Pilots and the Pen - your favorites?

[gravity victim]

It could be argued that professional flying(civil and military) is under-represented in literature.Maybe doing it is not conducive to writing about it. And yet, ppruners daily demonstrate a flair for being concise, descriptive, witty, emotional and sonmetimes downright lyrical, witness KIFIS's marvellous ode to Kai Tak.

So what are your all time favorites? For me it would be Ernest Gann's 'Fate is the Hunter', Gibson's 'Enemy Coast Ahead' and Hillary's 'The Last Enemy' (both the last made more poignant by being written in wartime, before the authors made their final sacrifice.)

Covering test flying and early passenger jets, Beatty's 'Proving Flight' and Neville Shute's 'Slide Rule'. Pioneering flying - Lindbergh's 'Spirit of St Louis' (written as an hourly log) and Chichester's brilliant 'The Lonely Sea and The Sky.' Naval Aviation? Charles Lamb's 'War in a Stringbag.' Helicopters? Robert Masons's remarkable 'Chickenhawk'. Record-breaking- Alex Henshaw's 'Flight of the Mew Gull.'

I'm scatching the surface here. What have I missed?

[Flying Guy]

Hopefully, you will be able to add my name to the list soon. My novel, Ghauri's Sword, is now in the final review process in preparation to being presented to publishers. It is an international thriller but begins and ends in the cockpit of airliners. It will be a good read for aviation enthuasists.

[NudgingSteel]

"A Gift of Wings" by Richard Bach (author of "Jonathan Livingston Seagull").
This is a collection of varied short stories, some true, some fiction, all absolutely wonderful. This experienced pilot really knows how to convey the absolute joy of flying.

I cannot recommend it too highly!

[ID90]

Would agree with "The Last Enemy"...it has everything, Alex Henshaw`s "Sigh for a Merlin" is also 1st class.

[gravity victim]

Flying guy -
I'll look out for it. Good luck with the publishers.

[Ignition Override]

There are so many. Chickenhawk, by Robert Mason, might be my favorite, concerning combat aviation. No glamour here for a Tom Cruise movie and box office jackpot: no 500 knot jets, ejection seats, parachutes or ability to dive lower and faster to dodge bullets, shells or SAMs. Just a slowing Huey helicopter with terrified pilots and crew going into a landing zone with nowhere to hide, or struggling to climb slowly out while the enemy (often waiting) is blasting you from thick undergrowth with AK-47 machine guns or worse. And the Army supposedly took a long time shipping chest protectors for the exposed crews, trapped behind their large plexiglass windows, costing even more lives. Fastjet pilots at least had little chance of getting hit by cyclic rates of fire while at almost zero airspeed, other than random rocket attacks (not including accidental rocket on USS Forestal), it seems-or bad burritos for breakfast.

[This message has been edited by Ignition Override (edited 08 September 2000).]

[MrBernoulli]

Antoine St Exupery wrote a fabulous aviation book..........the name of which escapes me for the moment. I'll get back to you when I can remember it. Most definitely a classic of aviation literature.

[This message has been edited by MrBernoulli (edited 08 September 2000).]

[chimbuchump]

It was "Flight to Arras"

[gravity victim]

Chimbuchump,

Agree about 'Flight to Arras'. We had it as a set book at school, the only interesting one as I remember. 'St.Ex' was possibly a better writer than a pilot, bit of a daydreamer. I remember a passage which went something like "I awake with a start. Dutertre, my trusty navigator is shaking me . How long have I been asleep?"

[Biggles Flies Undone]

Sigh for a Merlin is a great book. Every time I drive past Hams Hall power station in the Midlands I recall his story – with solid overcast it was possible to spot the bubble in the top of the layer made by the rising air from the cooling towers and by flying over this on a precise heading and rate of descent the aircraft broke out of the cloud (often at under 200’) on finals for Castle Bromwich. This was quite often done deadstick after a series of prop drive failures – the Spitfires were needed too urgently for the pilot to play safe and bail out. Talk about quality skills……

'Testing Times' by Roly Beaumont is also a good read. Covers all the pre-squadron testing of the Lightning and all the testing of the TSR2.

