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Aviation Related Reading
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Recommended Reading:
Charles Kingsford Smith and those magnificent men.
Author – Peter FitzSimons
Great read. It is mostly about ‘Chilla’ but also details the origins of manned air flight and the other famous characters.
Either as paperback or an e-book.
I haven’t read this one yet, but have read most of FitzSimon’s histories. His style is very fresh and manages to get you right into the action by injecting human expression into the text without sacrificing accuracy. Some of his titles you want to look out for are Tobruk, Batavia, Eureka, Ned Kelly, Kokoda, Fromelles and Pozieres and Gallipoli. He has also done Mawson, but I haven’t read that one either … yet.
Am reading another ripper at the moment: Flying the Knife Edge by Matt McLaughlin. This is about PNG flying in all its gory. Lots of yarns about the fine art of trying to stay alive whilst flying into no-return valleys and landing on runways that are little more than a smudge on the Owen Stanleys. And we worry about some runways in Victoria; these blokes (and they mostly are in this book) were daily in the position of get-it-right-or-die, and many of them didn’t get it right. Lot’s of adventure, humour and tragedy and a lesson or two about making good decisions. If you can get a hold of it, I’d recommend it very highly.
An oldie but a goodie is Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K Gann.
Very readable account of flying in the 40’s and how fate contrives to condemn (or save) us. Although we sometimes think we are masters of our own destiny, fate and our flying machines are out there conspiring against us.
A classic.
Just finished “Great Australian Aviation Stories” by Jim Haynes and Jillian Dellit, 2007. It covers Outback Aviation, War in the Air, Flights into History.
The main features are on Ross Smith, Charles Kingsford Smith, Nancy Bird, Clive “Killer” Caldwell, and Amy Johnson even though she was English. A good read with some old photos.
I mostly enjoyed the section on Ross Smith being the first Australian to fly from England to Australia in 30 days in 1919. Enjoy!
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