Best Aviation & Nautical Biographies Books
Here you will get Best Aviation & Nautical Biographies Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books for you.
1. The Lost Boys of Montauk: The True Story of the Wind Blown, Four Men Who Vanished at Sea, and the Survivors They Left Behind
Author: by Amanda M. Fairbanks
English
336 pages
198210323X
An immersive account of a tragedy at sea whose repercussions haunt its survivors to this day, lauded by New York Times bestselling author Ron Suskind as an honest and touching book, and a hell of a story. In March of 1984, the commercial fishing boat Wind Blown left Montauk Harbor on what should have been a routine offshore voyage.
Its captain, a married father of three young boys, was the boat’s owner and leader of the four-man crew, which included two locals and the blue-blooded son of a well-to-do summer family. After a week at sea, the weather suddenly turned, and the foursome collided with a nor’easter.
They soon found themselves in the fight of their lives. Tragically, it was a fight they lost. Neither the boat nor the bodies of the men were ever recovered. The fate of the Wind Blownthe second-worst nautical disaster suffered by a Montauk-based fishing vessel in over a hundred yearshas become interwoven with the local folklore of the East End’s year-round population.
2. Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed
Author: by Ben R. Rich
0316743003
Back Bay Books
English
This classic history of America’s high-stakes quest to dominate the skies is “a gripping technothriller in which the technology is real” (New York Times Book Review). From the development of the U-2 to the Stealth fighter, Skunk Works is the true story of America’s most secret and successful aerospace operation.
As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation’s brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the chronicle of Lockheed’s legendary Skunk Works is a drama of Cold War confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement against fantastic odds.
Here are up-close portraits of the maverick band of scientists and engineers who made the Skunk Works so renowned. Filled with telling personal anecdotes and high adventure, with narratives from the CIA and from Air Force pilots who flew the many classified, risky missions, this book is a riveting portrait of the most spectacular aviation triumphs of the twentieth century.
“Thoroughly engrossing.” -Los Angeles Times Book Review
3. West with the Night
Author: by Beryl Markham
English
293 pages
0865477639
A new edition of a great, underappreciated classic of our timeBeryl Markham’s West with the Night is a true classic, a book that deserves the same acclaim and readership as the work of her contemporaries Ernest Hemingway, Antoine de Saint-Exupry, and Isak Dinesen.
If the first responsibility of a memoirist is to lead a life worth writing about, Markham succeeded beyond all measure. Born Beryl Clutterbuck in the middle of England, she and her father moved to Kenya when she was a girl, and she grew up with a zebra for a pet; horses for friends; baboons, lions, and gazelles for neighbors.
She made money by scouting elephants from a tiny plane. And she would spend most of the rest of her life in East Africa as an adventurer, a racehorse trainer, and an aviatrixshe became the first person to fly nonstop from Europe to America, the first woman to fly solo east to west across the Atlantic.
Hers was indisputably a life full of adventure and beauty. And then there is the writing. When Hemingway read Markham’s book, he wrote to his editor, Maxwell Perkins: “She has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer …
4. Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
Author: by Robert Coram
B000FA5UEG
English
1417 KB
The acclaimed author of Brute recounts the life of the veteran U.S. Air Force pilot and innovative military strategist in this biography. John Boyd was arguably the greatest fighter pilot in American history. From the proving ground of the Korean War, he went on to win renown as the instructor who defeatedin less than forty secondsevery pilot who challenged him.
But what made Boyd a man for the ages was what happened after he left the cockpit. A fighter on the ground as well as in the air, Boyd was relentless, brilliant, stubborn, and virtually always right. He managed to transform almost single-handedly the way military aircraft, particularly the F-15 and F-16, were designed.
He then dedicated many lonely years to a radical theory of conflict that at the time was mostly ignored but now informs military activity around the globe and is acclaimed as the most influential thinking about conflict since Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.
Praise for BoydBoyd could not be more welcome…. It should be required reading for every American citizen. Washington Post Book WorldThis engrossing biography should definitely be on the bedside table of all our current military leadership. Andrew Cockburn, Los Angeles Times Book ReviewA stunning biography …
5. 8 MIRACULOUS MONTHS IN THE MALAYAN JUNGLE: A WWII Pilot's True Story of Faith, Courage, and Survival
Author: by Donald J. "DJ" Humphrey II
English
237 pages
1735845108
A Grueling Survival Story About a WWII Hero’s Fight for FreedomOn January 11, 1945, Major Donald J. Humphrey had his B-29 Superfortress directed at Singapore Island. After navigating the 1900-mile trip from India through dangerous weather, they had just successfully bombed their target.
And that’s when Japanese Zeroes shot off the wing and sent the mighty aircraft death-spiraling into the Malayan jungle. Jumping to safety, Humphrey and a few of his remaining crewmates found themselves lost in the middle of occupied territory. Enduring vicious crocodiles, deadly snakes, and crippling malaria, the Americans battled just to stay alive.
