Aviation Books

If you are interested in stories about WW2 then I can highly recommend "A real good war" by Sam Halpert.

It's an autobiographical novel based on his experiences flying a B-17 over Germany, written at the age of 77!

Sam Halpert flew 35 missions over Germany as a navigator.

This is the story of the making of a B-17 crew, from basic training in the US through to the real thing, taking off before dawn, and flying through enemy flak and fighters in broad daylight to their targets - Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin.
Bravado, humour, camaraderie, raw and vivid language protect the rookie airmen from the danger and death all around them.
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Jane's

Was following a 1932 Jane's AWA that came up on UK Ebay - price was looking reasonable - until the very end. It went for £164.

I was beginning to worry that book values were declining in the light of electronic archiving. It would appear not ! £164 - that'll nearly buy you dinner in London.......
 
Great 1930s Book

Just picked this up for £1.50 (!) at a recent village booksale:

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Still experimenting with Windows 10 and Gimp (with fond memories of Windows xp and PictureIt 2001, but hope to show more of this lovely book over the weekend if anyone's interested. You can no doubt start by easily i/ding the cover image..?
 

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Had to buy this one; not just is he the singer of my all-time favourite band, the man also is type-rated on the 737,747 and 757, and owns a Bucker Jungman and a Fokker Dr1 which he flies during displays.
 

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Tanker Pilot by Mark Hasara really is outstanding. Highly Recommended!
ISBN 978-5011-8166-5


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From a veteran air-refueling expert who flew missions for over two decades during the Cold War, Afghan War, and Iraq War comes a thrilling eyewitness account of modern warfare, with inspirational stories and moral lessons for people on the battlefield, in boardrooms, and in their everyday lives.


Get a glimpse of life in the pilot’s seat and experience modern air warfare directly from a true American hero. Lt. Col Mark Hasara—who has twenty-four years experience in flying missions around the world—provides keen and eye-opening insights on success, failure, and emphasizes the importance of always being willing to learn.


He provides twelve essential lessons based on his wartime experience and his own personal photographs from his missions during the Cold War, Gulf War, and Iraq War.
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Just finished the Kindle edition of this one. It’s pretty good. The author, Scott Gloodt, flew "18s" for freight outfits in the US mid-west during the 1970s and 1980s. He says he was inspired by Gann to write his book. Can’t go wrong there. It’s basically a collection of stories about what it was like to fly in a time before GPS, iPads, glass cockpits and all that, in a business where you had to do whatever it took to get the freight to its destination, in every type of weather, season, and time of day. The stories read very much like the tales of the SOH's own Flight-19 adventures… Very interesting and entertaining read. I believe 93.5 percent of the "sea-stories" contained within the pages!


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My brother has just returned from a nostalgic trip to Milan and Como, where he spent a lot of time in the Sixties. He sent me this lovely book - a story about the restoration of a Caproni 100 and of the Como Aero Club's history.

It even mentions the Super Cub floatplane in which I was once taken for a flight around the lake - unforgettable !
 

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Most of what I've been reading the past few years have been for research for aircraft textures for FS. With that in mind, the latest is "Sikorsky S-43/JRS-1 Amphibian" by Steve Ginter. There's several liveries in it that I'd never seen pictured before, along with lots of good info on the histories of the individual aircraft along with some pretty obscure airlines that flew them like Iloilo Negros Air Express of the pre-war Phillipines. The fly in the ointment for a painter is that the pictures are all black and white so a lot of "educated guesses" have to be made about colors. I'm still pondering a few of them.

Also a lot of Jeep manuals as well...
 

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I was in Australia the past couple weeks. Brisbane. I've been there before, twice, but didn't know about this place. This building was there in WW-II, and on the 8th floor general Douglas MacArthur had his headquarters for two years. It is an apartment building today, but there is a small museum on the 8th floor, with his office preserved as it was in 1942. It probably wasn't this neat back then, but this is his actual office! This got me to reading a book about the general, and in it was a story about general Marshall visiting MacArthur in 1943, and flying there aboard a C-54, the pilot of which was an airline pilot before the war, drafted to fly for the military, as so many of them were. And this pilot, Weldon E. Rhoades, wrote a book about his experience in WW-II. I looked it up on Amazon, and ordered it. Hard cover "like new", the seller claims. It will arrive on Monday. I will submit a book report when I am finished reading it...
 
Finished it. Very interesting read, but not "an aviation book". In his capacity as "chief pilot for MacArthur's office" he got to fly B-25s, B-17s, C-47s, and C-54s, but often he didn't even mention the type of plane he was flying when telling stories. He was a United Airlines pilot flying DC-3s when the war started, so B-17s and B-25s were a new experience. He liked flying the B-25, but complained that it was very loud. He especially liked flying the B-17. As a civilian airline pilot during this time, he was good at navigation, and found he often had to teach these skills to army pilots.
 
For who loves flying boats...

I am reading a very interesting book: Fabulous Flying Boats: A History of the world's passenger flying boats by Leslie Dawson. A big section of the book is dedicated to role of the British Short flying boats during WWII, the introduction of the Boeing B314, the routes and the danger of flying during the war. Many photos complete this nice book.
 
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