Books about aviation - military and civil. What to read for a beginning and continuing pilot or my aviation regiment To the transcendental depths

During the Civil War, many aviation specialists left Russia: scientists, designers, engineers, and pilots. The majority of emigrant aviators were St. Petersburg residents. Emigrant aviators achieved especially great success on American soil.

For many years their names were forgotten, and their contribution to world aviation was not properly appreciated. The book “St. Petersburg Wings of America” tells about the fate of St. Petersburg residents who were forced to leave their homeland and seek happiness overseas in the field of the aviation industry. The book is based on an in-depth study of domestic and foreign archives, is well illustrated, and written in an easy and accessible language.

Nine hundred hours of heaven. The unknown history of the airship "SSSR-V6"

On the evening of one February day in 1938, the snow-covered slopes of the low mountains west of Kandalaksha were illuminated by a huge torch. In a matter of minutes, a fire destroyed the best airship of the Union - "SSS R-V6 Osoaviakhim"

Airship historian Alexey Belokrys puts forward a version based on various sources, including dozens of archival documents, many of which were declassified only recently and are being put into circulation for the first time.

The book does not focus on the polar tragedy, but talks about the events that preceded the construction of the airship, about its place in the overall picture of domestic aeronautics, covering the period from the beginning of the twentieth century until the cessation of the construction of airships in 1940.

Here is a kind of history of airship construction in our country, presented in an accessible form, with many facts and interesting details.

The first space race: the fight for the satellite

In October 1957, thousands of people around the world went outside at sunset or before dawn to watch Sputnik One in the sky. Few people knew that what they usually saw was not the device itself, but the second stage of the R-7 rocket, which ended up in orbit along with the object it launched. The real heroes of the beginning of the Space Age were not satellites, but launch vehicles - without them the triumphs of the first space flights were impossible. The book "The First Space Race: The Duel for the Satellite" tells about the formation and development of long-range ballistic missiles and launch vehicles of the first artificial satellites of the Earth, about the initial stage of the ambitious rivalry between the USSR and the USA in the field of space exploration, which arose in 1957 as a side effect of the Cold War. war. The publication is addressed to a wide range of readers, primarily interested in the history of domestic and world rocket and space technology, but the main emphasis is on young people who are beginning to become acquainted with astronautics and have general initial training in this field. The book is supplemented with a large number of illustrations and graphic diagrams, many of which were made specifically for this publication.

To the transcendental depths. History of high altitude flights

This book is the result of a unique study of the development of high-altitude flights - one of the most exciting and, at the same time, little-known pages in the history of aviation. The author has collected and comprehensively analyzed extensive material related to the development of work in the field of high-altitude flights - from the first bold ascents of aeronauts of the 18th century. before the start of operation in 1940 of specialized high-altitude aircraft, which largely determined the current appearance of aviation. For the first time, a complete picture has been compiled that makes it possible to use the presented material as the basis for further research on the history of science and technology. The book contains both elements of historical and technical analysis and pays attention to the most fascinating episodes, due to which it may be of interest not only to historians of aviation, aeronautics and other technical specialists, but also to a wide range of readers.

The ship's commander speaks. Questions, answers and observations from an experienced pilot

Are you still looking for the "safest" seats on the plane? Do you naively think that if the plane has already landed, then the worst is over? .You also sometimes wonder what is stopping all pilots from being replaced with automated mechanisms? .Would you also like to know who sets ticket prices, what special skills are taught to pilots, what is turbulence and what secrets do airports keep? Patrick Smith, a curious civil aviation pilot who has flown around the world more than 1,000 times and author of the popular blog Ask the Pilot, has revealed all the secrets. The whole “air travel theater” in one book! Just please don't take it with you on the flight.

There are people who cannot imagine themselves without heavenly heights. They connect their destiny with aviation and find in their calling the meaning of life and a special romance. Fiction books about aviation will tell you about the sky and flights not from the perspective of dry numbers - you will see stories.

Breathtaking stories about how the sky changes life. About pilots who became close to the helm. About combat pilots who are ready to risk themselves again and again. About the designers who create hardy iron birds...

During the Chechen war, special forces lieutenant Vyacheslav Petrov was captured. Suddenly, the hero receives a special drink, goes back in time and eventually inhabits the body of Krasovsky, a famous pilot from the First World War. Will he be able to change history?

The novel describes the air battles of the First World War and the intrigues surrounding military aircraft. The central theme of the plot is the struggle for and against the Russian miracle - the four-engine aircraft "Ilya Muromets". The novel is set in 1915, the second year of the war.

It's not easy to fly mail planes, especially those of the 1930s, when biplanes still reigned supreme. The book describes the life of a mail plane pilot: rare visits home, meetings with the Moors at a Moroccan airfield, flights across the desert and ocean.

This book about civil aviation takes us back to a time when commercial aviation was just in its infancy. One of the main characters, the director of the Riviere postal airline network, has a very tough character. He strictly punishes those pilots whose night flight resulted in an accident.

