Richard Bach injured
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Richard Bach injured
Author/pilot Richard Bach hurt badly enough to be hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries in the crash of his homebuilt seaplane.
Author Richard Bach injured in plane crash | Local News | The Seattle Times
Author Richard Bach injured in plane crash | Local News | The Seattle Times
Always saddened to hear of a light aircraft crash/event, but more so as Mr Bach enthralled many with his writing over the years, including my favorite short book "Illusions". Let's hope that your head just ends up with a bump and a headache sir! 
SHJ
SHJ
And thirded! 'A Gift of Wings' and 'Nothing by Chance' should be added to that list too in my opinion.
I hope he recovers fully and is back in the air again as soon as possible. As mentioned by his son on Twitter, mr. Bach is not one to stay on the ground.
I hope he recovers fully and is back in the air again as soon as possible. As mentioned by his son on Twitter, mr. Bach is not one to stay on the ground.
Here's a sincere wish for the full recovery of the pilot whose contribution to the literature of aviation is as valuable as his distant ancester's compositions are to the world of music.
In my home his books sit on the same shelf as, and right next to, my Ernie Gann collection - and I hold them in the same high regard.
Get well soon Mr Bach.
In my home his books sit on the same shelf as, and right next to, my Ernie Gann collection - and I hold them in the same high regard.
Get well soon Mr Bach.
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On the Bob Rivers Show, 95.7 KJR FM, we will be talking James Bach, Richard Bach's son with an update on Richard's health!!
If your in the local Seattle Area you can tune in 95.7 or if your anywhere else in the country you can tune in at The Bob Rivers Show with Bob Spike and Joe!
If your in the local Seattle Area you can tune in 95.7 or if your anywhere else in the country you can tune in at The Bob Rivers Show with Bob Spike and Joe!
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I have heard from what I consider to be a very reliable source that Richard suffered a broke collar bone along with a punctured lung. In addition, his head got banged up pretty badly and the extent of that injury was being observed and treated. He is a tough guy and in very good shape so fingers crossed that there are no permanent injuries.
It will have been necessary for me not less of about ten readings to understand finally the sense of this history. Subtlety lies in the fact that protagonists take place aboard a single place glider aircraft. They are in fact the two facets of the same person : Richard Bach. The characters of the one and the other one are diametricaly different. The one that holds commands is a exalted poet , impatient to feel free again, going back to his favourite element : air. He is in a state of jubilation close to the bliss going as far even as comparing every takeoff with a new birth. He is in no way concentrated on his flight parameters and makes fun royally of the soaring competition in which he is supposed to participate. The other person (conjugated to the first person), is a killjoy procedurer, annoyed by the rigorous lack of a flight instructor, seeing in the landscape arround only potential dangers. Which is not the bewilderment when, after the takeoff, the poet releases himself too much early from the towing cable, making so very weak the chances to join the landing field. In this mountainous region, made by lakes, by forests and by cliffs, any forced landing would be extremely risky. Finding the providential lift becomes then a question of life or death. The poet laughs at it and counts on his chance, while the other one does not stand having only this solution. In spite of some minutes of fear, everything will end happily ...
This story reminds us that once in flight, we navigate all between these two attitudes, and that it is not always easy to reconcile admiring beauties of the sky and the total mastery of the machine...
Loops, voices and the fear of death
Richard evokes here difficult situations in which every pilot is brought to be confronted one day: taken in the trap of a weather which degrades faster than forecasted, involved in an autorotation of which it'is impossible to get out, sucked down by downward wind in mountain... The only question that one asks to himself at this moment there is always the same: " What am I doing here? ". The answer which gives Richard is nevertheless simple: " I am not somewhere else, I do live the present moment by fighting to protect my life. Only moments as those are to estimate the real price for it ". Going out from such situations give a victory feeling on elements and on ourselves.
The pleasure of their company
Richard speaks about writers who urged him to push the doors of the sky and supports the idea that it is not necessary to meet a writer so that he becomes friend. It is enough to read his books ! he takes for example Antoine de Saint Exupéry, who was already necessary to be able to perceive through the thick cloud of smoke of cigarette which surrounded constantly his head. Those that knew him confidentially, dreaded so much that he'd speak about his health that to wait for the return of one of his flights by wondering if he would think of taking out his landing gear. Richard Bach claims what is more there are all the chances so that the German pilot who has shot him down without suspecting, naturally which was his target, possessed at his home (bombed by the allied) all the Saint Ex's books
I recognise some of it as a copy from 'A Gift of Wings' but it seems to have been translated back and forth from English to something else and back again using Google translate or something like that.
