Recommend the must read books on the topics of Boats, Planes and Trains. Mods would you sticky this thread.

Use the following format. Title, Author, Short synopsis (I've taken mine from Amazon to save time).

Planes

A

• Apache Dawn by Damien Lewis.

A first hand account of fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Excellent detail and great to find out about the flying and the pressures of operating the WAH-64 Apache with the British Army.

• Airborne by Neil Williams.

Long out of print, copies still available on eBay. A collection of essays by one of the definitive British competition and display aerobatic pilots of the latter half of the 20th Century. Worth it alone for his description of his first Spitfire flight.

• Ace of the Eighth by Bud Fortier.

Day by day, blow by blow account of flying P-47s and P-51s with the USAAF over occupied Europe. Similar to Wellum's First Light, although a little dry in places.


B

• Bomber Boys by Patrick Bishop.

A compelling account of life in RAF Bomber Command.

• Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden

Need I say more?


C

• Chickenhawk by Robert Mason.

A stunning book about the right stuff in the wrong war.
As a child, Robert Mason dreamed of levitating. As a young man, he dreamed of flying helicopters - and the U.S. Army gave him his chance. They sent him to Vietnam where, between August 1965 and July 1966, he flew more than 1,000 assault missions. In Chickenhawk, Robert Mason gives us a devastating bird's eye-view of that war in all its horror, as he experiences the accelerating terror, the increasingly desperate courage of a man 'acting out the role of a hero long after he realises that the conduct of the war is insane,' says the New York Times, 'And we can't stop ourselves from identifying with it.'


D

• Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine by Douglas Botting

Fantastic account of the development of the Zeppelin airship culminating in an account of the famous round-the-world trip made by the Graf Zeppelin. Beautifully written and an absolutely fascinating insight into Hugo Eckener, the driving force behind the company and the whole concept of the rigid airship.


E

• Empire of the Clouds: When Britain's Aircraft Ruled the World by James Hamilton-Paterson

A truly fascinating read for any aviation enthusiast. The sad and sometimes infuriating story of Britain was on top of the world aviation industry post WW2, and how this lead was progressivley squandered by politics, mergers, infighting, impossible-to-deal-with airlines and MOD incompetence.
The story is told with references and stories throughout about the fantastic aircraft and their daring test pilots who risked their all for our advancement.

F

• Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K. Gann

"Few writers have ever drawn their readers so intimately into the shielded sanctum of the cockpit and it is here that Mr. Gann is truly the artist." (The New Yorker)

• Fighter Boys by Patrick Bishop

A superb account of the Battle of Britain

• First Light, Geoffrey Wellum

"An extraordinary, deeply moving and astonishingly evocative story. Reading it, you feel you are in the Spitfire with him, at 20,000 feet, chased by a German Heinkel, with your ammunition gone." (Independent)


G


H


I

• Immediate Response by Major Mark Hammond

You must buy this book - it's an excellent first person account of the Chinook in Afghanistan. The review from Amazon:
This book is an excellent, amazing, humorous, insightful, intelligent, considered, realistic and spot on account of what the boys and girls whop fly the RAF's Chinook Helicopters have achieved over there. It has been a long time telling and Hammond's book is the first account of Chinooks fighting in that war.
From the seat of your pants start to the clever and amusing ending it is a roller coaster read. With terrifying accounts of missions deep into the heart of the Taliban strongholds with RPG and tracer flying around (and sometimes through) the helicopters - like a scene from Star Wars, to the belly laughs of stealing the American HUMMER's or freezing a colleagues pistol in a block of ice, this book keeps you gripped from start to finish. It is genuinely difficult to put this book down (it took me a day and a half to read it from cover to cover). Not only does it put you in the cockpit of 20 tons of heavy machinery, but it makes you feel like you are the one being shot at! These people are real and are doing an incredible job and they have been done justice, I believe. Finally, I noticed on the inside back cover that a percentage of the profits is being donated to Help For Hero's who support our wounded Service Men and Women. A very worthy cause.
I commend you to buy it and make up your own mind, but you won't regret it. A modern classic, with a big thumbs up!


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M


N

• Not Much Of An Engineer by Sir Stanley Hooker

Detailing the efforts of Sir Stanley's work with aero engines - at Rolls-Royce from Merlin superchargers to early jet engines, departing for Bristol to drag them away from pistons and into jets, and finally back at a bankrupt Rolls Royce to save the infamous RB211 programme. Very interesting if you are technically minded.

• Never In Anger by Anthony "Bugs" Bendell

The story of a RAF pilot who flew everything from Harvard trainers to the F4 Phantom II. Worth reading just for the story of his low level flying display that went a bit wrong.


O


P

• Phoenix Squadron by Rowland White

A new book looking at the Royal Navy's last ever effective use of a full blown aircraft carrier - HMS Ark Royal in 1972, in an attempt to dissuade Guatemala from invading British Honduras (Belize).

• Phantom over Vietnamby John Trotti

An ex-Marine Corps fighter pilot vividly recounts his twelve years with the Corps, detailing his many missions during two tours of duty in Vietnam where he experienced the many horrors of war, the adrenalin rush of combat, and the emotional drama of saving lives.


