Best aviation books

[ron ll]

Had to, right? Didn’t want to mess up the movie thread.

Maybe more of a young person’s coming of age book, but “Flight of Passage”, non-fiction about the two young Buck brothers and their cross country flight.

[Paul Pless]

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[AnalogKid]

The Big Show - Pierre Clostermann

The Man in the Hot Seat - Doddy Hay

ETA: Anything by Captain Eric "Winkle" Brown.

[ron ll]

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Well,…yeah.

[AnalogKid]

There's a series of books, curated by Richard Pike, in which the tales of retired servicemen are recounted. These are mostly assembled into books by aircraft type. I've only read "The Lightning Boys 2", but it was mostly very good.

[robm]

Ernest K. Gann. Also a sailor, I believe.

Nevil Shute's books about aviation. They are all good, but the topic is aviation. And he was a sailor too!

[WI-Tom]

As a kid I always liked Reach for the Sky and Fly for Your Life, about two WWII Spitfire/Hurricane pilots.

The Cannibal Queen was another I liked, as was Richard Bach's Biplane.

I liked Flight of Passage (already mentioned above) too.

Wolfgang Langewiesche's Stick and Rudder was great.

Tom

[Jimmy W]

roscoe.jpg

This one is pretty interesting, because Roscoe was. Roscoe was a childhood friend of my grandfather and the first time that my father flew in a plane Roscoe was the pilot.

Roscoe Turner (September 29, 1895 – June 23, 1970) was a record-breaking American aviator who was a three-time winner of the Thompson Trophy air race and widely recognized by his flamboyant style and his pet, Gilmore the Lion.

Photograph of Amelia Earhart, Wiley Post, Roscoe Turner, and Laura Ingalls, ca. July 18, 1935

[Paul Pless]

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[Jim Bow]

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[Dave Hadfield]

I collect aviation autobiographies -- there must be about 40 linear ft of bookshelf in my library of them. But books written by someone else about a pilot rarely make the grade, and I long ago stopped buying them -- unless they are a technical reference I need. Only the actual pilot's words really speak to me.

Good aviation novels are worth it of course. "Flight of the Intruder", anything by Gann, "Piece of Cake", etc.

When someone gives me a coffee-table book, I say thank you and then donate it to the local aviation museum.

[ron ll]

Seems to be a lot of books titled “Piece of Cake” that have nothing to do with aviation. Can someone tell me the author please?

[Bobcat]

Surprised no one has mentioned Saint-Exupery.

[Dave Hadfield]

Surprised no one has mentioned Saint-Exupery.

He wrote with too much poetry, not enough stick-and-rudder.

[Dave Hadfield]

Seems to be a lot of books titled “Piece of Cake” that have nothing to do with aviation. Can someone tell me the author please?

Derek Robinson. He isn't a pilot that i know of, but really nailed the characters without tripping on the stick-and-rudder stuff.

War Story, and Goshawk Squadron are excellent too.

[Ralphie Boy]

My Dad lived in Anchorage, Alaska in the seventies. One of his neighbors was Bob Reeve, who started Reeves Aviation (Later sold
to Hughes Air West, I believe).

Reeve started out as a bush pilot in Alaska, bringing mail and supplies to small towns and the wilderness. I met him once and he gave me an autographed copy of his biography: “Glacier Pilot”. Was a super nice guy.

[Ralphie Boy]

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[Jimmy W]

I collect aviation autobiographies -- there must be about 40 linear ft of bookshelf in my library of them. But books written by someone else about a pilot rarely make the grade, and I long ago stopped buying them -- unless they are a technical reference I need. Only the actual pilot's words really speak to me.

Good aviation novels are worth it of course. "Flight of the Intruder", anything by Gann, "Piece of Cake", etc.

When someone gives me a coffee-table book, I say thank you and then donate it to the local aviation museum.

In the foreword to the above book on Roscoe Turner, James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle in 1992 wrote.

"It is unfortunate that Roscoe didn't write his memoirs before his death in 1970. However, the flavor of his life and times has now been captured in the following pages. This biography provides a valuable chapter in the history of manned flight that has long been missing."

