Thursday, April 07, 2016

If You Can't Get Out To Fly, Might As Well Read About Flying

April has been a rather cruel month when it comes to flight training.

This morning there was even freezing rain to mess up any flight opportunities. I hope my scheduled cross-country solo this Saturday will go as scheduled. This is of course the reschedule for last Saturday but given the weather trends I'm not too optimistic.

In light of that, I scheduled a bunch of night flying for next week so maybe at least one of them will be a go.

In the meantime, I've been reading the Airplane Flying Handbook, and the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, as well as some other books on flying. If you can't fly, you might as well put the time in to retain your knowledge and learn more about flying so you're a better pilot when you do get the chance to fly.

I've also found some truly excellent fiction about flying to listen to when I'm driving while wishing I was flying.

Flat Spin, by David Freed is the first in his Cordell Logan series.

Its a fun mystery/flying book that certainly gets the flying details right. The hero, Cordell Logan is a flight instructor with a past that has much to do with the mystery he finds himself in. That he pilots a 172 is icing on the cake - every detail is right on which makes reading it lots of fun indeed.

For an excellent mystery tale with lots of flying and action as well as perfectly written and timed humor, this one is hard to beat. It's also the first of a series, of which there are three more books so far. This gives you even more to look forward to reading once you finish this book off, because you will want to read more in this series.

2 comments:

Comrade Misfit said...

"Fate is the Hunter" by Ernest K. Gann-- a serious classic.

Aaron said...

Thank you! I will add that book to my reading list.