Love the writings of Ernest Gann and PG Taylor. In my opinion though the outstanding No 1 would be "The Spirit of St Louis" by Charles Lindbergh. The autobiography that covers his early years and up to just after his Atlantic flight. His story of having an aircraft designed and built, test flown in a non stop flight across the States and then flown to Paris, all in less time than it would take for CASA to say "You are planning to what?!!" He was very meticulous in his planning but he had no pretentions or any inkling of the fame that would come his way. When he made his last position fix over St Johns New Foundland he had no idea that the world had been hanging on every sighting made during the day and that the world took a collective breath as he passed over the town and headed east and didn't breath out until he was sighted crossing the coast of Ireland.
He was naive to the point where as he nearing Paris and it being late in the day he was wondering to himself whether there might still be someone around who could perhaps give him a hand with the aircraft and perhaps a lift into town.
The book is a great read and it won a Pulitzer Prize. He was as good at writing as he was at aviating. I see it is available on bookdepository. A quote from that book that I have on the office wall is.
‘Is aviation too arrogant? Idon’t know. Sometimes flying feels too godlike to be attained by man.Sometimes, the world from above seems too beautiful, too wonderful, too distantfor human eyes to see, like a vision at the end of life forming a bridge to death.Can that be why so many pilots lose their lives? Is man encroaching on aforbidden realm? Is aviation dangerous because the sky was never meant for him?When one obtains too great a vision is there some power that draws one frommortal life forever? Will this power smite down pilot after pilot until manloses his will to fly? Or, still worse, will it deaden his senses and let himfly on without the vision? In developing aviation, in making it a form of commerce, in replacing the wild freedom ofdanger with the civilised bonds of safety, must we give up this miracle of theair? Will men fly through the sky in the future without seeing what I haveseen, without feeling what I have felt? Is that true of all things we callhuman progress - do the gods retire as commerce and science advance?’
Charles Lindbergh ‘The Spirit of St Louis’ 1953.