Langewiesche has writtten a masterpeice on the "art" of flying and is still compulsive reading after 60 years in print. His references are occasionally quaint, such as comparing the "gait" of your aeroplane to the gait of your horse and referring to the elevator as "flippers" (the latter being much less misleading).

If only he'd also written books called "A Practical Guide to International Politics", "Crime Fighting Made Simple" and "Understanding Women" the word would be a better place ;o)


Definitive   July 14, 2003
 7 out of 9 found this review helpful

The best explanation ever written on how to fly an aeroplane, and one of the few in which the essence of the subject is not buried under a mountain of irrelevant technical detail. If you read only one book on how to fly, this should be it. Even the illustrations are not only very clear, but evocative of the age in which it was written.


Makes flying much clearer for students.   August 6, 2001
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

This book helped rid me of the feeling in my first few hours of flying that I was not let in on what everyone else knew. It really clarifies those hazy edges when you're trying to take on such foreign skills. Someone should have told him that women have been known to fly too, though!


THE pilot's Bible!   July 7, 1999
 3 out of 4 found this review helpful

Without a doubt the best book on piloting I've read. Reminds us of the importants of old fashion flying techniques that our young flight instructors never learned.


the best book on flying that I ever read.   April 28, 1999
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

I began flying in 1944 and am still an active pilot in 1999. The is clearly the best book ever on how a plane flys and how you fly a plane. How I missed it for all these years, I will never know.