Searching for a good read...
Join Date: May 2005
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Worf and Algy Lacey mention Alex Kimbell's "Think like a Bird", which is indeed excellent.
Kimbell has also written a subsequent book called "The Unbridgeable Divide", which is well worth a read itself and is easily available in pbk ISBN: 1-899293-19-1
It is subtitled "A Love Story", and the jacket blurb can give the impression that it strays into the worst of Richard Bach territory. Maybe it gets close to that, but only in a very limited way on a couple of occasions. Don't let either of those things put you off though - I enjoyed it very much.
However, it has been proof-read appallingly...
Kimbell has also written a subsequent book called "The Unbridgeable Divide", which is well worth a read itself and is easily available in pbk ISBN: 1-899293-19-1
It is subtitled "A Love Story", and the jacket blurb can give the impression that it strays into the worst of Richard Bach territory. Maybe it gets close to that, but only in a very limited way on a couple of occasions. Don't let either of those things put you off though - I enjoyed it very much.
However, it has been proof-read appallingly...
Join Date: Dec 2004
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I can't believe.....
...nobody's mentioned No Moon Tonight, and the follow up -Journeys into Night, (ISBN 0-949873-37-3) both by Australian Don Charlwood, who was a Navigator with 103 Sqn flying from Elsham Wolds, Lincs...... riveting reads both of them.
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Some amazing reads, really enjoyed Fate is the Hunter and A Gift of Wings.
Any recommedations for books about early airline operations in the UK, 1960's era?
Cheers
PG
Any recommedations for books about early airline operations in the UK, 1960's era?
Cheers
PG
Join Date: Jan 2003
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Try Norman Hanson's "Carrier Pilot"... the autobiographical of a young man who volunteered for the RN during WWII to be an aircraft engineer, found himself going through pilot training and eventually commanding an RNVR CV FU4 Corsair Sqn... great stories... many sad, some hilarious.
(only available through 2nd hand booksites though... try
www.biblion.com
http://www.usedbooksearch.co.uk/
(only available through 2nd hand booksites though... try
www.biblion.com
http://www.usedbooksearch.co.uk/
Join Date: Dec 2001
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'No Highway' by Neville Shute.
A superior novel about an eccentric individual who foretold the first jet airliner crash due to metal fatigue. I believe that Neville Shute actually gave evidence at the lublic enquiry to the early Comet crashes as his story was so prohetic.
Perhaps we whould have a novel about the perils of pilot fatigue???
'Reach for the Sky' by Paul Brickhill.
I was definately inspired to fly by the story of the amazing Gp Capt Douglas Bader who defied everybody to fight combat in Spits and Hurricanse as a double amputee.
A superior novel about an eccentric individual who foretold the first jet airliner crash due to metal fatigue. I believe that Neville Shute actually gave evidence at the lublic enquiry to the early Comet crashes as his story was so prohetic.
Perhaps we whould have a novel about the perils of pilot fatigue???
'Reach for the Sky' by Paul Brickhill.
I was definately inspired to fly by the story of the amazing Gp Capt Douglas Bader who defied everybody to fight combat in Spits and Hurricanse as a double amputee.
Join Date: Feb 2005
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The movie version of Shute's classic was "No Highway in the Sky" with Jimmy Stewart and Marlene Dietrich. See review
This was a much better film than "Fate Is The Hunter" - that one was so bad, Gann sued to have his name stricken from the credits. The "airliner" images alone caused apoplectic fits in aviators in the audience.
This was a much better film than "Fate Is The Hunter" - that one was so bad, Gann sued to have his name stricken from the credits. The "airliner" images alone caused apoplectic fits in aviators in the audience.
Join Date: Jan 2000
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a good read
I don't think anyone's mentioned "The Water Jump" by David Beaty. (The history of transatlantic flight by someone who helped develop it.)
He also presents some interesting arguments supporting the concept of very senior managers (airline or not) being in possession of comfortable private incomes and more relevently, the historical reasons that many of the early post-war BOAC captains were such prats, plus many other interesting bits about the early days of all the atlantic airlines.
Sorreeee...................pressed the wrong button - should have been a reply to "A good read "
He also presents some interesting arguments supporting the concept of very senior managers (airline or not) being in possession of comfortable private incomes and more relevently, the historical reasons that many of the early post-war BOAC captains were such prats, plus many other interesting bits about the early days of all the atlantic airlines.
