Just read "Roll back the Skies" by Vern Polley in Australia. Fascinating reading of his time as a RAAF pilot from 1940 to when he retired age 60 after flying DC3, DC4,DC6, Connies, 707's, Tridents and 737's . Stories of his flying the Pacific in the four engine prop types and the dozens of engine failures that occurred make excellent reading. 200 pages.

He retired with 31,000 hours and now at age 86 lives out his life in a nursing home near Sydney. He wrote the book in 2000 self published. Send $20(Australian dollars) cash to him C/O Emmaus Nursing Home, Barney drive, Port Macquarie, NSW 2444, Australia and as he still has a few copies under his bed he will send them to you. Include something for return postage.

Fly Navy: a collection of stories from FAA crew over the years. I bought mine at the FAA Museum, and am thoroughly enjoying the anecdotes.

Well worth a read.

Also "They Gave Me a Seafire", by Mike Crosley, also form the FAA Museum.

For a book that is up there with Ernest Gann's stories, try "My Secret War" by Richard Drury. ISBN; 0-312-90503-3. Published in 1979. A fine flying book about Rick Drury's experiences flying Skyraiders in Vietnam. Type Rick Drury into Google and you can get the book via that website.

Nice thread - I actually found a few that hadn't read or didn't have!

I would like to add
1. Maverick - Sea Harrier at War by Sharky Ward. The Falklands Air War and the Sea Harrier, written by the CO of 801 Sqn

2. Think Like a Bird, An Army Pilot Story by Alex Kimbell. Story of a Army fixed wing pilot, gave me new respect for people flying light planes - talks about Chipmunk, Auster and Beaver flying with the Omani theatre of war thrown in.

3. Flying Upside Down: True Tales of an Antarctic Pilot by Mark A. Hinebaugh. A Navy C-130 pilot. My dad was an Indian Air Force transport pilot and I thought his stories of flying Dakota's in the Himalayas coulndt be topped - but this one does it!

4. Airborne by Neil Williams. What fantastic stories by this RAF test pilot and aerobatics champion - from flying a Cassut Racer in aerobatics competition to the Spitfire to a Meteor for a warbird collector. His other classic "Aerobatics" I am slowly absorbing while preparing to do my first aerobatic competition.

5. Cessna, wings for the world: The single-engine development story by William Thompson. He wrote two more after this - but only this one impresses. Cessna was developing a new type every year for a while - and he was the test pilot responsible for more than a couple. Taught me a few things on why my Cessna-150 is the way it is, and what they tried to make Cessna-182 I fly and why the Cessna-172RG Cutlass doesnt handle like the Cessna-172 Skyhawk (it handles much sweeter which I observed first hand- because its actually a development of Cessna-175 Skylane and not the 172!)

I'll think of more later!

Worf, thought I - or someone else - had mentioned Neil Williams' classic Airborne... but if not, what an oversight!

But it's the Cosmic Wind "Ballerina" rather than a Cassutt he describes so fantastically in the book - he campaigned the Cosmic in the World Aeros in 1964. First Cassutts appeared in the UK around 1970ish thanks to Tom Storey. Sorry, Anorak off...

But, what a great book...

New out is "ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS" by J H EVANS. The book has just been published and is available from www.sherbornepublishing.com

Really enjoyed it!

Groundhog.... shouldn't you be paying for that last post?;)

Gentlemen
I'm very suprised that there is only one mention of 'Think Like a Bird' . I've read most of those listed but this was fantastic .If you haven't read it go and get a copy !
Only angels have wings ? is that the same as the Cary Grant film about flying the mail in south America ?

My Neville Shute bookshelf:

Round The Bend
Trustee From The Toolroom
The Chequer Board

All excellent - time to reread them all.

Summer Holiday "rainy Sunday" search:

The F-86 Sabre, R. J. Childerhose, "Famous Aircraft Series".
(Only got a softback photocopy-copy) Hilarious account from a Canadian fighter pilot in the 50'ies. Mostly in Europe. "I've got forty Americans cornered over Bitburg - (but found out he was alone!)"
Plane Speaking, Bill Gunston. A personal view of aviation history.
If you know his style of writing......
No Moon Tonight, Don Charlwood. (And the later "Journeys into Night"). Australians in RAF Bomber Command. Many of their graves around here.

Not many about air traffic control?
Pressure Cooker, Don Biggs.
Vectors to Spare, Milovan S. Brenlove.
(Both American)

You are not sparrows, S. J. Carr.
Between the wars in the RAF. (Much of it in the Mideast)

I've just finished "Flying Witness" by Graham Wallace. It's the story of the first dedicated Air Correspondent, Harry Harper. It's a really fascinating account of the reporting of early aviation.

It's an old book, but it's readily available.

Rob

Wow, this is an interesting thread!

I'd recommend
* "Thud Ridge" by Jack Broughton (easily available in used form from the usual sources),
* "Chickenhawk" by Robert Mason
* "The Wrong Stuff" by John Moore
and of course
* "Cannibal Queen" by Stephen Coonts,.

Here's one I haven't read yet, but which seems to be very interesting:
* "The Starship Diaries" by Dallas Kachan
http://www.starshipdiaries.com/

And I'd like to recommend just about *any* book by Bill Gunston, especially "Plane Speaking" !

[edited for spelling]

"Reach for the Sky" - biography of Douglas Bader - the WWII fighter pilot who lost his legs and still went to war flying the Spitfire...amazing story...truly inspirational...

Two by Tom Crouch: "The Bishop's Boys" and "A Dream of Wings": The Wrights, their family and friends, colleagues and competitors.

Was it sheer luck that through constant arguments with each other, through their skill in building lightweight vehicles, and their nature to prove or disprove established science, they set the course for the first century of flight?

also try "Never stop the engine when its hot" by David Lee, he was a young RAF pilot in British India, around 1935... Lots of flying stuff, plus a very illuminating insight into the workings of the Raj!

Don't judge a book by its cover
 

G'day,

I enjoyed "The Invisible Air Force" which was re-released as "Air America" (with Robert Downey Jr and Mel Gibson on the cover) after the movie was released.

Don't be put off by the cover. It's not about the movie, but a real account of the CIA's airline and its start with the Flying Tigers and CAT in China.

Also, for Aussies, some interesting links with the Nugan-Hand bank in the '80s in the final chapter.

Great read.

Cheers
CB

"Double Malfunction"
by E.P. Gottschalk

It's a skydiving murder mystery.

Okay, not exactly airplanes, but a good read regardless.

Woman Pilot - autobio of Jackie Moggridge, one of the first women ATA ferry pilots and who ferried more aircraft than any other pilot male or female. After the war, flew Spitfires from the Middle East to Burma.

Braver Men Walk Away - autobio of Peter Gurney who eventually became top home office bomb disposal officer.

Both out of print but available.

First Light by Geoffrey Wellum. Best read I have had for years.

How about any of Chorley's Bomber Command, OTU or HCU War Losses?

Makes you appreciate how fortunate we are, despite all the mayhem that surrounds us these days.

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... :*

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.

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

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/

'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.

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.

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 "

"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.

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 )

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.

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

"Dragonfly - NASA and the Crisis Aboard Mir" by Brian Burroughs

Sorry ......

Thought I would push this thread back up to the top....you can never have too many good books!!!!

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

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

"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:ok:

"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......

"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.

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!

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