In my teens I too devoured W.E Johns ("Biggles"); then almost all of Nevil Shute Norway (all fiction except Slide Rule), and (later) Gann and St Exupery. Must admit to a preference for biography. At some stage I read Reach for the Sky (Paul Brickhill?), which taught me to call a 'plane an aeroplane (airplane if you are west of the pond) and a biography of Frank Whittle, the jet engineer.
There were also a few pilot memoirs, including:
The Sound Barrier by Nevil Duke;
Mach One by Mike Lithgow;
Wind in the Wires by a WW1 fighter pilot called ? Grinnel-Milne.
More recently, there are the memoirs of Chuck Yeager and Jim Lovell.
IMO the best fiction is based on fact. In that category David Beaty, a former BOAC pilot, wrote "The(?) Heart of the Storm and The Cone of Silence, both of which dramatise the conflicting priorities that airline captains sometimes face.
I also thoroughly recommend the Obituary pages of quality newspapers, if you are trying to polish your English. Sadly, many of the most interesting subjects are long-gone...
Last edited by Chris Scott; 2nd Oct 2013 at 08:51.