This book describes not only the flight on a reconnaissance plane to a city captured by the Nazis. It also describes the general picture of defeat - France was too quickly captured by the German conquerors. Is there any hope for saving France?

The great French pilot, poet and writer created this novel after he was in a plane crash. The novel is dedicated to the famous pilot Henri Guillaume; one of the chapters describes his exploits. There is also a chapter dedicated to Exupery’s most dangerous adventures in the Sahara...

During the Great Patriotic War, not only men took to the skies. The author of the book served first in the Taman Women's Air Regiment, then in the A.I. Aviation Division. Pokryshkina. I. Dryagina recalls combat friends and girlfriends, joint combat missions...

The book tells about the famous Taman Aviation Regiment. The female pilots of this regiment flew night bombers, instilling fear and terror in the Nazis. The brave heroines of this aviation regiment received the famous nickname “night witches.”

The author of the book shares his memories of the Great Patriotic War. Both Chechneva herself and her peers chose the path of military pilots. In this book, the pilot recalls her fellow soldiers, both those who died and those who celebrated Victory Day, as well as her flights in peacetime.

This book tells about the fate of military pilots. These brave eagles went through a difficult path: at the beginning of the war they often escaped from downed planes, in the second year of the war they got involved in the most dangerous air battles, and in 1943 they already became a threat to the Nazis.

This book contains the memoirs of the fearless pilot Konstantin Mikhalenko, known under the nickname “night witcher”. He had a little less than a thousand combat missions to his name, and these were the most dangerous flights on the famous Po-2, a night bomber!

It all started in the 1920s and 1930s. In the Soviet Union, flying clubs were created where young talents came. Many students became first-class pilots. During the Great Patriotic War they served in the 673rd Assault Aviation Regiment and distinguished themselves in the Battle of Kursk.

The book describes the service of pilots of the Air Force of the Soviet Union. It’s not just the flight service that’s difficult—serious responsibility lies on the shoulders of air traffic controllers and radio operators. The plot has room for friendship, betrayal, love, jealousy, and quarrels with superiors.

A major airport was suddenly hit by a storm. Airport employees begin to have serious difficulties: either a passenger car with food is stuck in an unknown location, or one of the planes has an accident. In addition, the plot describes the personal dramas of the characters.

The hero of this book is the famous aircraft designer Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky. He worked in the Russian Empire, and during the First World War he built the Ilya Muromets heavy bomber. After emigrating to the United States, he built seaplanes, and from the late 1930s, helicopters.

The hero of this book is the famous Soviet aircraft designer Andrei Nikolaevich Tupolev. He designed both military and civil aircraft. It was on an airplane designed by Tupolev V.P. Chkalov and his comrades made the famous flight to the USA via the North Pole.

A journalist from Los Angeles is waiting for news about his wife and daughters - they are on the flight. The news was terrible: the plane crashed, everyone died. But a year later, the journalist unexpectedly learned that the strange scientist survived the disaster, and it also turned out that otherworldly forces were involved...

The flight was not easy - we had to fly over high mountains. The flight ends in a plane crash, leaving only the pilot and passenger alive. The situation is very difficult; they can only rely on each other. Attachment gradually develops into love...

The author of the book is a former pilot. He carefully analyzed the causes of the famous plane crashes and concluded that they did not happen due to a fatal accident, but as a result of serious, if not incredible, mistakes of both aircraft crews and air traffic controllers.

The book describes the adventures of pilot Alexei Gushchin, working in extreme situations. When flying in a thunderstorm, the pilot saves the plane by dropping excess cargo - jeeps. Exciting adventures, conflicts with superiors and a quarrel with a loved one make up the plot of the book.

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Good day to you!

As I promised in responses to comments, I will describe what materials I used to prepare for the PPL, and I will also mention other useful and simply interesting books about aviation. I’ll say right away - read as much as possible, even if the material you come across is not yet applicable to your flights! Try to read at least one aviation book a month, and it doesn’t matter if it’s not a textbook, but a pilot’s memoirs, and also don’t forget about the blogs of contemporaries, such as denokan , tsiganash and others - they have many interesting and instructive posts.

I'll start with a general view of my modest collection, which I have been slowly collecting for the last seven years. I bought it mainly on Amazon and Ozone, and also received it as a gift from friends. There are several encyclopedias, and the multi-volume aviation encyclopedia from Deagostini was not included in the frame.

This is mostly educational stuff...

And here there are more memoirs and films on aviation topics (not all :)). Two books are especially interesting: “The Air Cossack of Verdun” and “Rivals of the Eagles” - these are exciting historical essays about our first pilots, their interesting but difficult fate. I also recommend Charles Lindbergh’s memoirs about his flight across the Atlantic; the film also turned out to be interesting.

On this long shelf everything is mixed up, but of course the memoirs of foreign and Soviet pilots predominate.

But let's return to training - my very first book and the main one for training - Pilot's handbook of aeronautical knowledge. You can say the official American textbook. Next to it is an analogue from Rod Machado - the material is the same, but presented more lively, with humor. These books have practically all the theory needed to pass the computer theory test, but the oral exam may require additional material, sometimes based on the examiners' favorite topics.

