Recommendation for a good book?

[ncdmtb]

I have recently read two good books related to flying. "The Cannibal Queen" (a great true story about a flying adventure) and "The Airplane" (history of flight).

I enjoyed both books very much. For my next book I would like to (again) read something related to flying.

Any recommendations?

[jnisley]

Fate Is The Hunter by Ernest K Gann

[Super Dave]

"Fate is the Hunter" by Earnest K. Gann

"A Gift of Wings" by Richard Bach

[jrwilson]

The Dog Stars...Very interestig read, in a dystopian, post-apocolyptical sort of way.  The main character is a pilot, lives on an airpark and has a C182... 

 

Here is a review:

“…this novel, perhaps the world’s most poetic survival guide, reads as if Billy Collins had novelized one of George Romero’s zombie flicks. From start to finish, Heller carries the reader aloft on graceful prose, intense action, and deeply felt emotion.”
–Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

 

Was a New York Times best seller...

[ncdmtb]

Thanks for the input. I just read some of the reviews on amazon. They all sound like great books! Now I have some reading material when I am not out flying ;-)

[jnisley]

"Fate is the Hunter" by Earnest K. Gann

"A Gift of Wings" by Richard Bach

Ordered a copy of "A Gift of Wings" a minute ago.

[Rwsavory]

Flight of Passage - by Rinker Buck

[HopePilot]

"To Conquer The Air," is a fantastic history of the race to become the first person to fly.  It would make a fantastic movie as the competition between the Wrights and Langely is a picture ready struggle:  

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Conquer-Air-Wright-Brothers-ebook/dp/B007SO32IS/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383444540&sr=1-1&keywords=To+Conquer+the+air

 

 

Howard Hughes:  The Untold Story is the most interesting book about an aviator I have ever read.  That said, a lot of its content is not about flying, but it is about 20x more interesting than the film, "The Aviator."  You just can't make up some of the unbelievable things he did and perhaps it might have taken the film "The Aviator" into the realm of the absurd had they portrayed them.  Still, I wish they had: 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Howard-Hughes-Untold-Story-ebook/dp/B001FOPTVK/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383444673&sr=1-3&keywords=Howard+Hughes

[Ratherbflying]

Not a novel, but a great read:

Stick and Rudder by Wolfgang Langewiesche

+1 on Fate Is The Hunter. I re-read that one every couple of years.

Also, only available online, Night Flight by Antoine Exupery

http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/30578641

[Seth]

15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall: Three Generals Who Saved the American Century

 

The one who wanted to be President, the one who should have been President, and the one that was President.  These men really shaped our country.

 

 

In the closing days of World War II, America looked up to three five-star generals as its greatest heroes. George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Douglas MacArthur personified victory, from the Pentagon to Normandy to the Far East. Counterparts and on occasion competitors, they had leapfrogged each other, sometimes stonewalled each other, even supported and protected each other throughout their celebrated careers. In the public mind they stood for glamour, integrity, and competence. But for dramatic twists of circumstance, all three -- rather than only one -- might have occupied the White House.

The story of their interconnected lives opens a fascinating window onto some of the twentieth century's most crucial events, revealing the personalities behind the public images and showing how much of a difference three men can make. Marshall and MacArthur were contemporaries and competitors. Eisenhower was MacArthur's underling, then Marshall's deputy, before becoming MacArthur's counterpart as a supreme commander, Ike in Western Europe, MacArthur in the Pacific. Each of the three five-star generals would go on to extraordinary postwar careers: MacArthur as a virtual viceroy of Japan, overseeing its transition to a new constitutional democracy, and then leading the UN forces in the Korean War; Marshall as secretary of state, author of the Marshall Plan, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize; Eisenhower as president.

Fifteen Stars presents the intertwined lives of these three great men against the sweeping background of six unforgettable decades, from two world wars to the Cold War. It is history at its most dramatic yet most personal -- a triumph for Stanley Weintraub, our preeminent military historian.