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I must say I never thought JLS had anything to say on mob rule - that's a new concept to me. Conformity yes.
It wasn't mob rule surely, rather the incomprehension and suspicion of the conservative and unimaginative masses to the spirit of one who dares to be different - and learn to fly. Given RB's background as a fast jet pilot (and from some of his chronologically earlier stories) I take JLS as a glorious celebration of the joys of military (and to a lesser extent civil) flying training and the discovery of the freedoms and separation that flying brings from the ground-gripping masses who just cannot comprehend why or what it is all about.
Non pilots just won't/can't ever see that aspect of the book and have to make do with its more mundane and obvious message, hence some of the wilder theories about its meaning (at school it was presented as some sort of quasi spiritual/religious work as indeed it is, but they had completely the wrong end of the stick about why. Sadly that put me off reading it until years after my Wings, when I immediately saw the light)
Just magical. No pilot (and certainly no FJ/mil pilot) should fail to love this wonderful little book.
The flock are "afraid" (suspicious) of anyone who doesn't want to conform and be another grey little accountant and get a "proper" job like all the rest. Non-conformity is first regarded as frivolous, then destabilising, then heretical because there is something there that they cannot understand and the human reaction to that is often to discourage it as being against the grain. Its what makes the ground bound look at us with a measure of bemusement, they're not quite sure what to make of us. Recognise it?
It wasn't mob rule surely, rather the incomprehension and suspicion of the conservative and unimaginative masses to the spirit of one who dares to be different - and learn to fly. Given RB's background as a fast jet pilot (and from some of his chronologically earlier stories) I take JLS as a glorious celebration of the joys of military (and to a lesser extent civil) flying training and the discovery of the freedoms and separation that flying brings from the ground-gripping masses who just cannot comprehend why or what it is all about.
Non pilots just won't/can't ever see that aspect of the book and have to make do with its more mundane and obvious message, hence some of the wilder theories about its meaning (at school it was presented as some sort of quasi spiritual/religious work as indeed it is, but they had completely the wrong end of the stick about why. Sadly that put me off reading it until years after my Wings, when I immediately saw the light)
Just magical. No pilot (and certainly no FJ/mil pilot) should fail to love this wonderful little book.
The flock are "afraid" (suspicious) of anyone who doesn't want to conform and be another grey little accountant and get a "proper" job like all the rest. Non-conformity is first regarded as frivolous, then destabilising, then heretical because there is something there that they cannot understand and the human reaction to that is often to discourage it as being against the grain. Its what makes the ground bound look at us with a measure of bemusement, they're not quite sure what to make of us. Recognise it?
Last edited by Agaricus bisporus; 17th Sep 2012 at 15:03.
"Mildly" Eccentric Stardriver
At the risk of this becoming a book club, I have to take issue with some of AB's comments. Yes, the book concerns flying, but not just as a celebration of the joys thereof. The meaning, at least to me, is that we are at our best when striving to be our best. For Jonathon that meant trying to get the very best out of the body he was given. He trancended the mundane, the everyday. (In fact IIRC there is a track called "Trancend" on the soundtrack of the film. Get the CD if you can, some of Neil Diamond's best work. Don't bother with the film, I gather RB distanced himself from it, and I can see why.) The same theme occurs at the beginning of "Illusions", where creatures are clinging to rocks at the bottom of the river. One of them, against the advice of all, decides to let go and allow the current to carry him where it will. Only by giving in to the life force within all of us, will we be able to reach our true destiny. Before anyone asks, no I didn't; but to quote RB again "There is one way to know if your mission in life is accomplished. If you're still here, it isn't."
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Sorry to hear of this,hope he is on the mend.
Loved the book JLS,there is a song about Jonathon,it's called 'Jonathon' by a Lancashire group called 'Barclay James Harvest',it does the story well
http://youtu.be/UgfbKE6EzBk
Loved the book JLS,there is a song about Jonathon,it's called 'Jonathon' by a Lancashire group called 'Barclay James Harvest',it does the story well
http://youtu.be/UgfbKE6EzBk