Customer Reviews
Quite simply the most valuable book I own.... - By: Book worm, 04 Oct 2008 
I'm think I'm now on my 3rd copy - the previous ones having all fallen apart through use - & still I can keep going back to this book & reading it still gives the same happiness. If I could keep only 1 book it would be this one.
Flying experiences from days past - flights of fancy? - By: D.Hatcher, 02 Jun 2008 
I read this while I was doing a gliding course at Sutton Bank Yorks, to cover the time when the weather was not so good for flying.
Richard is more well known for 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull', an oft used text to prove perspective on life. This text provides a view of his own flying experiences as documentedin the late 1960's & early 1970's (about when I was born!).
It costs a bit more to fly now (aftrerall it was written 40 years ago), but the sentimentin the collection of essays is the same. Having flown too, the energy & feeling you get from the text does fit with the feelings from the cockpit & people you meet (often there are characters!).
In terms of style, it may at times be a little over the top (hence four out of five). However, each chapter is short & also delightfully illustrated with pencil drawings of many kinds of aircraft. Each drawing fitting well with each short chapter.
A flight of fantasy. - By: , 25 Mar 2004 As a thank you to the pilot of the aircraft for my first ever flight, I gave my copy of this book away. Quite literally 'A Gift of Wings'!
Magical!
This book inspired me to fly - By: , 22 Jan 1999 This is a collection of Richard Bach's magazine articles - saved from the Scout Jumble Sale waste paper collection & given more permanancein book form. It is truly inspirational; I read it firstin about 1975, & shortly afterwards took up gliding. By 1979 I had my PPL (Private Pilot's Licence), & a sharein an aerobatic de Havilland Chipmunk aeroplane. Bach's book was the inspiration, & I have re-read that copy so many times that the pages are falling out. I bought a new copy a while ago so that if I loose any pages out of the original I will not be deprived of Bach at his best. The stories cover many aspects of flying; Air Force fast-jet pilot, saving for a Piper Cub, taking that Cub to little fly-ins, barnstorming with an old biplane, gliding. Each one superbly written. Bach puts you there! Here is an example. He is standing by the biplanein a fieldin small-town America trying to sell the last ride of the day to a reluctant crowd. There are no takers, so he climbs into the cockpit & goes flying alone up into that glorious sunset - & it was better than even he thought it would have been. A deep golden haze covered the ground, & the little hills rose lighter gold out of that haze as 'we (the biplane & I) pulled up into a long lazy loop that melted into a barrel roll that became a wingover'. He swished down to the small-town meadow, taxyed in, & as the propellor clanked round to a stop, & he sat there letting the experience soak in, a womanin the crowd said, clearly audible across the still evening air, "he must have the courage of ten men to fly that old crate!" It was like being hit over the head with a lead pipe. But what aviator hasn't suddenly felt the enourmouse gulf, at some time, between those that fly & those that stay on the ground. The former experience things which the latted can't even begin to appreciate. Richard's story encapsulates that perfectly. Enchanting! I read the book & then I took up flying myself, & it was everything that Richard had said it would be...... Vince Chadwick
