Excerpts from "A Gift of Wings" Richard Bach
Sue Bodoh
"A Gift of Wings" and would like to share two of the especially fiiting
passages with the net:
From: Help I am a prisoner in a state of mind
"the first thing I see is my little airplane, wiating for me. And
I can't believe it. . . That is an AIRPLANE, and it belongs to ME!
Incredible. All those special-formed pieces and parts fitted so
carefully together into such a beautiful clean sculpture, they
can't be mine! An aiplane is a thing too beautiful to own, like
the moon or the sun. There's so much there! Look at the curve of
that wing, the sweep of the fuselage into the vertical stablizer,
the sparkle of glass and glint of the sun on metal and fabric ...
why, that belongs in the main gallery at the Museum of Modern Art!"
From: Tower 0400
""Beautiful night," the pilot said thoughtfully. ... The field was
still again. Those were the last words we heard from three five
Bravo, as his lights faded in the night. . . . But in that one last
call, still captured on the inpersonal tape recording, the pilot of
that Bonanza suggested that perhaps pilots really are different from
all other [people].
Then all at once Lufthansa was flashing red anticollision light in the
distance, and her first officer pressed the mike button .. "Tower,
Lufthansa Delta Charlie Charlie Hotel, fifteen miles east for landing"
... The thought swept me again he could just as well [spoke
in German] and he would have been as much, or even a little more a
brother of the fraternity than I, standing in the high tower.
What if every pilot knew, I thought, that we are already brothers?
Above me, and above the field of sleeping airplanes, ... the long beam
of the beacon swept around. Brothers... At night, in the dark, you think
funny things. What if they all knew? I thought."
The book is a series of short stories and essays which all speak to some
aspect of flying and life. I highly recommend it.
The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss
Sue Bodoh T-Saratoga 8282K "Sara"
bo...@hpsmpa.LVLD.HP.COM Cherokee235 235SB "Rudy"
303-679-3740
Paul Stafford
thanks for the selections. I remember this book very fondly. I like all his
earlier books a lot- there was one about an f-84 flight through a storm also-
can't remember the title. Bach wrote well before he went off the deep end.
I remember someone posted a reading list of great aviation books- things
like Fate is the Hunter, Flight to Arras and many others, Did anyone save
this list away? maybe re-post it?
Harinder Singh
>
> thanks for the selections. I remember this book very fondly. I like all his
> earlier books a lot- there was one about an f-84 flight through a storm also-
> can't remember the title. Bach wrote well before he went off the deep end.
>
That was ``Stranger To The Ground.''
> I remember someone posted a reading list of great aviation books- things
> like Fate is the Hunter, Flight to Arras and many others, Did anyone save
> this list away? maybe re-post it?
I do have it on an archived diskette and could dig it up
if no one else has a copy closer at hand.
Inder
Richard Bielak
> earlier books a lot- there was one about an f-84 flight through a storm also-
> can't remember the title. Bach wrote well before he went off the deep end.
>
The other books by Bach that are good flying books are:
"Stranger to the ground" - that's the one about flying F-84 through a
storm.
"Biplane" - flying an old biplane from North Carolina to California
"Nothing by chance" - barnstorming in today's America; using the
biplane from the previous book :-).
All these books have been republished recently in paperback.
Some other books on my most favorite list are:
"Fate is the Hunter" - Ernest Gann.
"Wind, Sand and stars" - Saint Exupery (sp???)
"Sprit of St. Loius" - C. Lindberg
"Plane Crazy" - B. Bernstein (I think - this book first appeared in
the New Yorker).
...richie
--
*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
| Richie Bielak (212)-815-3072 | Experience is no substitute for |
| Internet: ric...@bony.com | competence. |
| Bang: uunet!bony1!richieb | |
Bob Niland
>> all his earlier books a lot- there was one about an f-84 flight
>> through a storm also- can't remember the title.
> That was ``Stranger To The Ground.''
Here's an excerpt I posted in 1988...
Last year (1987) there was a related discussion in rec.aviation that
prompted me to consider posting the following excerpt from Richard Bach's
first book, "Stranger to the Ground", which concerns his experiences with
the Air National Guard. I discovered that my copy was missing. I had
nearly given up replacing it. The recent discussions about swept-wing
aircraft motivated me to seek anew, and I disovered today that "Stranger" is
once again available. I found a copy at the local B.Daltons. Sporty's also
has it.