And though they made contact with Malayan resistance fighters, they could never be sure their benefactors weren’t pulling them even deeper into danger… In this harrowing true account, Major Humphrey’s son shares the extraordinary story of his father’s grueling ordeal.
Told in the first person, this highly personal narrative puts you inside the mind of a man fighting for his country while struggling to survive. 8 Miraculous Months in the Malayan Jungle is a gripping memoir about overcoming unexpected peril. If you like World War II heroes, incredible stories of courage, and inspirational reads, then you’ll love Donald “DJ” Humphrey II’s captivating biography of his father.
6. The Disappearing Act: The Impossible Case of MH370
Author: by Florence de Changy
B07ZPLVQ9T
Mudlark (February 4, 2021)
February 4, 2021
People often say that non-fiction books read like fast-moving thrillers, but this one genuinely does This is a splendid book and highly recommended.’ Daily Mail A remarkable piece of investigative journalism into one of the most pervasive and troubling mysteries of recent memory.
01:20am, 8 March 2014. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying 239 passengers, disappeared into the night, never to be seen or heard from again. The incident was inexplicable. In a world defined by advanced technology and interconnectedness, how could an entire aircraft become untraceable? Had the flight been subject to a perfect hijack?
Perhaps the pilots lost control? And if the plane did crash, where was the wreckage? Writing for Le Monde in the days and months after the plane’s disappearance, journalist Florence de Changy closely documented the chaotic international investigation that followed, uncovering more questions than answers.
Riddled with inconsistencies, contradictions and a lack of basic communication between authorities, the mystery surrounding flight MH370 only deepened. Now, de Changy offers her own explanation. Drawing together countless eyewitness testimonies, press releases, independent investigative reports and expert opinion, The Disappearing Act offers an eloquent and deeply unnerving narrative of what happened to the missing aircraft.
7. Up in the Air: The Real Story of Life Aboard the World’s Most Glamorous Airline
Author: by Betty Riegel
English
314 pages
1734413107
Although this is a book about life as a flight attendant with the world’s most iconic and glamorous airline, Pan American World Airways, it is not just a chronology of airborne events. Instead it begins with Betty Riegel’s description of leaving her home in the middle of the night, clutching her teddy and running with her Mother to an air raid shelter during war torn London.
From humble working-class roots, growing up with a mother who struggled to make ends meet and a father away at war, she had always dreamed of bigger things. After responding to an ad in the local newspaper, she secured herself an interview for the Pan Am training program and at just twenty-two years old was selected from thousands of eager young British women to begin a career that would change the course of her life.
Betty said goodbye to everything she knew and boarded a plane to New York, a city full of noise, towering skyscrapers, and promise. Under the watchful eye of her housemother, Dottie, Betty mastered the art of being the perfect Pan Am stewardesseverything from faultless etiquette, geography, and safety to seamless makeup application, charming influential passengers, and preparing five-course Parisian cuisine at 37,000 feet.
8. Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before
Author: by Tony Horwitz
Picador
English
496 pages
In an exhilarating tale of historic adventure, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Confederates in the Attic retraces the voyages of Captain James Cook, the Yorkshire farm boy who drew the map of the modern world Captain James Cook’s three epic journeys in the 18th century were the last great voyages of discovery.
His ships sailed 150,000 miles, from the Artic to the Antarctic, from Tasmania to Oregon, from Easter Island to Siberia. When Cook set off for the Pacific in 1768, a third of the globe remained blank. By the time he died in Hawaii in 1779, the map of the world was substantially complete.
Tony Horwitz vividly recounts Cook’s voyages and the exotic scenes the captain encountered: tropical orgies, taboo rituals, cannibal feasts, human sacrifice. He also relives Cook’s adventures by following in the captain’s wake to places such as Tahiti, Savage Island, and the Great Barrier Reef to discover Cook’s embattled legacy in the present day.
Signing on as a working crewman aboard a replica of Cook’s vessel, Horwitz experiences the thrill and terror of sailing a tall ship. He also explores Cook the man: an impoverished farmboy who broke through the barriers of his class and time to become the greatest navigator in British history.
9. Secrets from the Cockpit: Pilots Behaving Badly and other Flying Stories
Author: by Robert Schapiro
B095XSP5NK
June 18, 2021
English
English
288 pages
Price: $3.05 as of Jul 8, 2021 (11:30 am)
Nerves of Steel is the captivating true story of Tammie Jo Shults’s remarkable lifefrom growing up the daughter of a humble rancher, to breaking through gender barriers as one of the Navy’s first female F/A 18 Hornet pilots, to safely landing the severely crippled Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 and helping save the lives of 148 people.
