes we fly actually owe a heck of a lot more to Glen Curtis than the Wright Brothers. He invented everything from the aileron to the seaplane (and even the motorcyle twist grip) -- all on an elementary school education.

The Wright Brothers did a lot more than simply demonstrate flight was possible. Systematically, using the scientific method, they literally invented the airplane. They divided the problem into different components, addressing each and then solving it in turn.
1) They determined the previous work done on calculating lift was junk, so they built a wind tunnel and developed accurate lift tables for different airfoils. They "knew" how much lift they could expect from the airfoil they used.
2) They developed 3-axis control, critical to true flight.
3) They understood that they could use gravity to "power" their early designs; i.e., the gliders. They were experienced pilots, learning on fly using the gliders before they ever started with the power.
4) There was almost no worthwhile information available on propellers, so they figured it out themselves, and built a very efficient propeller from theory, not trail and error.
5) Kitty Hawk was just proof of concept. The only reason the underpowered Wright Flier got airborne on December 17th was because of the strong winds and cold temperature. They spent 1904 and 1905 perfecting the Flier. By the end of 1905 they could stay aloft for hours and maneuver at will.

Not until the Wright Brothers finally revealed the airplane to the public in 1908 did aviation take off. Aviation owes much to Glen Curtiss but as someone once said he "stood on the shoulders of giants".
 
Jimmy Doolittle called him the "greatest stick and rudder pilot that ever lived".

Yeager called him "the greatest pilot he ever saw".

I'm absolutely amazed that this thread is 5 pages long and nobody has mentioned R.A. "Bob" Hoover's book, FOREVER FLYING. Wow what a good read.

Todd Farnsley
RV-8 (Wings)
Fort Wayne, IN
 
We need a "Bookshelf"

Doug, I just had an idea.

How about if you captured all these great book titles and created a virtual bookshelf. You could put in links to the books for sale on-line and maybe even get Amazon or Barnes & Noble to kick in some ad bucks. People could vote for their favorites and you could rank them.

And how about a separate bookshelf for "how to" books.

Same idea for all the great airplane movies from that other thread a few months ago.
 
I like the "bookshelf" idea!

There is no way I could EVER pick a favorite book - I like way to many of them, and this list has brought back reminders of ones I had forgotten....Jon is right - someone should capture all of these titles!

Headed back to Houston tomorrow....

Paul
 
Toddav8r said:
I'm absolutely amazed that this thread is 5 pages long and nobody has mentioned R.A. "Bob" Hoover's book, FOREVER FLYING. Wow what a good read.

Todd Farnsley
RV-8 (Wings)
Fort Wayne, IN

Totally agree. Great Read...

Two others that are hard to put down are the story of Max Conrad "Into the Wind" which chronicles his life and record breaking flights. For those who have not heard of him do a google search and you'll be amazed by his exploits. Most of his records were in Piper Comanches, but some in other Piper models. Example: Casablanca to Los Angeles, approx 60 hours in the air. There are many, many more. This book can be bought on line for around $2 now. Best two dollars you can spend to read about flying.

Another great one is the story of the atomic bomb missions written by Charles Sweeney who flew on both missions. I can't recall the name, but searching Sweeney's name should produce the title. There were approx. 6 months of extreme training for this mission and the stories are facinating.
I loaned mine out so many times it fell apart, litterally.

Best,
 
I'll throw in another vote for "Fate is the Hunter" and also give mention to one I haven't seen in this thread yet - "North to the Orient" by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. She was a master of descriptive writing and offers a slightly different perspective than the pilot authors. Also, if you'd like to sample some of the authors mentioned but don't know where to start, check out "Wild Blue - Stories of Survival from Air and Space" edited by David Fisher and William Garvey (Thunder's Mouth Press/Balliett & Fitzgerald Inc.). It's a collection of exerpts from many of the books mentioned in this thread.
 
I'm Stunned

I haven't seen Fredrick Forsythe's "The Shepherd" on this list. It's a short read and is definately worth the couple hours. It may have the best twist in any aviation story.

Jim
 
Scott_F said:
..."North to the Orient" by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. She was a master of descriptive writing and offers a slightly different perspective than the pilot authors...

Let's make it clear that although Anne may have not been PIC on this flight, she was, most assuredly, a pilot, as well as a wonderful writer. I believe she held the first glider license of any female in the US.
 
2 Books worth a read

Two books well worth a read although not mentioned in the previous posts as they are perhaps not well known in the US are the following:

The first one is by the French WW2 ace Pierre Clostermann. The English translation is "The Big Show" or if you can read French it is "Le Grand Cirque". This book is often considered the best one to come out of WW2. It covers Mr Clostermann's exploits in the RAF as he became one of the highest scoring allied aces during the war.

Another interesting book is "A Test Pilot's Story" by Jeffrey Quill. Mr. Quill was the chief test pilot for Supermarine during the second world war. Apart from the initial Spitfire test flying by Mutt Summers he test flew every version of the Spitfire and Seafire. He gives an interesting insight into how the various models flew. It is also interesting to learn that the Spitfires as they came off the production line often had a heavy wing problem, like some RVs, and they had to "tune" the ailerons during the initial flights.

Barry RV6A F-PRVM
 
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