good books?
 

Anyone recommend any good aviation books or any good authors?

"Everything Explained for the Professional Pilot"
by Richie Lengel

Fate is the Hunter - Earnest K Gahn

A must read...

I second this. I am not a huge fan of aviation reads but an old captain handed me this dirty dingy book one day and said "Kid, you're a damn good stick. Read this book and keep it."

I suggest this to anyone who is an airline pilot. One of the few GREAT books on early airline aviation and what it was like.

Langewiesche is the author of numerous books, try: Inside the Sky: A Meditation on Flight (Pantheon, 1998)

Second the Earnest Gann(two ns) Fate is The Hunter, he wrote many books and has a very good and easy to read style, you may also like:The Bad Angel, Arbor House, 1987 and The Black Watch: The Men Who Fly America's Secret Spy Planes, Random House, 1989.

Chickenhawk-Mason

Fly For Your Life- Robert Tuck

touching history non fiction
about the pilots and controllers on 9/11. written by an express jet pilot

"I Could Never Be So Lucky Again" by Gen. James H. Doolittle

"Mavericks of the Sky" by Barry Rosenberg & Catherine Macaulay

"To Conquer The Air" by James Tobin

"SR-71 Revealed" by Richard H. Graham, Col. USAF (Ret)

"The Triumph of Instrument Flight" by Franklyn E. Dailey, Jr.

"North Star Over My Shoulder" by Bob Buck

"Unheeded Warning" by Stephen A. Fredrick

"Skunk Works" by Ben R. Rich

"Forever Flying" by Bob Hoover

"Stranger to the Ground" Richard Bach

"Flying Blind, Flying Safe" by Mary Schiavo

wow thats for all the recommend. So many choices!

LOVED the RS Tuck book - great read.

Gann is exceptional as well. I would also recommend a book by Bob Serling (brother of the Twilight Zone guy) - he wrote a book about the Lockheed Electra (L-188, not the older versions) and how they diagnosed and fixed the structural problems on the airplane (whirlmode). It was an awesome book.

Northern Flights by Gerry Bruder. Floatplanes outta Ketchikan. Best written account of flying in SE Alaska murk, and the good days too, that I've ever read.
Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat, not strictly about aviation, but excellent capture of a time and place in Canada's far reaches. Beautiful, overlooked movie version also.
Nice question, thanks for asking it.

Misty by Maj Gen Don Sheppard. Awesome stories by Fast FAC's in Vietnam.

Unknown Rider by Scott Anderson

Boyd by Robert Coram

North Star Over My Shoulder

hard landing

It's titled "The Electra Story"

another Gann masterpiece is Island In The Sky which, while fiction, is based on an incident that is described in Fate Is the Hunter.

Not aviation but Atlas Shrugged has always been one of my favorites. Take out the railroads and put the airlines in place and it is eerie how similar certain parts of the book are to what is going on in America. Long book but very interesting.

"Pilots of the Line," by Sky Masterson, is a fabulous read.

I would definitely echo every ones praise of Gann’s “Fate is the Hunter”, a must read for anyone who has a passion for aviation.

Another good one is “The Spirit of St Louis”, by the man him self, Lindbergh. Much to my surprise, it was hard to put down. Who would have knew he was such a talented writer. However, his wife was also an award winning writer, so I would guess she may have helped him polish his writing scripts.

Rick Drury has a book out called "Flight Lines" that is a collection of some of his columns from Airliner magazine. Outstanding!! Highly reccomend one of his earlier books, "My Secret War" about flying SPADS ( Skyraiders) out of Naked Fanny (NKP) during Vietnam.

Just got done reading Boyd.... what an amazing book!... about an amazing pilot.

If you can still find a copy.... Thunderbolt! by Robert S. Johnson as well as MiG pilot about Viktor Belenko two great books!!!

Thanks planespotta this book looks great. Just ordered it from amazon.