Tammie Jo Shults has spent her entire life loving the skies. Though the odds were against her, she became one of the few female fighter pilots in the Navy. In 1994, after serving her country honorably for eight years, Tammie Jo left the Navy and joined Southwest Airlines in the early 1990’s.
On April 17, 2018, Tammie Jo was called to service once again. Twenty minutes into a routine domestic flight, Captain Shults was faced with the unthinkablea catastrophic engine failure in the Boeing 737 caused an explosion that punctured hydraulic lines and severed fuel lines, tearing away sections of the plane, puncturing a window, and taking a woman’s life.
12. Race of Aces
Author: by John R. Bruning
English
552 pages
0316508632
The astonishing untold story of the WWII airmen who risked it all in the deadly race to become the greatest American fighter pilot. In 1942, America’s deadliest fighter pilot, or “ace of aces” – the legendary Eddie Rickenbacker – offered a bottle of bourbon to the first U.S.
Fighter pilot to break his record of twenty-six enemy planes shot down. Seizing on the challenge to motivate his men, General George Kenney promoted what they would come to call the “race of aces” as a way of boosting the spirits of his war-weary command.
What developed was a wild three-year sprint for fame and glory, and the chance to be called America’s greatest fighter pilot. The story has never been told until now. Based on new research and full of revelations, John Bruning’s brilliant, original book tells the story of how five American pilots contended for personal glory in the Pacific while leading Kenney’s resurgent air force against the most formidable enemy America ever faced.
The pilots – Richard Bong, Tommy McGuire, Neel Kearby, Charles MacDonald and Gerald Johnson – riveted the nation as they contended for Rickenbacker’s crown. As their scores mounted, they transformed themselves from farm boys and aspiring dentists into artists of the modern dogfight.
13. Stuka Pilot
Author: by Hans Ulrich Rudel
Black House Publishing
English
282 pages
Autobiography of World War Two Luftwaffe pilot Hans Ulrich Rudel, the most highly decorated German serviceman of WW2, and the only one to be awarded the Third Reich’s most prestigious medal which was specially created for Rudel by Hitler himself, the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds.
Shot down over 24 times, Hans Rudel is credited with destroying over 500 tanks, 2,000 ground targets, the Russian battleship Marat, two cruisers and a destroyer, and was so successful against Russian forces that Joseph Stalin put up a 100,000 rouble ransom on his head.
His flying record of over 2,500 combat missions remains unmatched by any pilot since. Until his death in 1982 Hans Rudel remained a loyal supporter of Adolf Hitler, and National Socialism. Hans Rudel remained a complex character, but arguably one of WW2’s most heroic figures.
This is a new edition of this classic war epic which includes new maps, photographs, and footnotes, with an introduction by British air ace Group Captain Douglas Bader.
14. Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History
Author: by Keith O'Brien
Mariner Books
English
384 pages
A New York Times Bestseller * An Amazon Best Book of the Year * A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice * A Time Best Book for Summer Between the world wars, no sport was more popular, or more dangerous, than airplane racing.
While male pilots were lauded as heroes, the few women who dared to fly were more often ridiculeduntil a cadre of women pilots banded together to break through the entrenched prejudice. Fly Girls weaves together the stories of five remarkable women: Florence Klingensmith, a high school dropout from Fargo, North Dakota; Ruth Elder, an Alabama divorce; Amelia Earhart, the most famous, but not necessarily the most skilled; Ruth Nichols, who chafed at her blue blood family’s expectations; and Louise Thaden, the young mother of two who got her start selling coal in Wichita.
Together, they fought for the chance to fly and race airplanesand in 1936, one of them would triumph, beating the men in the toughest air race of them all.
15. Open Skies: My Life as Afghanistan's First Female Pilot
Author: by Niloofar Rahmani
English
320 pages
1641603348
As a young Afghan woman who dreamed of becoming an air force pilot, Niloofar Rahmani confronted far more than technical challenges; she faced the opprobrium of an entire society. Pamela Constable, author of Playing with Fire and former Kabul and Islamabad bureau chief for the Washington Post The true story of Niloofar Rahmani and her determination to become Afghanistan’s first female air force pilot In 2010, for the first time since the Soviets, Afghanistan allowed women to join the armed forces, and Niloofar entered Afghanistan’s military academy.
Niloofar had to break through social barriers to demonstrate confidence, leadership, and decisivenessessential qualities for a combat pilot. Niloofar performed the first solo flight of her classahead of all her male classmatesand in 2013 became Afghanistan’s first female fixed-wing air force pilot.
The US State Department honored Niloofar with the International Women of Courage Award and brought her to the United States to meet Michelle Obama and fly with the US Navy’s Blue Angels. But when she returned to Kabul, the danger to her and her family had increased significantly.
