I'm trying to think of some ideas for what my wife could buy me for my up coming birthday. One idea I have is for a book written by somebody who has flown their own plane on a route across America and or Europe. I would like to use Flight Simulator to follow their route. One which I can use Does anybody have any recommendations? One I have seen is called "Lyrical Aviators: Travelling America's Airways in a Small Plane". Does anybody have any comments about that one?

Don't know about that one but some years ago I read "Flight of the Cannibal Queen" by Stphen Coontz. He also wrote the more famous "Flight of the Intruder" about A-6s in Viet Nam. It was made into a movie.Cannibal Queen is his bi-winger (I don't remember what kind, perhaps a Stearman). He flew it crosscountry and kept a diary which was published as "Flight of the Cannibal Queen." I seem to recall that the name was because if you didn't watch her she'd eat your lunch. (Or perhaps it was that she'd eat you alive, something like that.) R-

Ok thanks for that. I'll see if I can check that one out.Victor

I thought I'd replied to this last night, but my posting has disappeared into the ether, or never arrived. :-(I can recommend a few.Flying South by Barbara Rowell is her account of flying her Cessna 206 from Oakland to Patagonia and back. She was the wife of the famous mountain photographer Galen Rowell, so the book has fabulous photos.It's part travel narrative, part memoir, but there is a lot of detail about the difficulties of flight planning and the challenge of such a long flight for a relatively low time pilot. I really enjoyed it. It would be easy to recreate the flight in fs because she gives details of each leg.Sadly, the Rowells were killed in crash shortly before the book was published. They were passengers on a charter that crashed in IMC in California.The second is called The Cockpit by Paul Gahlinger. He took his Cessna Cardinal from Oakland to Africa, where he was going to work as an physician. It's also a very introspective book, but he's obviously a man who loves to fly.Recreating the milkrun routes described by Ernest Gann in Fate is the Hunter is also a lot of fun. Take a DC3 from Newark to Chicago and stop at every piddly little airfield in between, or retrace the WWII Atlantic crossings via Gander, Nfld., Greenland, Iceland and Scotland.RegardsBlairCYOW

>I thought I'd replied to this last night, but my posting has>disappeared into the ether, or never arrived. :-(>>I can recommend a few.>Flying South by Barbara Rowell is her account of flying her>Cessna 206 from Oakland to Patagonia and back. She was the>wife of the famous mountain photographer Galen Rowell, so the>book has fabulous photos.>It's part travel narrative, part memoir, but there is a lot of>detail about the difficulties of flight planning and the>challenge of such a long flight for a relatively low time>pilot. I really enjoyed it. It would be easy to recreate the>flight in fs because she gives details of each leg.>Sadly, the Rowells were killed in crash shortly before the>book was published. They were passengers on a charter that>crashed in IMC in California.>Sorry to hear about their deaths.I did see this book advertised on Amazon but I thought the the sub heading "A pilot's inner journey" might have meant the book was a a bit to deep and meaningful for my purposes. However, perhaps I should give it a try now you've mentioned itVictor

It is a bit of 'chick book' but the pilot's inner journey is often in reference to her confidence is decision making -- how to handle a vacuum pump failure, whether to continue into IFR conditions, how to negotiate for aircraft repairs -- so they are problems that every pilot would have to deal with.It's certainly worth a look.Blair

"Zero 3 Bravo: Solo Across America in a Small Plane"by Mariana Gosnell The author's story of flying cross-country in a 1950 Luscombe.Jim