When I first made captain in a jet, a friend of mine gave me Fate is the Hunter ( Ernie Gann ) and I read it in a day. What a great book. Another book that I found quite interesting was; Stalin’s Aviation Gulag: A Memoir of Andrei Tupolev and the Purge Era by Leonid Lvovich Kerber, edited by Von Hardesty. Smithsonian Institution Press. How the hell they ever designed and produced aircraft under those conditions is a testament to human fortitude. I haven't read too many books as riveting as this one. You'll have a whole new found respect for Soviet made aircraft, at least the designers....:eek:

John Glenn: A Memoir

Just got done reading it and it's pretty awesome to see this pilot's motivation to succeed(with a lot of hurdles)

Sure thing :D His stories are captivating and never get old

I just got done reading "Nine Minutes Twenty Seconds" which is a true story about the crash of ASA Flight 529 (a Brasilia) in 1995. It was a wonderful read, though I sobbed through a good part of it (yeah, I'm a female). It was quite touching.

A Life of Flight: Forty Flights and Forty Nights aboard DC-3s to B-747s, by Captain Vincent Reilly

When I was 11 years (1968) old my mom gave me a book called THE BEST BOOK OF TRUE AVIATION STORIES doubleday. It was a great acquaintance to some landmark airplane books:Fighting the Flying Circus-Eddie Rickenbacker, The Spirit of St. Louis- Lindberg, Wind Sand and Stars- St Exupery, Pilot- Tony LeVier, Under My Wings- Basil L. Rowe, Fate is the Hunter- Gann, We Seven- John Glenn. All riveting chapters from the best true accounts of some some really cool airplane books. Probably read every chapter 3 or 4 times. Like many posters, I think Ernie Gann probably puts his finger on the role of what it means to be an airline captain better than anyone. Captain Rowe recalls a story (that upon reflection sounds a lot like Gann's High and the Mighty) of flying a DC-4 accross the Pacific witha runaway propeller that is pretty entertaining.

I highly recommend "War on the Middle Class", by Lou Dobbs. It doesnt touch much on aviation but it really does give you an idea as to what the government is doing around you and to you. Sometimes its nice to see some things outside of aviation.

"Juiced" by Jose Canesco is also something I just got done reading. Its very poorly written, he is a terrible author, but you will laugh pretty hard at how extremely self indulgent Jose really is. It makes me think that we should test pilots for performance enhancing drugs, because why can 'Sully' fly soo damn well? Clearly all the Fedex and UPS pilots who have made it to the highest levels are also juicers. During pyschomotor skill portion of their interviews they must demonstrate rollerskating 14 miles backwards in 6 minutes then bench press an MD-11.

"North Star Over my Shoulder" by Bob Buck. Great book about aviation during the "Golden Era" Mr Buck details his airline experience while flying with TWA in a DC3 all the way to his last flight in a 747. This book makes me wish I could be re-born and fly during this great era!

You know, She wrote some very interesting stuff, Fountainhead is a great read... I thought she pretty much nailed the stupidity of the blind masses... Both are great...

Turbulent Skies: The History of Commercial Aviation. Author: Richard R. Young

Skunk Works. Ben Rich

The Last Mission -Laurel-Leaf Historical Fiction.
This was the first large book I read as a kid in the 5th grade. I think I read it 3 times if you have a kid it is a good aviation read. Just know that there is some profanity in it.

If you like history, I would recommend anything by either Michael of Jeff Shaara. These are some of the books I've read, and really enjoyed.

Jeff Shaara
(WWII Trilogy)
-The Rising Tide
-Into The Fire
-The Steel Wave
(Revolutionary War)
-The Glorious Cause (It's over 600 pages I think so it should keep you occupied for a while)

Michael Shaara
-The Killer Angels (Great book about the battle of Gettysburgh, if you've seen the movie with charlie sheen and jeff daniels, that was based off this book)

North to the Orient - Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Great narrative about her and Charles scouting routes in the early 30's from east coast US to Japan and China along great circle routes. Sitting behind her husband, handing notes back and forth, being the morse code radio operator, flying through crazy situations where nobody ever took planes before, mixing it up with foreign cultures, all while riding awesome open cockpit seaplane powered by a humongous radial...what could be better. This was a time when any self respecting adventurer/aviator named their plane - you can see Sirius at the NASM (on the Mall, not the Udvar-Hazy annex at Dulles).