I last read this about 15 years ago. I generally prefer Bach's pre-
"Seagull" writing. "Stranger" is no exception, and I commend it to you.
***Caution: TEASER AHEAD***
Scene: a flight of ANG F-84F's somewhere over France...
...
It is a dark night, and I am flying right wing on my flight leader. I
wish for a moon, but there is none. Beneath us by some six miles lie cities
beginning to sink under a gauzy coverlet of mist. Ahead the mist turns to
low fog, and the bright stars dim a fraction in a sheet of high haze. I fly
intently on the wing of my leader, who is a pattern of three white lights
and one of green. The lights are too bright in the dark night, and surround
themselves with brilliant flares of halo that make them painful to watch. I
press the microphone button on the throttle. "Go dim on your nav lights,
will you Red Leader?"
"Sure thing."
In a moment the lights are dim, mere smudges of glowing filament that
seek more to blend his airplane with the stars than to set it apart from
them. His airplane is one of the several whose "dim" is just too dim to fly
by. I would rather close my eyes against the glare than fly on a shifting
dim constellation moving among the brighter constellations of stars. "Set
'em back to bright, please. Sorry."
"Roj."
It is not really enjoyable to fly like this, for I must always relate
that little constellation to the outline of an airplane that I know is
there, and fly my own airplane in relation to the the mental outline. One
light shines on the steel length of a drop tank, and the presence of the
drop tank makes it easier to visualize the airplane that I assume is near me
in the darkness. If there is one type of flying more difficult than
dark-night formation, it is dark-night formation in weather, and the haze
thickens at our altitude. I would much rather be on the ground. I would
much rather be sitting in a comfortable chair with a pleasant evening
sifting by me. But the fact remains that I am sitting in a yellow-handled
ejection seat and that before I can feel the comfort of any evening again I
must first successfully complete this flight through the night and through
whatever weather and difficulties lie ahead. I am not worried, for I have
flown many flights in many airplanes, and have not yet damaged an airplane
or my desire to fly them.
France Control calls, asking that we change to frequency 355.8. France
Control has just introduced me to the face of death. I slide my airplane
away from leader's just a little, and divert my attention to turning four
separate knobs that will let me listen, on a new frequency, to what they
have to say. It takes a moment in the red light to turn the knobs. I look
up to see the bright lights of Lead beginning to dim in the haze. I will
lose him. Forward on the throttle, catch up with him before he disappears
in the mist. Hurry.
Very suddenly in the deceptive mist I am closing too quickly on his right
wing and his lights are very very bright. Look out, you'll run right into
him! He is so helpless as he flies on instruments. He couldn't dodge now
if he knew that I would hit him. I slam the throttle back to *idle*, jerk
the nose of my plane up, and roll so that I am upside down, watching the
lights of his airplane through the top of my canopy.
Then, very quickly, he is gone. I see my flashlight where it has fallen
to the plexiglass over my head, silhouetted by the diffuse yellow glow in
the low cloud that is a city preparing to sleep on the ground. What an
unusual place for a flashlight. I begin the roll to recover to level
flight, but I move the stick too quickly, at what has become far too low an
airspeed. I am stunned. My airplane is spinning. It snaps around once and
the glow is all about me. I look for references, for the ground or stars;
but there is only the faceless glow. The stick shakes convulsively in my
hand and the airplane snaps around again. I do not know whether the
airplane is in an erect spin or an inverted spin, I know only that one must
never spin a swept-wing aircraft. Not even in broad light and clear sky.
Instruments. Attitude indicator shows that the spin has stopped, by itself
or by my monstrous efforts on the stick and rudder. It shows that the
airplane is wings-level inverted; the two little bars of the artificial
horizon that always point to the ground are now pointing to the canopy
overhead.
I must bail out. I must not stay in an uncontrolled airplane below
10,000 feet. The altimeter is an unwinding blur. I must raise the right
armrest, squeeze the trigger, before it is too late.
There is a city beneath me. I promised myself that I would never leave
an airplane over a city.
...
Judy Cadmus
Another excellent book about aviation is "Gentlemen of Adventure", by
Ernest Gann.
Judy Cadmus, PPSEL
Skylane N42202
Charles K. Scott
> I remember this book very fondly. I like all his
> earlier books a lot- there was one about an f-84 flight through a storm also-
> can't remember the title.
It was called "Stranger to the Ground."
Corky Scott