[Seth]

Gray Eagles

 

A light but fun read:

 

A group of Luftwaffe vets, having suffered the agony of surving WWII, gather round in the American south west to plot a bit of revenge. They gather together and restore and rearm a squadron of WWII fighter planes - legendary Messerschmit Bf-109f's - and wreak havoc across that part of the US. Meanwhile, an aging USAAF vet, who was captured and nearly killed by the German aces on the last day of WWII, spends his time nearby flying a restored Mustang. The Germans nurse a grudge against him, though it's merely symbolic - he's the last Yank they saw before the end of the war, and he's hardly risen to the sort of prominence that would make him an inviting target. Nevertheless, they tear off into their targets with the idea of saving some of their fire for him. When word of the resurrected Luftwaffe gets around (how could it not?), the yankee flier gathers a group of vets himself - more Mustangs and a solitary Spitfire, and it seems that the last air battle of WWII is about to be refought.

[Seth]

 Tom Clancy

 

I've read many of his novels, and thought not "deep reading" material and pretty formulaic, I really enjoy them.  I especially like Without Remorse - the story of how John Kelly became John Clark.

 

-Seth

[Joe Zuffoletto]

Wild Blue: Stories of Survival from Air and Space

 

My favorite story in this colleciton is about William Rankin, who bailed out of an F-8 Crusader at 47,000' and descended through a gigantic thunderstorm. 40 minutes of sheer terror and extreme physical abuse at the hand of nature. Incredible read. The other stories are excellent too.

[BigTex]

Recommendations:

1. Flying Carpet by Greg Brown
2. The Killing Zone by Paul Craig
3. Weather Flying by Robert Buck
4. Viper Pilot by Dan Hampton
5. No Easy day by Mark Owen

[Ned Gravel]

Tom Clancy I've read many of his novels, and thought not "deep reading" material and pretty formulaic, I really enjoy them. I especially like Without Remorse - the story of how John Kelly became John Clark. -Seth

+1 I remember relieving my senior NCOs and junior officers during evening command post watch during exercises on the North German plain during the mid eighties while a well worn copy of Red Storm Rising was wending its way through the squadron. I remember thinking, "So this is how it will all come down" at the time. Sent from my iPad

[trey]

Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds

 

http://www.amazon.com/Fighter-Pilot-Memoirs-Legendary-ebook/dp/B003FQM306

 

Great book.  I couldn't put it down.

[carusoam]

Training Manual

MAPA Safety Foundation.

Pilot Proficiency Program

Just re-reading this after Byron made me want to look up the "key" number rule...

It's mostly a non-fiction book about how people used to fly these excellent machines of the past.

Later, I'm going to watch TOP GUN in full surround sound.

I'll briefly think of you guys reading those other excellent books.

Best regards,

-a-

[WardHolbrook]

Jimmy Doolittle's autobiography, I Could Never Be So Lucky Again. He was an amazing man and involved in the introduction of a lot of things that we take for granted nowadays - 100 octane avgas and the first "blind" flight and a bunch of other stuff all in addition to the Tokyo raid.Well worth reading. There are two flying related books that ought to be in every instrument rated pilot's library - Weather Flying by Robert Buck and Instrument Flying by Richard Taylor.  

[laytonl]

Flight of passage by Rinker Buck is excellent.

St. Exupery's stuff is a little dull. However, his Wind, Sand, and Stars is okay.

Lee

[Mooneymite]

Good bedtme reading:

 

FAR's

AIM

 

They'll put you right to sleep!

[fantom]

The best technical book ever printed....even if it says 'Naval'

 

Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators (FAA Handbooks)....under $15 on Amazon.

[Sable1]

+1 for Fate is the Hunter and also Flight of Passage.  Both great reads.

[John Pleisse]

Wish I had time for fiction...great reads available. I like anything by Buck, Eckelbar or Collins.

[Becca]

Happy Bottom Riding Club - a biography of Poncho Barnes

http://www.amazon.com/The-Happy-Bottom-Riding-Club/dp/0812992520

 

If you're looking for a space book, try Riding Rockets, its pretty interesting, not all together flattering picture of the author, but I enjoyed the read. 

http://www.amazon.com/Riding-Rockets-Mike-Mullane-ebook/dp/B000GCFD2W/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383789732&sr=1-1&keywords=riding+rockets

 

++ on The Dog Stars, which someone else recommended.

 

I haven't read Aloft, but I've heard its good:

http://www.amazon.com/Aloft-Chang-rae-Lee/dp/1594480702/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1

[Hondo]

http://www.amazon.com/Boyd-The-Fighter-Pilot-Changed/dp/0316796883/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385794766&sr=8-1&keywords=Boyd+Robert+Coram