A Gift of Wings - Richard Bach. More aviation and less of the metaphysical philosophy stuff (not that there's anything wrong with that) you find in Messiah, One, etc. The cool appeal of this book is the occasional pencil drawings, and the short story format...you can slip this paperback in the flight bag and barely notice it, but it's great to bite off small chunks when you have some time, and the FOM for the plane you're flying holds no further appeal on this leg.

Boyd - Robert Coram. Makes you cheer for the dysfunctional family guy who was responsible for bringing the Viper to reality, and developing the science of acting and reacting faster than the opponent into a high art that spread from combat to business.

The World's Worst Aircraft - Bill Yenne. Yeah, we all know how awesome the Blackbird is, but when you've had your fill of blah blah about awesome airplanes, check out this really funny book about the worst of the worst. Lots of juicy details about some real abominations, and some that would have been just mediocre if not for really bad luck, timing, or whatnot.

Great taste
 

I second Flightlines. Reading it right now, and I can relate to so many of the emotions and circumstances he's talking about. He truly loves aviation and flying the line, and it shows. :)
Sky Masterson's next book, Destination Tempest, is coming out soon, too. Definitely worth checking out . . .

Moondog's Academy of the Air and Other Disasters by Peter Fusco. Funny stuff.

No airplanes, but.....for anyone living in Florida, or anywhere else for that matter, and want some good fiction, I recommend any book by either Carl Hiaasen or Randy Wayne White. Great stuff.

I wrote one last year called "The Outer Whorl." Twenty essays about flying pre and post 9/11 and whether it was worth it to take up flying in the first place. Does not aspire to be Gann but rather an evaluation of who I have worked with and the ride along the way.

http://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/r...070720244.html

Other advatanges however...Has been recommend by sleep doctors around the globe for its surefire cure for insomnia. Paperback version may be thrown at spouse in piques of anger, and reports have filtered back that it has no equal as a leveler under uneven table legs.

Bob Hoover has a great book, I don't recall the name of it though.

+1 for Skunk Works. Amazing what those guys were designing in the 50's. Makes you wonder what the military is designing today. Also I just finished "Lone Survivor" probably the best book I have ever read, not aviation but a truly amazing story that made me glad the Navy Seals are on our side.

I also recently read Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell, and agree, one of the best books I've ever read. Those guys are simply amazing.

I'm a novel reader, so most of mine are fiction, but here's a little of both:

Fiction:

"Airport" by Authur Hailey. The movie was pretty good, too

"Night Fall" by Nelson DeMille. Fictionalized account of the TWA 800 investigation. I highly reccomend any book by DeMille.

"Titan" by Stephen Baxter. Novel about a manned flight to Saturn's largest moon. He also wrote "Voyage", a beautiful read, about a manned mission to Mars.

"Illusions" by Richard Bach. A metaphysical read by a former Air Force pilot.

Non Fiction:

"The All American Boys" by Walter Cunningham. Non fiction by one of the astronauts of the Apollo program. Insider view of the rivalry and lives of the people involved.

"SkyGods" by Robert Gandt. History of PanAm by a National Airlines pilot.

"Splash of Colors" by John J Nance. Downfall of Braniff by an insider.

Most of these are out of print, but you can get them at Barnes & Noble - Books, Textbooks, Used Books, DVDs, Music, Toys, Home & Gift in the "used and out of print" section. eBay probably has some too.

I think I saw some sports books here (Canseco? YGBSM :)), so I'll add one ...

Fatso, by Artie Donovan, who was a defensive lineman with the (Baltimore) Colts. It's one of the funniest books I have ever read, and will be an education for some of our younger football players / fans. I don't thinks it's in print, but should be easy to find.