A mandatory element of remote preparation for exams is one or another (I chose Sporty's, but there are others) video course with the opportunity to take trial theoretical exams. And most importantly, after several successful trial exams, an official document is issued confirming the fact of completion of theoretical training. This document is required by the school for admission to the official computer exam.

If you can’t find something in the handbook, you’ll find it here - FAR/AIM (Federal Aviation Regulation / Aeronautical Information Manual) - our analogue - FAPs, which, if I understand correctly, were written with an eye on FAR/AIM, but they do not yet reach the level of structure and legislative support for GA flights.

Laws are updated regularly, so I prefer the electronic version. And it’s simple to search, and the material is fresh, and there’s no need to carry this “brick.” In addition, the electronic version has the ability to filter material according to the type of flight license. This makes it much easier to study the material, but I strongly recommend not to be lazy and still read articles related to more advanced types of flights - you will no longer just know the material, but understand it.

If you plan to continue your flights on the territory of the Russian Federation, then it is imperative to know Russian FAPs, and the most convenient source for them is a collection from the Russian division of AOPA. It is available in paper form, most conveniently in PDF, and it is updated annually on the AOPA website ().

The next book, which is especially helpful in preparing for the oral part - it contains an impressive number of possible questions and answers to them with references to the laws. If you solve it in its entirety, consider yourself ready for oral. Better yet, have a fellow student or instructor ask questions from the book, and you answer orally.

Let's go back to the written exam. This book contains all the same questions as the problem book in the video course, but there is a huge advantage!

And the advantage is expressed in the appendix to the textbook of the original book with exam handouts.
Those. In the exam, you will change distances, read maps, determine flight characteristics, working with paper handouts. And it's great to get used to using it beforehand. The photo below is not from PPL, but from Instrument - I lost my PPL after the exam.

This is what illustrations of the material look like with a fragment from the map of low altitude routes and a page from A/FD. Electronic courses have many convenient tools for working with maps, but the exam will include a regular scaled ruler (plotter) and you need to be able to use it.

And this book is already many years old (the reprint is recent) - it was written back in the distant 194s. And it has not lost its relevance to this day! Explains aircraft aerodynamics and practical aspects of piloting simply and clearly. Recommended for pilots of any level:)

The story would be incomplete, and it would not be fair to omit several excellent books from the Soviet years. And the first of them - one might say a classic - Aircraft navigation from Cherny and Korablin. Timeless methods of air navigation are described in detail and in an accessible manner.

There were many questions in the comments about preparing to conduct an English-language radio exchange.
This is the handbook I liked the most - living, understandable language, analysis of phraseology by flight stages and situations, as well as many other aspects of radio communication to ensure comfortable and safe flights (though primarily in the States), for example, what is a transponder, the main purpose and what additional benefits can be obtained from it.

These books are also useful, but I liked them less.

If you wish, you can listen to a video course on the same topic from Sportis. But you won't be able to practice.

But it’s great to train in this program - it’s almost no longer on sale, but you can easily find it on torrents :) It also covers the theory, but also allows you to conduct interactive training, and then compare your sound with professionals. I highly recommend it! The immersion effect is very good - at the very beginning I was even nervous, essentially dictating “radio messages” to the computer. :)

Another learning topic is the weather! It is impossible to know everything about the weather, so it is recommended to study this subject constantly. Below is a basic tutorial.

This is an advanced tutorial from a famous pilot. And the author of a book widely known in aviation circles in the States - North Star over my shoulder - a fascinatingly written autobiography about flying, starting with a co-pilot on a Douglas DC-2 and ending with a captain on a Boeing 747.

And one more from another pilot who has produced a lot of popular training material on various aspects of flying.

Official information about weather data sources, applicable almost only in the states.

Russian textbooks should not be discounted, although their academic language is somewhat heavy after the simple and understandable handbooks:(

Here comes another classic meteorology book from days gone by. In meteorology, as in aerodynamics, little has changed over the years, especially applicable to small aircraft. This book, as well as Aircraft Navigation and several other Russian-language textbooks, can be found on the website.

Oddly enough, most books about weather contain very conventional illustrations of various weather effects. Therefore, leafing through a full-fledged weather atlas is very interesting :)

Well, in conclusion, but no less than all the previous books, I want to advise you to find and read a series of books under the general title I Learned About Flying From That (ILAFFT) - this is a selection of the best stories ever published in the Flying magazine section of the same name for the period from 194 to 200. These are the candid stories of pilots who found themselves in situations where they wished they were on the ground. Thanks to a happy coincidence, they managed to survive to warn us against their mistakes.

Once again, I want to say, on the way to PPL or thousands of hours of ATP, safe pilots never stop striving for new information that will allow them to get closer to perfection in flying! Read and read as much as possible, even if this material is not yet applicable to your flights, even if it is one aviation book a month, even if it is not a textbook, but an autobiography, a blog entry, etc. Try to approach the information critically and imagine how it can be applied in your practice.

Safe flights, and in the meantime, interesting and useful reading!