sixtyPercent: Cochlear Implants, Aviation, Technlology, and Philosophy 2005/12/30
Two Flying Books: 'Solo' and 'Cannibal Queen'
Somehow I recently found the time to read a couple more books on flying: Clyde Edgerton's Solo: My Adventures In The Air, and Stephen Coonts' The Cannibal Queen.
Both authors are ex-fighter pilots with Vietnam War experience; both are successful authors of fiction; and these two books represent something of a departure into auto-biographical writing. Given these similarities, it seems reasonable to lump together a quick review of each into a single blog posting.
I wanted to like Cannibal Queen more than I did. I'm very fond of the "setting off on a flight of discovery" genre -- two great examples of which are Mariana Gosnell's Zero Three Bravo and Rinker Buck's Flight Of Passage. In Coonts' variation on this theme, he sets of with his teenage son in an open cockpit biplane, and eventually flies to all fourty-eight states in the continental US. The book mixes excellent descriptions of the flying with somewhat forced philosophical pronouncements. There are a few nice moments of non-flying -- such as when Coonts' visits his hometown, but mostly you'd want to read this book for the flying.
Solo describes in a fair amount of (never boring) detail Edgerton's training as a pilot -- from student pilot in a Piper Cherokee 140 to a fighter pilot for the US Air Force in an F-4. Edgerton spends most of the book describing the training and related experiences, and always made me feel as if I were along for the ride. His description of primary flight instruction mirrored my own in many ways, and once this connection was established in the first few chapters I was hooked. I finished the book in one sitting. Only at the end does he venture in some depth about how the flying and war experiences influenced his life. That part was enjoyable too -- perhaps because Edgerton focuses on how his flying shaped him, rather than taking Coonts approach of trying to relate it to the human condition in general.
Solo felt like a book that wanted to be written -- Cannibal Queen felt more like a contractual obligation. The latter does have nicer pictures though :-) .
by David Creemer : 2005/12/30 : Categories flying books (permalink)
