In the early 1940's, Wolfgang Langewiesche wrote a series of articles
in Air Facts (a magazine existing in the early days of flying) analyzing
the various aspects of piloting techniques. Based on these articles,
Langewiesche's classic work on the art of flying was published in 1944.
This book explains precisely what pilots do when they fly, just how they
do it, and why. These basics are largely unchanging. The book applies to
large airplanes and small, old airplanes and new, and is of interest not
only to the learner but also to the accomplished pilot and instructor.
Today, several excellent manuals offer the pilot accurate and valuable
technical information but Stick and Rudder remains the leading think-book
on the art of flying.
Stick and Rudder is the first exact analysis of the art of flying ever
attempted and has been continuously in print since 194. Flight instructors
have found the book does indeed explain important phases of the art of
flying in a way the learner can use. It shows precisely what the
pilot does when he flies, just how he does it and why.
First published in 1944. "The book has sold more than 200,000 copies,
has never gone out of print and remains the single most influential volume
about handling an airplane. It is written with the gusto of a polemic,
whose beginning-to-end theme is that normal, ground-based intuitions are
dangerous when carries over to flying a plane"--NY Review of Books
WHAT'S IN STICK AND RUDDER:
- The invisible secret of all heavier-than-air flight: the Angle of
Attack. What it is, and why it can't be seen. How lift is made,
and what the pilot has to do with it.
- Why airplanes stall How do you know you're about to stall?
- The landing approach. How the pilot's eye functions in
judging the approach.
- The visual clues by which an experienced pilot unconsciously judges: how
you can quickly learn to use them.
- "The Spot that does not move." This is the first statement
of this phenomenon. A foolproof method of making a landing approach across
pole lines and trees.
- The elevator and the throttle. One controls the speed, the
other controls climb and descent. Which is which?
- The paradox of the glide. By pointing the nose down less
steeply, you descend more steeply. By pointing the nose down more steeply,
you can glide further.
- What's the rudder for? The rudder does NOT turn the
airplane the way a boat's rudder turns the boat. Then what does it do?
- How a turn is flown. The role of ailerons, rudder, and
elevator in making a turn.
- The landing--how it's made. The visual clues that tell you
where the ground is.
- The "tail-dragger" landing gear and what's tricky about it. This
is probably the only analysis of tail-draggers now available to those who
want to fly one.
- The tricycle landing gear and what's so good about it. A
strong advocacy of the tricycle gear written at a time when almost all civil
airplanes were taildraggers.
- Why the airplane doesn't feel the wind.
- Why the airplane usually flies a little sidewise.
- Plus: a chapter on Air Accidents by Leighton Collins,
founder and editor of AIR FACTS. His analyses of aviation's safety problems
have deeply influenced pilots and aeronautical engineers and have
contributed to the benign characteristics of today's airplane.
Stick and Rudder is the first exact analysis of the art of flying
ever attempted. It has been continously in print for thirty-three years. It
shows precisely what the pilot does when he flies, just how he does it, and why.
Because the basics are largely unchanging, the book therefore is
applicable to large airplanes and small, old airplanes and new, and is of
interest not only to the learner but also to the accomplished pilot and to the
instructor himself.
When Stick and Rudder first
came out, some of its contents were considered highly controversial. In recent
years its formulations have become widely accepted. Pilots and flight
instructors have found that the book works.
Today several excellent manuals offer the pilot accurate and valuable technical information.
But Stick and Rudder remains the leading think-book on the art of
flying. One thorough reading of it is the equivalent of many hours of practice.
- PART I: WINGS
- Chapter 1: How a Wing is Flown
- Chapter 2: The Airplane's Gaits
- Chapter 3: Lift and
Buoyancy
- Chapter 4: The Flying Instinct
- PART
II: SOME AIR SENSE
- Chapter 5: The Law of the Roller Coaster
- Chapter 6: Wind Drift
- Chapter 7: What the Airplane Wants
to Do
- Chapter 8: That Thing Called Torque
- PART
III: THE CONTROLS
- Chapter 9: The Flippers and the Throttle
- Chapter 10: The Ailerons
- Chapter 11: The Rudder
- PART IV: THE BASIC MANEUVERS
- Chapter 12: The Turn
- Chapter 13: Straight and Level Cruising
- Chapter 14: The
Glide
- PART V: GETTING DOWN
- Chapter 15: The
Approach
- Chapter 16: The Landing
- Chapter 17:
The Landing Run
- PART VI: THE DANGERS OF THE AIR
- Chapter 18: The Dangers of the Air
- PART VII: SOME MORE AIR SENSE
- Chapter 19: The Working Speeds of an Airplane
- Chapter 20: Thin Air
Hardcover, 384 Pages.
Wolfgang Langewiesche first soloed in 1934 in Chicago. Early in his
flying he was struck by a strange discrepancy: in piloting, the words and the
realities did not agree. What pilots claimed to be doing in flying an airplane,
was not what they did in practice. Langewiesche set himself the task of
describing more accurately and realistically what the pilot really does when he
flies. The first result was a series of articles in Air Facts,
analyzing various points of piloting technique. In 1944 Stick and Rudder was
published.