Thanks for all the suggestions guys.  Should keep me reading for the next few years ;-)

 

 

Lots of Richard Bach books out there..

 

I'd forgotten Richard Bach was a pilot. 

Quite a CV...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bach

My favorite would be "Aftermath" (by the editors of FLYING magazine), fascinating compilation of mostly general-aviation accidents.

 

Thanks.  I found these....

 

http://www.flyingmag.com/results/aftermath

 

 

Thanks.  I found these....

 

No, it is this one:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Aftermath-Flying-Magazine/dp/083064282X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1432327863&sr=1-1&keywords=aftermath+flying

This is a link to the aviation equivalent of the Bible

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=handling+the+big+jets

Hell's Angels- The True Story of the 303rd Bomb Group in World War II. An excellent read. It gives you an idea of the sacrifices these flyers made in the skies over Europe.

I highly recommend "Flight Lessons" by James Albright, aka Eddie Haskel.  He's the guy behind the website http://code7700.com/ which once you stumble on, you will start reading and not stop for days.  He's a superb and engaging story-teller and has tons of experience which he shares in a very entertaining way.  I bought the ebook and even though some of it is reworked portions of the essays on his site, it still has a lot of new stuff and the stories about his experience in the USAF are highly engaging.  Check it out!

Hi again.

 

I thought I'd resurrect this thread as I've added a few more titles to my shelf. Here they are, in no particular order:

 

Rear Gunner Pathfinders

Smith, Ron

ISBN 9780907579274

An autobiographical account of the Avro Lancaster from the other end. Frostbite, hypoxia, friendly fire and choking on chewing-gum are plenty to be getting on with, never mind the Me 109's and flak.

 

 

Week-end Pilot

Smith, Frank

ISBN not known

Long since OOP, published by Random House 1957. I had it through ABE Books, the second-hand and collectors' online exchange. Easygoing middle class private pilot raconteur's view of the world in the 50's. A Saturday afternoon type of tale, the anecdotal advice on flying is still perfectly relevant but his recommendations for a purchase are getting a bit historical.

 

 

So You Want to be a Ferry Pilot

Nasmyth, Spike

ISBN 1412010667

1% boredom, 99% sheer terror. An astonishing (and laudable) disregard for, well, pretty well every unwelcome and unnecessary rule ever forced upon people who do stuff by people who can't. I suspect any ferry-pilot would be a great laugh on a Friday night.

 

 

Flying the Alaska Wild

Mason, Mort D.

ISBN 9780896585898

You'd think he was the only sane man in Alaska. I think you'd be entirely wrong. Similar job description to Don Sheldon but with a bit more of the couldn't-give-two-hoots attitude. A bit like Spike Nasmyth, he nonetheless strikes me as a very safe pilot. His sequel, The Alaska Bush Pilot Chronicles, isn't quite as entertaining.

 

 

Flights of Passage

Hynes, Samuel

ISBN 9780142002902

Country boy gets drunk and joins the USMC and gets drunk and learns to fly and gets drunk and nearly misses the war and gets drunk in the Pacific and goes home. Understated, homely humour. If you were still a small child, you'd want him as your uncle.

 

 

Wager with the Wind, Don Sheldon's biography is mentioned earlier in this thread. He was well known in the international climbing community, where I first heard his name, as well as in aviation but I feel this two dimensional biography does't do him justice.

 

 

Clear Left, I'll have the Chicken

Garrison, Kevin

ISBN not known

Pilots are cool. I'm a pilot. So, yeah, I'm cool. Only 85 pages but well worth your money. On the subject of the copilot trying to get some motel layover shut-eye in the room next to the ice-maker 'he taped a sign on it that said: "Do not use this machine: Urine in ice!" '. And on why aliens aren't invited to fly-ins: 'When you inadvertently meet a pilot you are likely to get a handshake, a twenty-dollar hamburger and some flying talk. Meet an alien under the same circumstances and you are likely to get probed, mind-erased and reproduced.' My favourite image though is of his line-boy youth - 'Grabbing the last cup of coffee of a seven cup day I would walk out into the cooling air and sit on a wheel beneath the Lodestar. A cigarette dangling out of my lips, I would look out on my domain and be at peace.'

 

 

Fate is the Hunter

Gann, Ernest K.

ISBN 9780671636036

This is almost certainly the best aviation book ever written, Gann's story threads through your mind like a dream from which you don't want to wake.

 

 

QF32

de Crespigny, Richard

ISBN 9781742611174

Half autobiography, half the 'unusual' QANTAS A380 flight. Purposeful author with a lighthearted touch. 130pp of the author's life before flight QF32 then 200pp of the 3 hour flight gives an idea of the density of activity during the flight. If you like North Star over my Shoulder you'll enjoy this too.

