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Thread: Old Book Gems

  1. #11

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    I have a 1943 copy of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. Pretty cool.

  2. #12
    "Nothing by Chance" by Richard Bach is my all-time favorite, but Gordon Baxter's "Bax Seat: Log of a Pasture Pilot" got me into aviation (when they first appeared as columns in Flying mag)...

  3. #13
    danielfindling's Avatar
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    All time favorite aviation book: Fate is the Hunter

    Best used bookstore find: Flying the Old Planes by Frank Tallman.

    Daniel

  4. #14

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    Tallman autographed a copy of his book to me when I was a kid. Wonderful look back into the personalities of old airplanes.

    Another real gem is "Wings of the Weird and Wonderful" by Eric Brown. One of the great British test pilots, flew all of the classic WW2 aircraft and then some. The book is about his exploration of the oddballs and downright strange experimental flying machines, as well as a few conventional but funky greats like the Fieseler Storch. Wonderful reading!

    His description of the delightful little Winter Zaunkonig German runabout being as close to "idiot-proof" as possible is very interesting. Kind of like a Heath Parasol or Pober Pixie, but done with European flair and very docile handling.
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  5. #15
    Dana's Avatar
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    Ditto on Richard Bach's early stuff, especially "Biplane". Any of Ernest Gann's flying books. Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis. Flying the Old Planes by the late great Frank Tallman. Anything by Saint-Exupéry. Some overlapping books by Don Dwiggins about the barnstormers (the only title i can recall is The Air Devils). I'm still looking for a copy of Wolfgang Langeweische's A Flier's World that I read in high school (and, of course, every pilot should have a copy of his Stick and Rudder). His son William's Inside the Sky is a fascinating account of (among other things) deliberately going IFR into truly bad weather just for the experience. Some I've read recently, can't recall the authors and too lazy to go over to my bookshelf, are Global Flyer (around the world in an ultralight), On a Wing and a Prayer (ditto, but across the southern US), Propellerhead (guy learns to fly to impress girls).

  6. #16

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    A few of my favorites:

    The Al Mooney Story: They All Fly Through the Same Air by Gordon Baxter
    Wings of Tomorrow by Juan De La Cierva
    Flight of Passage by Rinker Buck
    From Autogyro to Gyroplane, The Amazing Survival of an Aviation Technology by Bruce H. Charnov

    Though I don't know German, this is one of my most prized books. I want to find someone to translate it for me someday. The autobiography of the designer of the BV-141
    Weltumspannende Memoiren eines Flugzeugkonstrukteurs by Richard Vogt

    I may add more to the list later.

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