Books like "Fate Is The Hunter"

[rolypolyman]

I finished "Fate Is The Hunter" a couple of months ago and loved it, mainly for the detail about the old DC-4s and DC-6s and the unrefined state of navigation back in those days. I'd like to read more about what it was like flying the line in the old days. So... what do you all recommend for autobiographies about what it was like to fly in 1940s-1970s commercial aviation? I'm interested in anything -- with the sole exception of books where the author has taken artistic license to their memories... that's always off-putting.

[eckhard]

I would recommend Song of the Sky (1954) by Guy Murchie.

[Newforest2]

Can't go wrong with Tad Houlihan 'Flying Cowboys', freighting with the C-74!

[BEagle]

Books like "Fate Is The Hunter"

Surely Ernest K Gann's masterpiece is unique?

I managed to obtain a hardback first edition a year or so ago - I don't think the seller realised how valuable it was....:\

[WaspJunior]

I think you might like "North Star Over My Shoulder" by Bob Buck

[18-Wheeler]

"Chickenhawk" by Bob Mason is also an excellent read.

[Jumbo Jockey]

I second eckhard's recommendation of Song of the Sky, especially if you liked the piston heavies and raw navigation thing.

Another brilliant one for that is Sir Gordon Taylor's autobiography The Sky Beyond. Don't let the fact that it's an autobiography put you off - it's still an excellent and fast-paced read. Quick taster: GT learning astro nav as a young man and practicing it in a biplane on floats, perforce at night, and the method he used to alert himself to reaching flare height when returning to alight on a lake in the dark... Or acting as Kingsford-Smith's nav on an early trans-Tasman flight in a Fokker tri-motor with one engine shut down due to vibration and one of the others losing oil at a distressing rate... Or crossing the Pacific in a Catalina and trying to find a tiny atoll in the middle of thousands of miles of nowhere after flying for what would still be an ultra-long-haul amount of time even today.... One of my all-time faves. Enjoy!

[Tankertrashnav]

and the unrefined state of navigation back in those days.


Unrefined?

You mean astro through a bubble sextant? Manual air plot? Three position line fixes on NDBs? Using a drift sight? As opposed to reading a lat and long accurate to the nearest yard off a GPS and then not having a clue where you are when it packs up?

Unrefined? How dare you sir!!!


(Fate is the Hunter brilliant BTW :ok:)

[Fly-by-Wife]

A while back there was a similar request and someone posted a list of some previous threads about recommended aviation books - which I bookmarked for my own shopping! I meant to extract the titles & authors, but never got round to it, sorry. :O

They won't all be relevant to line flying 1940-70, but some will fulfill your criteria, I'm sure.

Hope you find them useful - I did! :ok:

http://www.pprune.org/private-flying/104460-anyone-read-any-good-books.html
http://www.pprune.org/private-flying/42041-rabbit-air.html
http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/99516-best-aviation-book-you-have-read.html
http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/39587-good-air-novels.html
http://www.pprune.org/spectators-balcony-spotters-corner/36514-good-books-pilots.html
http://www.pprune.org/spectators-balcony-spotters-corner/36094-looking-damn-good-read.html
http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/65903-searching-good-read.html
http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/326589-must-have-read-books.html

FBW

[rolypolyman]

Thanks all... I put in an order for a 1952 edition of Song of the Sky and will order some of the others. I'm not a big fan of piston aircraft but Gann's book made me see the light. I did read Chickenhawk as I have quite a huge pile of Vietnam War books and I absolutely agree it rates among the best of the bunch. Unrefined? How dare you sir!!! Touche! And I say that as someone who owns quite a collection of 1940s-1970s aeronautical charts.

[noperf]

Pistons and Viet Nam? "My Secret War" by Richard Drury.

[b377]

Fate is the Hunter is arguably Gann's best effort for factual detail (an autobiogrphy after all) compared to e.g. The High and the Mighty novel.

However I don't recall a DC-6 being mentioned anywhere - it is manily all about experiences in DC-2s( with stiff legs) , DC-3s (which couldn't carry a tumber's worth of ice), DC-4s (and 'porting' and lucky escapes) and Liberators ( charging bulls for demolishing the Taj Mahal) with a brief mention of the mighty C46 for flying over the 'hump'. Oh and of course must not forget to mention Gann's biggest embarrassment that dejected pelican of an Aeronca C3 that was secretly planning to kill him!

I must read it again.

[CNH]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned David Beaty - 'Cone of Silence', among others.

[one11]

Ernest Gann also produced a book of airliner profiles, many illustrated with art-work "Ernest K Gann's Flying Circus" 1974 ISBN 0 340 20693 4 Hodder & Stoughton. The piece on the DC-4, focused on its use for transatlantic casualty repatriation, is particularly good and reflects AKG's own career, as does the final chapter on a trans-Pacific DC-3 ferry flight

[Proplinerman]

I tried "Fate is the hunter" a few years ago and have to confess that I didn't like Gann's writing style.