Q


R

• Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut by Mike Mullane

Selected as a Mission Specialist in 1978 in the first group of shuttle astronauts, Mike Mullane completed three missions and logged 356 hours aboard the Discovery and Atlantis shuttles. It was a dream come true. As a boy, Mullane could only read about space travel in science fiction, but the launch of Sputnik changed all that. Space flight became a possible dream and Mike Mullane set out to make it come true. In this absorbing memoir, Mullane gives the first-ever look into the often hilarious, sometime volatile dynamics of space shuttle astronauts - a class that included Vietnam War veterans, feminists, and propeller-headed scientists. With unprecedented candour, Mullane describes the chilling fear and unparalleled joy of space flight. As his career centered around the Challenger disaster, Mullane also recounts the heartache of burying his friends and colleagues. And he pulls no punches as he reveals the ins and outs of NASA, frank in his criticisms of the agency. A blast from start to finish, Riding Rockets is a straight-from-the-gut account of what it means to be an astronaut, just in time for this latest generation of stargazers.

• The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe

The story of the first American astronauts and how they were regarded by the test pilot fraternity. A bit of a classic now.

• Red Star in Orbit by James E Oberg

A bit outdated now but the first complete history of the Soviet space programme published in the West. The book was published in 1982 and was the first to uncover the background behind what had been complete mysteries until then.


S

• Safety Last: The Dangers of Commercial Aviation - An Indictment by an Airline Pilot by Brian Power-Waters

Development of safety in commercial airlines (or lack of it).

• Skunk Works by Ben Rich.

Written by the engineering manager of the Lockheed Martin Skunkworks, the man responsible for the F117 Nighthawk. The book also covers SR-71 and U2/TR-1 ops and development.

• Stranger to the Ground by Richard Bach (of Jonathan Livingston Seagull fame)

Why people fall in love with flight.

• Sea Harrier Over the Falklands.

Sharkey Ward's version of the Dark Blue's air-war over the Falklands. Should be read immediately before/after Vulcan 607

T

• Tumult in the Clouds by James Goodson

A description of air combat in mustangs. Amazon reviewer says:
"I've read aviation books for well over 30 years and when I read Goodson, was amazed by it. Before joining the USAF, Goodson piloted Spitfires in the RAF. While Goodson's narrative is chronologically ordered, he breaks off at points and discusses individual pilots with whom he's flown. Humor, terror and tragedy and finally redemption rolls off his pen as he pays tributes to his fallen comrades. Goodson's score of 32 kills puts him among the highest of Allied fighter pilots but as the Strafing King, his try at a Me163 rocket fighter sitting on an airfield brings an end to his career as a fighter pilot and the begining of his career as a kreige (PoW slang for prisoner of war). Only his wits keeps him alive since Goodson was to be shot by the Gestapo as a terror-fleiger. A masterful story teller, Goodson's book belongs on your shelf."

• Team Tornado by Flt Lts John Peters and John Nichol

Been knocking about for some time now. Its all about life on a Front line Tornado squadron.

• Tail end Charlies: The last battles of the bomber war 1944-1945 by John Nichol & Tony Rennel

A moving account of the crews of bomber command


U


V

• Vulcan 607, Rowland White.

Though the effectiveness of the Vulcan raids remains one of the lingering debates of the Falklands conflict, the tale of how this Cold War bomber was summoned from the brink of retirement to carry out a series of 8000 mile return missions in the twilight of its career is fascinating in itself. The Black Buck raids launched from Ascension Island over the Falkland Islands in 1982 were brave in the extreme, given that a lone Vulcan would require in-flight refuelling many times in order to complete its mission, and fly almost the entire distance over water. For the most part Vulcan 607 doesn't disappoint: describing the build up to the missions and the surprising number of hurdles that had to be overcome well. Rowland White's attention to detail and excellent research shows in every chapter.


W

• Wings on my Sleeve. C

pt Eric Winkle Brown's auto-biography. Amazing read on an amazing life....

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Boats

A


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C


D

• Das Boot by Lothar-Günther Buchheim

The now-legendary gripping tale of life aboard a WW2 German submarine, at the height of the U-boat peril to allied shipping


E


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G


H

• Hood and Bismark - The Deep-Sea Discovery of an Epic Battle by David Mearns and Rob White

An account of an expedition to film the wrecks of Bismark and Hood, and lay memorial plaques on the wreck sites. As well as detailing the methods and equipment used to find the ship (or refind, in the case of Bismark), it also talks about those few who were fortunate to survive the sinkings (only 3 of 1400 from Hood and 115 of over 2100 from Bismark). There is a detailed account of the battles and the underlying reasons each ship was sunk, the histories of the ships in service and their crews.


I

• Iron Coffins by Herbert Werner.

This is a story of triumph, disaster and eventual survival - against all odds. Herbert Werner was one of the few U-boat commanders whose skill, daring and incredible luck saw him safely through to the end of the war. His is an epic and chilling description of the fearful havoc wrought by one small U-boat on the Atlantic convoys. But easy success ebbed away in the face of ever-improving Allied detection and attack techniques. The hunters became the prey, to suffer appalling losses. Of 842 U-boats launched 779 were sunk, 'iron-coffins' to 28,000 men. Herbert Werner's graphic account of war waged from beneath the sea, of horror and cold, cruel death, is dedicated to the seamen of all nations who died in the Battle of the Atlantic.


J


K


L

• Left for Dead by Nick Ward

Tthe story of the Yacht Grimalken during the 1979 Fastnet.


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Trains

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R

• Red for Danger by LTC "Tom" Rolt

Detailed yet readable account of the development of safety on the railways, broken down (no pun) into sections for ease of understanding. A good read even if you don't like railways!


S Slide Rule - Nevil Shute
Fantastic insight to the early development of aircraft and the building of the R100


T

• The wrong side of the rails by Christian Woolmer

Splendid book


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