Recommend me a book about test pilots / WW2 pilots

First Light by Geoffrey Wellum who died only recently. Fantastic book about flying Spitfires, really excellent and gripping.

Not WW2 but “Sled Driver” by Brian Shul (IIRC) is available online and is rather good. About the SR-71 Blackbird.

Rather harder to find in print!

This ^^^^ – its a great read, some of the stuff still sounds crazy like the plane breaking up on you as you’re doing a hard turn at Mach 2+

Not WW2 but “Sled Driver” by Brian Shul (IIRC) is available online and is rather good. About the SR-71 Blackbird.

Rather harder to find in print!

This ^^^^ – its a great read, some of the stuff still sounds crazy like the plane breaking up on you as you’re doing a hard turn at Mach 2+

Here’s a link to a pdf of Sled Driver: Clicky 

(Originally shared by someone else on here.  Cracking read.)

Oh, and another +1 for The Big Show and Into the Black.

If we are going out of the requested period:

Sagittarius Rising by Cecil Lewis.

<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>The author evocatively sets his love of the skies and flying against his bitter experience of the horrors of war, as we follow his progress from France and the battlefields of the Somme, to his pioneering defence of London against deadly night time raids.</span>

As a kid I read a lot of these books and the following stand out:

Bring Back My Stringbag by John Godley Kilbracken
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bring-Back-Stringbag-Godley-Kilbracken/dp/0850524954

Lancaster Target and the follow-up, Mosquito Pilot by Jack Currie.

Also:

44 posts and NO ONE has mentioned Captain Eric “Winkle” Brown?…… What the hell is going on?….. The guy was  legend.

Captain Eric “Winkle” Brown wrote the first book listed by the OP!

How about form the perspective of the other side?

Hans Ulrich Rudel who flew 2500 combat missions

Or Erich Hartmann the highest scoring ace ever with 352 kills

https://www.amazon.co.uk/German-Fighter-Ace-Erich-Hartmann/dp/0887403964/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1532871668&sr=1-1&keywords=erich+hartmann

SERIOUSLY!!!!! No one?  Not a single person heard of Winkle Brown?

I’ll get my coat.

SERIOUSLY!!!!! No one?  Not a single person heard of Winkle Brown?

I’ll get my coat.

I would – you’ve clearly not read the op or the title of the Sainted Eric’s autobiog

Another vote for First Light by Geoffrey Wellum, a cracking read that I couldn’t put down last week. His recent passing made me pick it up.

On a more helpful note

War in a Stringbag – Charles Lamb

Couple more for WWI, they were effectively test pilots.

Winged Victory – VM Yeates fiction but based on his experiences

Flying Fury – James McCudden

Not directly about test pilots, but connected with the SR-71 Blackbird ‘Skunk Works’ is an excellent read, covers the secret work carried out by Lockheed from the end of the war onwards.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rich-Janos-Author-Skunk-Works/dp/B01DHEZKUK?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-ipad-uk-21&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B01DHEZKUK

“Going Solo” by Roald Dahl.

Starts with him traveling to Africa in 1938 to work for Shell, joining the RAF in 1939 and learning to fly Tiger Moths in Kenya, then Gloucester Gladiators before moving onto, well, actually being thrown pretty much into the deep end,  flying Hurricanes in combat in Greece…

Some good shouts but Chickenhawk deserves another one – some of the descriptions of helicopter extractions of GIs under heavy fire in Vietnam are spine tingling

I can recommend Enemy Coast Ahead by Guy Gibson, the Dambusters Squadron Leader. I think he was ordered to write it as a means for him to have a break from active service.

I’ve read quite a few of those already recommended and just can’t over how young they all are.

Mentioned above but another fan of Vulcan 607 here – an amazing tale

Chickenhawk +1

I flew for the Fuhrer by Heinz Knocke – a Luftwaffe pilot that flew against American heavies in defense of the Reich – interesting read something from the other side.

+1 War in a Stringbag and The Big Show

I flew for the Fuhrer

Ah yes, that’s on the book shelf too- can’t remember what I thought if it, it’s been years

Another for Riding Rockets – moving to the point of actual tears in his description of the death of the Challenger astronauts and how, despite fully knowing that the shuttle could kill him, the author simply couldn’t turn down a flight in it, and went on to fly 4 times, and each time, his description of trying to hide his fear during the (long) count down sequence is gripping.

A quick look on my kindle also shows:

A Bucket of sunshine by Mike Brooke, of his time flying nuclear armed canberra’s during the 1960’s

19 minutes to live by Lew jennings – appache gunship pilot in Vietnam

Black Cat 21 by Bob Ford – Huey helicopter gunship pilot in vietnam

F-4 Phantom by Robert Priest – an absolute aviation classic, beautifully written on flying the interceptor during the cold war

Donald Auten’s Roger Ball! Is a good one about US Naval aviation, the service introduction of The F-14, and the development of Top Gun.

And +1 for Robert Prest’s F-4 a Phantom Pilot

If you’re interested in F4s then I recommend One Day in a Long War by Jeffrey Ethel and Alfred Price – product of a lot of research into the first day of Operation Linebacker that took place on 10th May 1972 and includes great first person accounts including a number who were products of the Top Gun training programme (program).

And, for another view from the other side in WW2, Spitfire on My Tail by Ulrich Steinhilper gives great account of 109 combat in the Battle of Britain, including a damning professional opinion of Galland with whom he served in 1940.  Quite a lot of it is about his experience as  PoW though in Canada.

And surprised no one has mentioned Fighter Pilot by Paul Richey unless I missed it.  Written while he was recovering from a 20mm cannon shell in the neck in 1941 it’s pretty much the definitive fighter pilot account written during the war.

Couple of obscure ones-

Pierre Clostermann- Flames in the Sky

Ira Jones- Tiger Squadron

Oh, and Cecil Rwnsley and Robert Wright- Night Fighter

The man in the hot seat – Doddy Haye.  Its years since I read it but I remember enjoying it – its the biography of the test pilot for ejector seats

I’m going to have to “-1” Vulcan 607, while the story itself is quite entertaining, the writing is far too breathless and Boy’s Own.

I don’t think it’s been mentioned, but I enjoyed Starman, the biography of Yuri Gagarin. Obviously not planes exactly but close enough :)