Sorreeee...................pressed the wrong button - should have been a reply to "A good read "
Join Date: Feb 2005
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"The Water Jump" reminds me of Ed Jablonski's "Atlantic Fever" - an historical review of Alcock & Brown, Earhart, Lindbergh, Corrigan etc. in the technical and political context of their time.
BTW - I have another Jablonski book, "Gershwin", a biography of the American composer. Jablonski shows himself to be a great historian and writer in more than one field.
BTW - I have another Jablonski book, "Gershwin", a biography of the American composer. Jablonski shows himself to be a great historian and writer in more than one field.
Join Date: Jan 2000
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Is Jablonski the chap who invented an early composite material that was used to manufacture "Jablo" propeller blades for Rotol ?
(As used on later marks of Spitfire and Mosquito )
(As used on later marks of Spitfire and Mosquito )
Join Date: Dec 2002
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Henry Zeybel - "Gunship". fascinating and regularly hilarious based-on-fact yarn about Spec Ops AC-130s in SEA.
Wrote another about Phantoms but shall have to track it down. . somewhere on the shelves.
Wrote another about Phantoms but shall have to track it down. . somewhere on the shelves.
Join Date: Oct 2001
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What I am missing (although it's so small it could be sandwiched somewhere) is a signed copy of Fredrick (sic) Forsyth's The Shepherd which, although fiction, possibly is not.......
I wrote that in my 19 December 2002 post. Am extremely pleased to report having found the wayward book, sandwiched inbetween two others in plastic protection. Yippeeee!
FF wrote in it....
'For Alan
with all best wishes
Freddie Forsyth
29-10-79'
It's an excellent read, albeit a tiny text, because half of the book is full of wonderful illustrations by one Lou ****, Vampire, Mosquito, moody stuff.
The grin on my face will last for the next three years at least!
I meanwhile got three of Marc Gallai's books, translated into German and signed by him, through the good offices of Ulrich Unger. I had the pleasure of meeting Marc on a number of occasions,ILA Berlin, MAKS 95, once accompanied by Madame Gromova, wife of the man for whom the flight test institute (TsaGi)at Zhukowski is named. M.M. Gromov set a world record in September 1934 in one of the new ANT-25 aircraft built specially for long distance flightsand for the polar fleet, 12411 km in 75 hrs 2 min. The ANT-25 was exhibited at the 15th Paris Air Show, I guess in 1937. Gromov then broke another record, in USSR NO-25-1, on a transpolar flight of 10148 kms in a straight line....!
Ulrich Unger wrote about these and other pioneering Soviet achievements in his book 'Abenteur sowjetischer Flieger' published in 1987 by the Militaerverlag der DDR, ISBN 3-327-00306-8.
From this book I learn that Russia produced 27 Catalinas in Taganrog under the name GST and which were integrated into the Polar fleet as type MP-7. A further Cat was purchased in 1938 to search for the crew under Lewanewski who perished in TB-3 USSR N-209 on its way to the USA.
Any other good reads?
cheers
atb
I wrote that in my 19 December 2002 post. Am extremely pleased to report having found the wayward book, sandwiched inbetween two others in plastic protection. Yippeeee!
FF wrote in it....
'For Alan
with all best wishes
Freddie Forsyth
29-10-79'
It's an excellent read, albeit a tiny text, because half of the book is full of wonderful illustrations by one Lou ****, Vampire, Mosquito, moody stuff.
The grin on my face will last for the next three years at least!
I meanwhile got three of Marc Gallai's books, translated into German and signed by him, through the good offices of Ulrich Unger. I had the pleasure of meeting Marc on a number of occasions,ILA Berlin, MAKS 95, once accompanied by Madame Gromova, wife of the man for whom the flight test institute (TsaGi)at Zhukowski is named. M.M. Gromov set a world record in September 1934 in one of the new ANT-25 aircraft built specially for long distance flightsand for the polar fleet, 12411 km in 75 hrs 2 min. The ANT-25 was exhibited at the 15th Paris Air Show, I guess in 1937. Gromov then broke another record, in USSR NO-25-1, on a transpolar flight of 10148 kms in a straight line....!
Ulrich Unger wrote about these and other pioneering Soviet achievements in his book 'Abenteur sowjetischer Flieger' published in 1987 by the Militaerverlag der DDR, ISBN 3-327-00306-8.
From this book I learn that Russia produced 27 Catalinas in Taganrog under the name GST and which were integrated into the Polar fleet as type MP-7. A further Cat was purchased in 1938 to search for the crew under Lewanewski who perished in TB-3 USSR N-209 on its way to the USA.