[propjock]

I would say that E.K. Gann's "Fate is the Hunter" is the ultimate tribute to the pilot profession...

I've read it 5 times and it's always an inspiration, in fact ,it should be required reading at every ATP course...

I can only warmly recommend it...

Otherwise, "For pilot's eyes only " by Ned Wilson, " Yeager", "100 Missions North" by Bell, "Vulture's Row" by Gilchrist, "Fighter pilot's heaven " by Don Lopez and the classic "Flight of the Intruder".

Also great reading is Fred Rochlin's "Old man in a baseball Cap" and last but not least " Lost Moon" by Jim Lovell...


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" I should like to elbow aside the established pieties and raise my martini glass in salute to the mortal arts of pleasure "

[gravity victim]

An amazing, unmissable autobiography is 'Wings on my Sleeve' by Capt. Eric Brown RN, famous Naval Aviator and early helicopter pilot.

God only knows how he is still alive and walking around after his naval and Farnborough test flying experiences - which included the bizarre 'flexible deck' idea, where the plan was to save weight on naval jets by covering the flight deck with a sprung rubber sheet, and belly in without benefit of undercarriage!( they would be catapulted off on a trolley like an Me Komet). He did this in a Vampire.

When,late in the War, the first helicopter arrived from the USA in a crate, he was sent to fly it back to Farnborough. The mechanic who assembled it handed him the Pilot's Notes and walked off..the solo trip home was his first rotary wing flight.

Read this book.

[gravity victim]

Sorry Capt Pprune - I have only just noticed I have reinvented the wheel by restarting an already efficiently archived thread.

Maybe you could make a few quid by offering Amazon the chance to put a link in, so we all spend our money even quicker?

[fobotcso]

Oh yes! Richard Bach has to be right up there with "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" and his collection of short stories "A Gift of Wings".

He can give me goose pimples on my goose pimples; but then I always was a sentimental old sod!

[Jackonicko]

Dick Bach has written great aviation books. His best (IMHO) was 'Stranger to the Ground' - a true story from his time as an ANG F-84 pilot. Equally brilliant, and far funnier, is RJ 'Chick' Childerhose's 'Wild Blue', which I can't recommend too highly. Some of the stories were published in a book (same author) simply called F-86 Sabre, which may still be available!

[R22]

Richard Bach's "A Gift of Wings" gets my vote, most definitely.

[Dark Skies]

It has to be 'Fate is the Hunter' though Ernest Gann wrote another book called 'Band of Brothers ' which is also very good!

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'Thats not Flying! Thats just falling with style'

[fifthcolumns]

Good grief, I have most of those mentioned,
plus numerous other cluttering up my
shelves.
I often re-read 'A gift of wings' I also like 'Sagittarius
rising' by Cecil.
Also anything by Roland Beaumont.

I also have almost all of the Osprey Colour series
photobooks, except one. Why did they stop
producing them? Actually the one I missed is
'Confederate air force' by Peter R March
Not the recent edition but the first edition
published in I think 1991.
If anyone has it and wants to sell it, E-mail me.

[Oleo]

"'I Flew For The Fuhrer" - can't remember the author.

'Garbo Of The Skies' - about Jean Batten.

'Night Witches' about Russian women pilots in WWI.

[TrueNorth]

St. Exupery wrote other books, too - `Wind, Sea, Sand and Stars` (I think) and `Night Flight` among them.

The former is about a flight over the Med and the N. African desert. The latter, if memory serves, is the story of an airmail flight in S. America.

Anybody read any of Lindbergh`s offerings?

(His wife, incidentally, had something of an infatuation with St. Exupery...)

[3holer]

One name that always come to my mind is of Len Morgan, who wrote for Flying magazine during several years. He flew for Braniff and could describe our profession like nobody else.

[A Very Civil Pilot]

No one has mentioned Captain W.E Johns yet. Not surprising really ;)