[JamesCaird]

Many good books here (Gann-Fate is the Hunter, S Exupery, and several books on flying Alaska.) Lindberg and Ann Morrow's books about their exploits are real enough and widely acclaimed but I did not really get into them. Their were some Antarctic works , too, about Lincoln Ellsworth and Byrd and Bernt Balchen but a really good one about aerial surveying in Antarctic from Disception Island- I think it is "Wings Over Ice" . Balchen is very much an unsung hero apparently kept under Byrd's politically connected thumb.

[John Meachen]

I enjoyed this one.

[John B]

I still keep my eye out for pilot autobiographical works, there were a lot written post wars. Not too many in my bookshelf but , Closterman, Bader, Desmond Scott and Alan Deere. Johnnie Johnson ( Wing Leader ) of course.
Reach for the Sky and Cheshire VC are biographies actually, but theres Bomber Pilot by Cheshire as well.
A poignant book I have is Death in the Air, the war diaries and photographs of a flying Corp pilot. Published1933.
Pretty hard reading and doesn't end well.
This anonymous pilot had taken a camera with him against regulations and this seems to be the justification for the secrecy, it seems authentic .
Photos , well, a cynic would say they're shopped, cut and pasted as they may have in the day, but .. no it does seem authentic to me given context etc.

[The Gentleman Sawyer]

Fate is the Hunter
Night Flight
Aloft

Ken


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[hawkeye54]

Just 2 recommendations which I read and enjoyed : 'The Lost Airman , by Seth Meyerowitz and Peter F. Stevens (ISBN 978-1-59240-929-7 ) - Seth's grandfather is shot down over Occupied France, and has to make his way to Gibraltar.

'Lucky 666' by Bob Drury and Tom Calvin ( ISBN 978-1476774855 ) - The guys take a B 17 from a boneyard, rebuild it, and add lots of .50 caliber machine guns. As you read, they get involved in a dogfight with multiple Japanese fighter aircraft.


I found them both interesting reading.



Rick

[ron ll]

“Sled Driver” by SR-71 pilot Brian Schul.

[Lugs]

About the Kiwi guy, Richard Pearse, who achieved controlled flight nine months before the Wright Brothers

[Andrew2]

I enjoyed this one.

I was off to the US and picked that up at Heathrow. Didn't notice the flight

The third of Derek Robinson's trilogy 'A Good Clean Fight' is good too.

The BoB assoc didn't like his books, or maybe the TV adaptation of Piece of Cake, but the book sounded exactly like my father's stories of the same period.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Talk Down by Brian Lecomber

Contains a gem of a passage on flying a Stampe, he was a professional aerobatic display pilot, I've also read an article by him on squeezing a Vincent lump into a featherbed frame....

Obit. https://pilotweb.aero/news/brian-lecomber-6255876/

The Dick Francis of the aviation world.

[Lugs]

I quite like the book my uncle Biggles wrote - Gordon's Story. He flew Beaufighters and the Mosquito with a bit of time at Rolls Royce before being invalided out with TB in his spine. Most of his missions were over the Bay of Biscay (1 confirmed, 1 probable against Ju88s) - and he nailed a U boat pretty comprehensively. He'd learnt to fly before the war with a rather well-known character in Oz, Reg Ansett... and continued on and being in on the start of the Sydney Gliding Club... then built a couple of planes at home, flying into his 80's. Two of my kids flew with him in his later years.

His obituary

[WX]

The Shepherd, Fredrick Forsyth.

[Breakaway]

K


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[Hallam]

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong

[Graeme Forrest]

Re the reference to Richard Pierce. In the 1930's he stated there was no way he could claim the flights he made in 1903 were "controlled", rather hang on tight and see what happens.

[Lugs]

Re the reference to Richard Pierce. In the 1930's he stated there was no way he could claim the flights he made in 1903 were "controlled", rather hang on tight and see what happens.

That was an issue of speed, rather than design. His first flight, which ended in a patch of gorse, was the same height and length as that of the later first flight of the Wright Brothers. The Pearse machine had ailerons, btw, significantly better than the wing twist used in the USA