Favorite Aviation Books?

beasly

beasly

Well-Known Member
Hi All,

3 part question here.

1. What are your favorite aviation books.

I have Wolfgang Langewiesche's "Stick and Rudder" and "Flying The Big Jets" is on my buy list.

Any other recommendations?


2. During instrument training, I read about the Navy IFR training manual--the training sounded really good, so I want to get a copy. Anybody know where to get one? I am open to other military training guides as well. The reason for is that there is more than one way to train. At my last job, I was exposed to the JAA way of doing things and in some areas, the approach really beats the FAA/PTS approach. I want to see other ways of approaching the craft as well.



3. Aerodynamics textbooks--I am talking aircraft design level, basic theory...here is the idea. In college, there where CLASSIC textbooks on Calculus, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Thermo, Materials, etc...and then there where many really bone-headed excersises in self-flattery that failed to educate while flattering the authors outsized opinion of himself.

I prefer autodidactism and will be educating myself on the craft--a cogent textbook is essential to the task.


If this is too much for one thread, please break it into several.

Thanks in advance.

b.

P.S. anything with hot stewardesses would be cool too (;
 
"The Long Way Home" - Ed Dover.
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"North Star Over My Shoulder" - Bob Buck
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beasly said:
2. During instrument training, I read about the Navy IFR training manual--the training sounded really good, so I want to get a copy. Anybody know where to get one? I am open to other military training guides as well. The reason for is that there is more than one way to train.
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Pretty sure the Navy teaches a variant of the control/performance method vice the primary secondary method. Might be an interesting way to look at things if you haven't been exposed.

Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators seems to be a good read too(haven't read it yet).
 
It's almost become a little cliche but I'll go ahead and say it. Fate is the Hunter. It's one of my favorite books period. I read a book that my parents had gotten me called Captain by Earl Rogers, I really liked it. Surprisingly I like reading the Airplane Flying Handbook. It's awesome to see an FAA publication that's straightforward for once. :D
 
http://www.mypilotstore.com/MyPilotStore/John-Eckalbar/

I recently bought "flying high performance singles and twin" by Eckalbar (EDIT: I bought it after a recommendation from somebody on this site.). All I have to say is that the first six pages knocked me on my butt.

A friend of mine who owns a Bonanza, bought his other book and gave it to me today. "Flying the Bonanza". I have only thumbed through it but it seems like more great stuff.
 
"Forever Flying" by Bob Hoover was a very good, easy read. His stories are amazing.

Alex.
 
JordanD;

Thanks, got em bookmarked.

Regarding the AFH, I have heard from many a pilot that the "blue book" version of the AFH was much better.

Cordially,

b.
 
Folks, thanks.

Keep em coming.

I am collecting all these ideas and saving the links to amazon. and when the thread is done, I will post my collection of links to these books in a final post for everybody.

Perhaps Doug could then use them to his advantage on his site and maybe get a kickback from Amazon or something.


Cordially,

b.
 
War books:

My Secret War....by Rick Drury. Same guy that used to write the Flightlines articles in Airways magazine. Retired from Fedex a few years ago, My Secret War details Drury's time in the USAF as an A-1 Skyraider pilot in Vietnam. Excellently written.

My Secret War is a very personal story, a narrative that flows like the hot rain that kept the jungle green, and the Mekong River that divided the 'friendlies' from the 'bad guys.' It is a razor-edged treatment of war as seen through the gunsight rather than through the newspaper.

More than that, "My Secret War' is a love story...the story of one man's intimate feeling for a machine, the massive Skyraider. The book shows that in this nuclear, supersonic age, the work of dirty little wars is still done by a few sweaty guys whose airplanes swing giant, four-blade propellers.

Mr. Drury tells a first-rate, firsthand story. The night ride down the ground fire to hit an enemy convoy in the mountains is, merely, unforgettable. The description of flight through fleecy clouds is breathtaking, and the agony of a failed 'Sandy' (rescue) mission is gut-wrenching.

My Secret War' tells it like it was, and maybe somewhere, still is.

************

From Preface by Drury:

"I started this book to express what it was like to fly in our different sort of aerial combat, to document a combat aviator's life, allowing the reader to be a part of the pristine love affair of a man and his medium, in this case, the sky. To accomplish that goal I wrote after nearly every flight, after any significant incident. My journal thus recorded my thoughts, the words -- what affected me. I believe those ends have been accomplished.

But something else became evident as the thoughts and words came to paper and a design emerged. I began to see a 'slice of life' portrait of a young man fulfilling his dreams yet losing his faith and trust in the system that put him in the sky he wanted."
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War for the Hell of It, by Ed Cobleigh. Vietnam war F-4 pilot who very eloquently writes about his experiences in Vietnam also.

Combat memoirs get written years after the events. During that time the bad gets erased in memory and the glory gets accentuated. It's way too easy to forget the puking at the back of the revetment and remember the John Wayne swagger that you never really had at the time. Heroism comes so easy in retrospect and from the safety of a position in front of a word processor screen that it is rare to really read honest admissions of the things that went bump and bang in those deadly nights. Ed Cobleigh tells about the war as it was in an assault on all of the senses. Sights, sounds, smells and feels come at you from all of the unusual places of a combat environment with a skill that few aviation writers have brought to the table before.

I've been disappointed in way too many fighter pilot memoirs that turned out to be self-aggrandizment coated in public relations hogwash. This book is different. It's real. It's visceral. It's the way it was and the way I remember it as well.

It wasn't a good war, but it was the only one we had and Ed Cobleigh went and did what was asked of him and hundreds like him. He shows very clearly what was good and what was bad about the conflict. This is must reading if one is ever going to hope to get a glimpse of the madness of that war. And, it ain't fiction.
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And a great classic: Chickenhawk, by Robert Mason. Viet War UH-1 pilot during the early years. Good book about a guy who slowly goes nuts.

On the website here, if you click "Chickenhawk" on the list on the left, you can read sample chapters:

http://www.robertcmason.com/
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Here is my list, mind you only partial:

The Spirit of St. Louis
Stick and Rudder
Sigh for a Merlin
Bent Props and Blow Pots
The Greatest Flying Stories Ever Told
Eye of the Viper
Bush Flying: The Romance of the North
Wild Blue: Stories of Survival from Air and Space
Tales from the Cockpit
Those Remarkable Mooney's

I can't wait to be done with my checkrides so I can get back to reading.
 
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