Pilots as authors and vice versa

[Fantome]

This is where some of the world's best airmen writers can be found -

http://www.pprune.org/aviation-histo...good-read.html

The Westland test pilot, Harald Penrose, is in there with his 'Adventure with Fate'. Also his incomparably lyrical two works 'Airymouse' and 'Cloud Cuckooland'.

An example of his style from the latter -

When there was opportunity I still sailed my small yacht, and the unhurrying sea gave seclusion from the fevered pageant men call progress. The wind's throb, and the smooth, unflagging lift and fall as the bows crunched through the water sometimes reminded me of the gull-like, engineless flight I used to enjoy.
I would watch, with ghost of old longing, the sunlit wings of the seabirds serenely soaring the white cliffs of Dorset. It seemed that the great open expanse of the seas gave a different and more intimate sense of freedom than in the sun-white blaze of heights I achieved with powerful aeroplanes far above the filmy cloud puffs veiling the world of men. The oceans spoke of the globe's genesis and continuity; the heights echoed the eternity which has gone and the shadow of endless aeons that will come. With both there was the peace that many seek - free from the brazen blare that is civilisation's traversty of life. Yet always, when I descended from the heights, the unfolding world from which I had fled swiftly linked me once more with its intimacy, and I felt profoundly happy to walk the earth again and be among its people.

But the magic of a softly sighing sailplane can be greater than the immensities disclosed by a high-flying aeroplane, for it has much the same direct communion with the elements as a sailing ship. In the summer sky, the tide sailed by my open-cockpit glider had been time itself,
flowing with smooth continuity from the far world of yesterday to the almost visible coming of tomorrow. There was deep content in sailing the hilltops, beating to and fro, and sometimes lifting high on a bubble of rising air and setting course from one glowing cumulus to another. I seemed to be winging across seas of music, uplifted by the spirits delight.