{"id":844,"date":"2012-09-02T06:52:21","date_gmt":"2012-09-02T13:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=844"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:59","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:59","slug":"the-pilots-bookshelf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/the-pilots-bookshelf\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pilot’s Bookshelf"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t read as much as I used to.\u00a0 Now I\u2019m getting a little alarmed by the situation.\u00a0 I\u2019m not alone.\u00a0 I find that many of the people I talk to are depressingly unread.\u00a0 Those of us in aviation have so much to gain from the wealth of literature in our field.\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of my very best friends and my\u00a0 first aerobatic coach, the late Tom Jones, once confided to me that he hadn\u2019t read a book since high school.\u00a0 Tom was in his forties and already a grandfather when he shared that fact with me.\u00a0 I noodled on that situation for quite some time and decided to come up with a book that would stimulate Tom to read once more.\u00a0 I knew it would be a challenge.\u00a0 The wrong book would convince him that reading was a waste of time.\u00a0 It had to be something that would hook this man of action and adventure.\u00a0 I selected \u201cThe Flight of the Intruder\u201d by Stephen Coonts.\u00a0 This tale of Viet Nam era pilots dealing with the political conundrum of the soldier held in check by the politician was a tale that fascinated Tom and he was hooked.\u00a0 I relate this tale only to make the point that it\u2019s important to select the works that will hold the attention of the reader. That\u2019s a pretty easy task for us aviators!<\/p>\n

So here are some questions about your familiarity with aviation\u2019s rich trove of reading matter: Have you ever read \u201cGift of Wings\u201d?\u00a0 How about anything by Antoine d\u2019Saint Exupery, Earnest Gann, Neville Shute?\u00a0 \u00a0What about Beryl Markham?\u00a0 See what I mean?\u00a0 Another guy I used to enjoy was columnist Gordon Baxter.\u00a0 I think that the best columnist in aviation right now is Barry Schiff.<\/p>\n

If there is one book that I give away more than any other it\u2019s \u201cGift of Wings\u201d by Richard Bach.\u00a0 There\u2019s a reason I\u2019ve given away so many of these:\u00a0 it\u2019s a collection of short stories.\u00a0 You\u2019re not committed to several days to complete a story.\u00a0 You can sit down and read one finely crafted story that will entertain and stimulate you.\u00a0 It belongs in every pilot\u2019s library.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about it before.\u00a0 There\u2019s a reason I bring it up again.<\/p>\n

I recently read \u201cFlight to Arras\u201d by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.\u00a0 This wordsmith of the forties may not hold every reader, but what an extraordinary writing talent he was.\u00a0 That particular book is more of an anti-war than a flying book, but it certainly held my interest.\u00a0 And then there\u2019s one of my very favorites, \u201cSerenade to the Big Bird\u201d by Bert Stiles.\u00a0 The back story behind this amazing World War 2 story of a B17 co-pilot is just as riveting as the book itself.\u00a0 I can\u2019t recommend it too highly.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve decided to do something about this reading deficit among my flying brethren.\u00a0 For one thing, I\u2019m going to \u201cplug\u201d some aviation classics to the readers of the Tailwheeler\u2019s Journal.\u00a0 For another, I\u2019m going to start stocking some of those books in our Taiilwheeler\u2019s Mercantile.\u00a0 I\u2019ll do that by re-selling used books. We\u2019ve done that for some time, figuring that by stocking inexpensive, used books, we keep the price down and encourage our flying friends to read these classics<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to start reading more.\u00a0 I\u2019ll find some new stuff and I\u2019ll re-visit classics of the genre that I haven\u2019t opened in years.\u00a0 And in future articles I\u2019ll present a few reviews.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to borrow a technique from the hosts of my favorite NPR show, \u201cCar Talk\u201d:\u00a0 If you have a comment on this subject, write it on a card, slide the card between the pages of a first edition hardcover copy of \u201cThe Long Lonely Leap\u201d by Joe Kittinger and Martin Caiden and send it to me at The Tailwheeler\u2019s Journal.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t fly at night.\u00a0 Curl up with a good book instead.<\/p>\n

Happy Swooping,<\/p>\n

Brian<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve decided to do something about this reading deficit among my flying brethren. For one thing, I\u2019m going to \u201cplug\u201d some aviation classics to the readers of the Tailwheeler\u2019s Journal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}