thanks guys! plenty of books to read.
I have just bought Fate is the hunter. I had (incorrectly) assumed it was all about war. I will look at the other books once I finish this one.
Depends whether you want fiction or biography. Have just read a couple of books by Tony Blackman, "Vulcan Test Pilot" and "Victor Boys". Another of his about the ill fated Nimrod is on its way from Amazon. "Testing Years" by Roly Beamont is also a good read.
I suppose test pilots are so used to documenting every last thing that they can't stop when they retire - which is a good thing .. at least they have all the source material tucked away.
I think Tony Blackman hass written a few aviation fiction books as well ... any comments ?
Another thread resurrection…
…a list of aviation books that I actually re read, in ascending order:
Ernest K Gann, Fate is the Hunter: Brings to life being a co pilot in a DC-3 in the winter over the Appalachians
Mike Brooke, A Bucket of Sunshine: where Gann describes commercial operations, Brooke explores being a 21 year old nuclear armed Canberra pilot in the 1950/60’s
Wolfgang Langewiesche, Stick and rudder: still one of the best primers, especially if you are an instructor and having to find different ways of explaining why an aircraft behaves the way it does
Alfred Schulze, Janey: a little plane in a big war: out of print, the classic about a Piper L4’s WW2 campaign from North Africa to Berlin
Robert Buck, Weather Flying: need to re read, 10,000’s of hours of international airline experience in a well put together book on aviation weather
Richard Bach, A Gift of Wings: some good grass roots aviation stories, not all of them on the Bach too whimsical scale, from his barnstorming days
Sparky Imeson, Mountain Flying Bible: well written common sense primer on good airmanship for operating in the mountains, his Taildragger Tactics is probably my favorite primer on tailwheel flying
Alan Cassidy, Better Aerobatics: has to be the bible on aerobatics; the fact you can still get aerobatic instruction from Mr Cassidy at White Waltham makes it even more worthwhile to have on the list
John Anderson Jr., Introduction to Flight: a standard Aerospace engineering 201 text, very nicely written and the maths is not too demanding, a lot of interesting historical footnotes
H. Hurt Jr., Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators: available free for download from the FAA courtesy of the US taxpayer.
Flight of Passage – Rinker Buck
True North – Erickson
The Cannibal Queen – Coonts
Three Eight Charlie – Jerrie Mock
Think like a bird by Alex Kimball – well written, and very tangible, you will recognise some of the locations.
Stranger to the Ground by Richard “Jonhathan Seagull” Bach. Describes a night mission over Europe during the coldwar, as well as the author’s training and flight experiences. As poetic and less fluffy than his more famous work.
If you’re a low-time pilot I can recommend “The Killing Zone – Why and how pilots die” by Paul Craig.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Killing-Zone-Second-Edition/dp/0071798404
I’m afraid I wouldn’t.
Some of the discussions about accident scenarios are useful, but the statistics are bunk and the book is expensive for what it is. For example, if pilots are less likely to have accidents at 1000 hours than 300 hours, is that because there are fewer of them (not every pilot gets to 1000 hours before giving up) and they are flying different aircraft
e.g. commercial pilots likely to be building most of their hours on larger aircraft that are known to be orders of magnitude safer. And lots more problems besides. Perhaps the second edition addresses these issues, in which case I’d be interested to know, but the first edition was unconvincing.
I learned far more from the ‘I learned about flying from that’ compendiums.
I have in PDF Nine lives, Malvern Gross
If anyone wants, I can send by mail