My recommendations:

"A life aloft, from DC3 to 747" by Walt Gunn (former TWA Captain)
"Can anyone see Bermuda? Memories of an airline pilot, 1941-76," by Archie Jackson (former BA Captain
"Comets and Concordes (and those I flew before)" by Peter Duffy-former BA Captain
"Croydon to Concorde" by R E Gillman (another former BA Captain)

[albatross]

Stranger to the Ground - Richard Bach

[Cornish Jack]

I'll second One11's recommendation - Flying Circus by Gann. Have just got a copy and get through a chapter a night - it's that sort of read. His writing style is elegant and the names of his heroes pour forth. Superbly evocative description of flying the 'range' in bad weather and using the tricks of the trade to approach to minimums (and a bit less!!) bracketing the As and Ns. Vivid evocation of the times.:ok::ok:

[parabellum]

Didn't EKG also write a book called, "In the Company of Eagles"? mainly about South America?:confused:

[stevef]

I think In the Company of Eagles is a novel about WWI fighter pilots. I've got several books by Gann - aviation & otherwise - and every one of them is a great read.
If you can find it, Behind the Cockpit Door by Arthur Whitlock (published by Merlin Books), is an excellent book, illustrated by the author, an artist in his own right. Plenty of Dakota stories too.

[CPD2]

I can vouch for "Behind the Cockpit Door" an excellent read, probably self published as many excellent aviation books have to be, but Amazon is always worth a try. A book called "In The Shadow of Eagles" is a very good biography of an Alaskan bush pilot who went on to pioneer commercial aviation in Alaska and Canada. Again Amazon might be the best source through their used book finder.

[Entaxei]

Thank you for all these suggestions Gentlemen, the're going to keep me occupied for some while. In the meantime they have thrown up one not listed - The Flying North - by Jean Potter - it is based on a series of interviews carried out in the mid forties about the exploits of nine of the pioneer pilots in Alaska from around 1925 onwards, trying to establish trading routes before Panam appeared on the scene in the Forties.

Incredible stories - I found a copy through ABE Books or Amazon - can't remember which.

Cheers Entaxei :ok:

[JEM60]

Despite a lifetime of Aviation interest,' Fate is the Hunter' had escaped me...until yesterday, when a friend dropped it round. I spent three glorious hours in my sunny conservatory today, reading avidly, completely lost as to the passage of time until Senior Management called me for lunch. I am halfway through it, and will be very sad when I finish it. Unlike one poster, I find his style of writing delightful, once one is used to it. A remarkable book, which, in my humble opinion, thoroughly deserves it's many plaudits. I haven't had as much enthusiasm for an Aviation Book since 'Sagittarius Rising' and 'First Light'

[WHBM]

"Beyond the Blue Horizon", by Alexander Frater. UK to Australia in the 1980s, compared back to the 1930s. Written by a journalist but very accurate and interesting about flying boat times.

[Dick Whittingham]

Must put Antoine de St Exupery on your list

Dick

[Checkboard]

If you want something quicker than a book (and free!), I wrote up a few of my own stories about flying in GA & the airlines in Australia which people appeared to like. Some near-death experiences. :O

https://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/360003-few-flying-stories.html

[tinpis]

The same as above, Google Duke Elegant/Les Maike

[Fantome]

'Early Birds' by Horrie Miller is loaded with choice accounts of pioneering civil aviation in Australia. His MS was polished and edited by his wife, Mary Durack, no mean author in her own right.

'The Wandering Years' by Arthur Affleck is likewise chocker with tales of the
great days between the wars. Arthur was the first pilot to fly for John Flynn's flying doctor service, starting at Cloncurry in 1928. He was a man with a delightful, whimsical sense of humour.

An early flying doctor, not connected with aforementioned service, was
Clyde Fenton. His book, 'Flying Doctor', is a stand out for it's colourful descriptions of saving lives with a DH60 Moth out of Katherine in the '30s.
A funny man, and a great prankster. How he dodged the red tape in Hong Kong, when he flew the Moth to Swatow in China for his sister's wedding, was an act of purest comic genius.

'Scotty Allan, Australia's Flying Scotsmen' co-authored by Elizabeth Shearman, is not quite so recommendable, although the photos are excellent. The late George Roberts, (see 'Qantas, By George!') , once bagged the book, suggesting that the 'F' in Flying should be deleted. For a' that, and a' that, there's no denying the man did contribute hugely to the advancement of aviation in Australia. There is a film clip in the national archive of him training pilots on the Qantas Empire flying boat. There's no sound track, but his large hand and arm movements on final, as he instructs his charge how to judge the approach, are classic.

And his portrait by William Dobell is a cracker. It'd enhance any rogue's gallery.

[Viola]

Corsairville by Graham Coster about the lost world of the flying boats.

Not written from first hand experience, but refers to lots of interviews.

Very well written and some good photos.