 

 

North Star over my Shoulder

Buck, Robert N.

ISBN 9780743262309

An extraordinary and inspiring civil career. he's written others. I haven't read them... yet. They're next on the list.

 

 

From Worst to First: Behind the Scenes of Continental's Remarkable Comeback

Bethune, Gordon

ISBN 0471356522

Repairing an ailing Continental Airlines. Not so much about flying, nor really about airlines, rather about managing large business. Too many of us forget that the product is only a means to get money from other people and that those people are as important as the product. I had to put it down for a week or two before I reached the end because a lot of Continental's mistakes at its worst are being made by my current employer... A very engaging story by a very human story teller but don't expect many planes.

 

 

Stranger to the ground

Bach, Richard

ISBN 9780440206583

A two hour flight, six miles above a European night, becomes home to months of memory which become stories within a story. The blackness of the night flight is quite a jolt at the end of each sunlit reminiscence. You'll smell the rain on the last page and feel a deep regret at having to walk again.

 

 

Regards,

Dave

 

I can't believe Airframe has not been mentioned! I couldn't put the book down and it was a decent length, great attention to detail, the phraseology in the book, you can tell it was written by someone who has great aviation knowledge.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Airframe-A-Novel-Michael-Crichton/dp/0345526775

The Imperial Japanese Navy is a pet subject of mine, so from the aviation branch of my library, I recommend:-

 

Sunburst by Mark R Peattie - the rise of Japanese naval airpower from 1909 to 1941

 

Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units of WW2 by Ikuhiko Hata and Yasuho Izawa

 

Fist From the Sky by Peter C Smith - the biography of Japanese dive-bomber leader Captain Takashige Egusa.

 

God's Samurai by Gordon Prange, Donald Goldstein and Katherine Dillon - the biography of Captain Mitsuo Fuchida.

 

Very interesting reading, all of them, and a change from the more common aviation literary fare in the west.

 

 

 

 

Len Deighton's "Fighter" (non-fiction) and "Bomber" (fiction).

The Naked Pilot and Emergency - Crisis on the Flight Deck

(Stanley Stewart)

 

Three Eight Charlie -- The story of the first woman to fly around the World solo... and no, it wasn't Amelia.

 

Captain Jepp & The Little Black Book -- All about the man who originally thought up the idea of SIDS and STARS.

 

Into The Fire -- All about Operation Tidal Wave, and the brave men who participated.

 

(A little tidbit... did you know that the only Japanese American to serve with the USAAF during WW II flew this Mission as a Dorsal Turret gunner on a B-24? He also went on to fly a total of 58 Missions; 30 in the ETO, and 28 in the PTO, aboard a B-29.)

 

Alan  :smile:

Fiction:

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry books because he was a great writer and pilot himself.
 - Night Flight
 - Flight to Aras

Airframe, as mentioned above.


Non-fiction:

Stick and Rudder by Wolfgang Langewiesche.

The Killing Zone by Pau Craig about the dangers for general aviation lowtime pilots and how to avoid them.

And looking into the ww2: The Master of the Air by Donald Miller about the american airwar over europe.

I ended up reading Wings on my Sleeve, a book by the test pilot Eric 'Winkle' Brown. Fascinating stuff, and a great read

If you want something exotic in Spanish, try El Alcaraván, by Germán Castro Caicedo. It deals with DC-3 adventures in the Colombian Amazon and the Llanos.

Hi Toowings...

 

These are my favourites...

Ernest Gann's 'Fate is the Hunter' is a must. There's only one snag - you will not
be able to put it down. (..and you will need a hankie after reading a couple of the
chapters). My family know when I'm reading that one....That is the crown of
aviation books. An excellent biography.

'90 Minutes At Entebbe' by William Stevenson, is a good read, although the aviation
content is minimal, most of the action takes place on the ground. This was the story of
Operation 'Thunderbolt', the Israeli rescue of hostages.

..and some excellent fiction..

Another good author - Brian Lecomber. His two books that I have, 'Talk Down'
(Where our hero has to talk down a passenger in an Arrow over the UK)
and 'Dead Weight' (A Carribean adventure) are brilliant.

Down To A Sunless Sea' by David Graham is also one of my favourites - told by a
747 pilot in a 'Last 747 flight' searching for a landing strip after a nuclear war.
A brilliant tale.

'Jetsteam' by Austin Ferguson, although a little dated by now, is a good read.
I think that one was the source for the 'Airport' films.

That good, original, now very dated, 'Flight into Danger' by John Castle & Arthur Hailey
is also a good read.

Most of these books have been made into films.

Regards
Bill