Any other good reads?
cheers
atb
For something a little different try:
Happy Landings
Group Captain Edward Mole
It is the memoirs of a career RAF Staff officer, and keen pilot during the 1930s and 1940s.
Also
Sidney Cotton: The last Plane Out Of Berlin
Jeffrey Watson
Great biography of a very interesting Australian (and I'm a pom!)
Enjoy
ASW28
Happy Landings
Group Captain Edward Mole
It is the memoirs of a career RAF Staff officer, and keen pilot during the 1930s and 1940s.
Also
Sidney Cotton: The last Plane Out Of Berlin
Jeffrey Watson
Great biography of a very interesting Australian (and I'm a pom!)
Enjoy
ASW28
Join Date: Nov 2001
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Always thought the best four books I've read are:
"The Big Show" by Pierre Closterman-French fighter pilot.
"Think Like Bird" by Alex Kimbell-Army pilot in Aden.
"Never Stop the Engine when it's Hot" by David Lee-Flying over NW frontier in India in 30's.
"The Fledgling" by Arch Whitehouse-Gunner in FE2's in WW1
"The Big Show" by Pierre Closterman-French fighter pilot.
"Think Like Bird" by Alex Kimbell-Army pilot in Aden.
"Never Stop the Engine when it's Hot" by David Lee-Flying over NW frontier in India in 30's.
"The Fledgling" by Arch Whitehouse-Gunner in FE2's in WW1
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"North Star over my shoulder" by Bob Buck an autobiography of a very interesting career from the thirties on.He is also the author of "weather Flying" a standard work on the subject for many years.A really good work quite similar to that classic "Fate is the hunter" if not even better.Was published in 2003i believe and on most american bookshop shelves at present
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"Nightfighter" by C.F. Rawnsley and Robert Wright.
Read it when a teenager and probably half a dozen times since (and it's been a long time since my teens!). Still a great read about the start of aerial nightfighting from the crew's perspective.
Of course, being the RO for John Cunningham couldn't have been bad......
Read it when a teenager and probably half a dozen times since (and it's been a long time since my teens!). Still a great read about the start of aerial nightfighting from the crew's perspective.
Of course, being the RO for John Cunningham couldn't have been bad......
Join Date: Jan 2003
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"Darkness Shall Cover Me" by Humphrey Wynn.
A rare account of Night Bombing over the Western Front 1918.
True account of 2/Lt Leslie Blacking, HP 0/400 pilot 207 Sqd.
S.
A rare account of Night Bombing over the Western Front 1918.
True account of 2/Lt Leslie Blacking, HP 0/400 pilot 207 Sqd.
S.
Join Date: Jul 2002
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Surprised that Winged Victory by V M Yeates has only had one mention that I can see, on page 4 by Jabberwok. Best ever book about flying, and the futility of war, in this case WW1, that I have read. It has been out of print for ages, but I have recently received a newly published paper back copy, sourced through that well known booksearch website. It has SE5s rather than Sopwith Camels on the cover, and doesn't have the introduction by Henry Williamson the previous reprints had, but well worth looking for.
Wish I had a hard back copy, the local library here has a very tatty one which I keep trying to convince them to sell me, but they say it is still in demand, and I can't convine them I am the only one who keeps demanding it!
Wish I had a hard back copy, the local library here has a very tatty one which I keep trying to convince them to sell me, but they say it is still in demand, and I can't convine them I am the only one who keeps demanding it!
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A couple of items to add to this interesting list-
Wings and Warriors-Donald D. Engen- non fiction story of USN pilot from 40s- 60s the
author even claims that it was 3 British inventions that allowed the further
development of carrier aviation after the introduction of jet aircraft.
Feet Wet-Paul T.Gillcrist-Another USN pilots story about a decade later
some hillarious and often terrifying stories of carrier ops. in peace and
war.
The Penertrators-Anthony Grey-novel about RAF Vulcans penertrating
NORAD defences in the 60s a great read
Wings and Warriors-Donald D. Engen- non fiction story of USN pilot from 40s- 60s the
author even claims that it was 3 British inventions that allowed the further
development of carrier aviation after the introduction of jet aircraft.
Feet Wet-Paul T.Gillcrist-Another USN pilots story about a decade later
some hillarious and often terrifying stories of carrier ops. in peace and
war.
The Penertrators-Anthony Grey-novel about RAF Vulcans penertrating
NORAD defences in the 60s a great read