"Sky Cops". by Richard Rosenthal.

Non fiction, written by a NYC aviation unit pilot, with input from his cohorts across the country. Mostly rotor wing, some fixed wing. First a pilot's book, the law enforcement angle is second, real interesting the way he puts them together. One good story: while they were orbiting over an area trying to find the bad guys, they came out of the bushes with their hands up, they'd figured the chopper had them anyway, this happened more then once! Well written, he either had help or he was an English major before getting into law enforcement, and every bit of the flying rings true, good read. Paperback.

Oops! Obviously meant 2014. Just added the publish date to show it's a recent release.

Just finished reading two aviation books Freight Dog: The Dark Side of Aviation and Hard Landing : The Epic Contest for Power and Profits That Plunged the Airlines into Chaos.

Freight Dog was the autobiography of a former DHL cargo pilot and Hard Landing followed the airline industry post-deregulation.

Both books were decent reads, but not quite awesome enough to keep on the book shelf and reread at a later date. If anyone is interested in giving them a look PM me your address and I would be happy send them via Media Mail to you withing the U.S.

Some great recommendations. Since I live in a very rural area I'm searching ebay for some of these titles and I can't help but ask how do some book sellers stay in business with such terrible feedback ? If anyone here is willing to part with books recommend here for a fair price please send me a message with titles, prices, condition, etc.. I can pay by Paypal or a good personal check. Thanks.

red sled,

The aviation community is a very small one. Without a strong military/historical connection, profits will be marginal. Most aviation authors are not into it for the money or fame. "Stick and Rudder" is probably the most popular aviation book. Wolfgang's son William, who writes for Atlantic Monthly and wrote "Inside the Sky," told me, when I asked for permission to quote his Dad, Wolfgang made little on the book. Teachers teach. It is what they do. They cannot not do it.

Contact

contactflying wrote:red sled,

The aviation community is a very small one. Without a strong military/historical connection, profits will be marginal. Most aviation authors are not into it for the money or fame. "Stick and Rudder" is probably the most popular aviation book. Wolfgang's son William, who writes for Atlantic Monthly and wrote "Inside the Sky," told me, when I asked for permission to quote his Dad, Wolfgang made little on the book. Teachers teach. It is what they do. They cannot not do it.

Contact

Thank you for your response and I'm sorry if I offended anyone, it seems I was misunderstood. What I meant was used book sellers on ebay... they may have 99% positive feedback but when you dig deeper they might have 60 or more negatives in a month. Including cancelling orders for no reason, items not as described, never shipping the book, you name it. I do not understand why ebay lets these people keep going.

Anyway, thank you for the recommendation of Stick and Rudder. And I'll keep looking. Thanks.

red sled,

I am old and somewhat senile, but not offended. Thanks for the clarification, however. I like used books and have had pretty good results with the sellers. I find many at Salvation Army as well.

Contact

Can't find the recent thread where it was recommended, but I just finished reading "Success On The Step", about the history of Bob Munro and Kenmore Air Harbor. Slower going than my usual novels, but excellent writing and a damn good read. I'd recommend it highly. One nice thing about it, like "Island Bush Pilot" by Roy Franklin, is that I'm familiar with most of the places referred to in the book.

From the fling-wing side:

10,000 Hours - A Helicopter Pilot in the North by Peter Corley-Smith
Very well written, and I found myself laughing aloud numerous times. Did you know the original Bell 47 had quadricycle landing gear? Read this book and learn why skid gear came to be standard (hilarious story). Fix a main rotor blade with baling wire in the Northern reaches of Canada...then fly back to camp? But of course!

What good fortune to be able to help pioneer an industry, and live to share such wonderful tales:
http://www.sononis.com/our-authors/authors-a-f/peter-corley-smith

I agree with iPat, "10,000 Hours" by Peter Corley-Smity was a really well written and informative book. He points out a common problem in aviation jobs that pilots are perceived as grunts by company executives and as well paid and coddled by non pilots. The supply of aircraft is low and they are highly valued. The supply of pilots is high and they are not highly valued. He and I entered commercial aviation after air combat in wars that produced a lot of pilots.

Just finally got around to reading this thread, all 7 pages. Did not want to do any double entry book keeping. I have two to add, one on Alaska and one somewhere in the mid west.

Mudhole Smith - an Alaskan flyer - 1981

Bootleg Skies - Paul Berg. - 1990
A fictional - most likely grounded in history - story of Prohibition era smuggling booze from Canada with mostly open cockpit planes.
A FUN read with probably some painless history.

EDIT:
Just wanted to add +a bunch - for Art Lazzarini's book: Cows Blow Grass.
Goofy title - good read. I always re-read for the interpersonal stories - fiction - more than the back country instruction. He had over 22,000 hrs of instruction time alone.

Found a link that says more than I ever could.

http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/S ... Grass.aspx

Chris C

Been a busy summer, so I finally just finished reading "Born to Fly" by Noel Merrill Wien.

http://amzn.to/2bO9rQj

Merrill Wien grew up the son of the pilot who created and shaped commercial aviation in Alaska, and had the opportunity to fly a great variety of bush and airline aircraft, as well as having flown with many legendary early Alaskan pilots. A good read and quite a lifetime of flying.

Merrill's son posts here as G-44. Thanks for the recommendation, Kurt.

MTV

Glad you liked it Mike. Thousands of hours and many years of the type of flying he did is quite amazing and to top it off, accident free. He is 86 years old and still does some flying, mostly with friends but has started slowing down on the flying.

Kurt

Is he still living up on Orcas?
A few years ago, I flew on his wing in the back of my friend Craig's SNJ.

He moved off Orcas in 2008.

mtv wrote:Been a busy summer, so I finally just finished reading "Born to Fly" by Noel Merrill Wien.

http://amzn.to/2bO9rQj

Merrill Wien grew up the son of the pilot who created and shaped commercial aviation in Alaska, and had the opportunity to fly a great variety of bush and airline aircraft, as well as having flown with many legendary early Alaskan pilots. A good read and quite a lifetime of flying.

Merrill's son posts here as G-44. Thanks for the recommendation, Kurt.

MTV

Hey Mike, on your recommendation I bought Merrill's book. I'm not much of a reader, and usually only read books that other recommend. I really enjoyed Merrill's story.

To the rest of you guys, good read about a great American !!

Cheers...Rob

Hey Kurt. I loved the story when your little brother was flying the Eagle XL for the 1st time in front of your Dad. Also the one about your 1st take off in the 185 on floats.

Cheers...Rob

Rob,

That Eagle XL story was a doosey for sure! It was even more thrilling in real life! The things we put him thru.

I learned to fly in a 185, floats and wheels for the most part because that is what we had at the time. In the story about the 185 take off I was 12 years old at the time.

My brother learned in a Beech TravelAir twin because, again, that is the airplane we had at the time. My brother did his first solo in the TravelAir on his 16th birthday. Well.... First "official" solo I should say.

Kurt

A true story from the early days of aviation about a young boys desire to fly and growing up to become the hero of the first coast to coast overnight air mail flight and eventually becoming vice president of United Airlines.

Bush flying nobility is among us. What legends.