Books

Powder Puff Pilot has released its third aviation book for children, “Claire Bear Explains…What Pilots Fly.” Like the first two picture books in the series, it stars Claire Bear, a pink-clad aerobatic performer and mentor for aspiring young pilots. The series is the brainchild of Sue Hughes, a pilot since 1996 and a flight instructor […]

Books by pilots about their experiences vary dramatically from very good to, well, being polite, not as good! When a friend brought me a book written by a friend of his about the friend’s efforts to buy a plane and fulfill a lifelong ambition to fly around the world, I kinda rolled my eyes. And, […]

A new book, “Final Flight: The Mystery of a WWII Plane Crash and the Frozen Airmen in the High Sierra,” will be released in September. The book explores the true-life mystery uncovered in 2005, when two mountaineers climbing above Mendel Glacier in the High Sierra found the mummified remains of a uniformed World War II […]

Dave “Bio” Baranek was one of 451 young men to become a Navy flight officer in 1980, but he was the only one from that group to become an instructor at Topgun, the Navy’s elite Fighter Weapons School. He was so good that Hollywood came knocking on his door, and asked to assist with the […]

Just released is “The Red Tavern,” the true story of the silent preachers of the First Air Cavalry Division, who piloted the Huey helicopters that were the beginning and end of every Vietnam story. The story is set in 1967, following the First Cavalry Division’s Ia Drang Valley campaign, which gave rise to the book […]

Just released is “The Book of Skydiving Formations.” The book covers all group sizes from two-ways through 20-ways. There are more than 1,000 formations in all. You’ll find simple formations that are easy to build as well as exotic ones that will challenge the most skilled skydivers, according to the publishers. There’s also a chapter […]

“Fighter Pilot–The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds” will be released April 13 and is available now for presale through most major bookstores, including Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Borders. The book about one of America’s greatest aviation legends was compiled (using his writings) by his daughter, Christina Olds and Ed Rasimus, a retired USAF […]

A new book, “From Props to Jets: Commercial Aviation’s Transition to the Jet Age 1952-1962,” by Jon Proctor, Mike Machat and Craig Kodera, is slated for release in May. Although the years from 1952 to 1962 saw the rise and dominance of piston-powered airliners like the Douglas DC-7, Lockheed Constellation, and Boeing Stratocruiser, the new […]