The Book: " Stick and Rudder" Have you read it?

FloridaPilot

FloridaPilot

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Hello,

I read Stick and Rudder a while ago and I'm picking it up a second time. I love the book and when I start reading it I can't put it down. If you haven't read it I would suggest you pick up a copy, really cheap, (Something like 6 bucks). If you have read the book what was your favorite part of the book, would you like to elaborate...Thanks!!

My favorite is "The Airplanes Gaits" Chapter 2, (Especially 35-40)

Whats yours?
 
I have read the book. It's been a good while. No particular favorites come to mind...
 
Before I started lessons I chatted with a CFI. He told me to read S&R as soon as I could get a copy. I started lessons with a different CFI about a year later. I wish I had the chance to thank the first CFI for the book recommendation, but I heard he had a stroke not long after that and never recovered.
 
Read it, favorite part is their terminology
 
Being monocular I find the information in “The Approach” particularly valuable.

I recommend the book to anyone who flies.
 
I love the book. The author also has a pretty great sense of humor. I plan on reading it again after ground school as I get more and more out of it each time, after learning and flying.

Another book that blew me away, Linberghs on "Spirit of St. Louis". I was surprised at his writing ability. I didn't see mention of a ghost writer, but he also had a great writing style and there was a ton of interesting information as well as getting the feel of where aviation was at that time, and how huge a thing his flight was.
How he put together the resources also, and got involved with deciding finally to have a custom plane built and was involved with it. He also had to "figure out" how to navigate it. That alone was eye opening. He was asked to speak at the (I think it was) naval Air Force acedemy and dealt stupid because he wasn't very sure his technique he decided on would even work. Just tons of things. Later saw the movie with Jimmy Stewart in his role, and though they dropped a lot, they did keep pretty well to the book.
 
I read it before my discovery flight. I was just interested in flight and had not decided to even take lessons. The CFI was surprised when he did a slip to show us something on the ground(low wing and he dipped it down with a slip) and I asked him if that was a slip, haha. He said, why yes, it is a slip! He said he hadn't heard that term used on a discovery flight before.
 
I read it when I first started taking lessons in the early 1980s. I stopped flying for nearly 30 years and when I started again and got my private, I kept telling myself to read the book again. Still haven't.
 
never read it. I only read Alex Ryan books. I'm his #1 fan. I'm like the Annie Wilkes of Alex Ryan books.
 
I've read it at least twice, maybe three times, but its been awhile. Thanks for reminding me. Another great book is "Better Aerobatics" by Alan Cassidy. His description of spins and the things that affect the way a particular airplane spins is worth the price by itself. He just does a great job of explaining the how and why of aircraft maneuvers. No need to be a hard core aerobatics person to enjoy it, although I use it more as a reference when struggling with something new. (Currently 1 1/2 turn spins in an airplane with a very slow recovery.)
 
I think I re-read it every other year.
The longer I fly, the more I appreciate it.

My personal opinion: If you ever get in a plane with an instructor who tells you he doesn't know what "top rudder" is, shake his hand when you are done, thank him, and never get in a plane with him again.
 
I originally got into flying because of a reference to Stick and Rudder in The Whole Earth Catalog:

12528917405_98b61e20a4_z.jpg
 
Yep!

Fast Eddie recommended S&R to me when I first started lessons. I've re-read some parts several times. The more I fly, the more sense the book makes and the more I read it, the more I understand what's happening in the air.
 
My favorite is the part where the earth below you is a "bowl" (regarding gliding distances).

Also the discussion on relative movement of objects and predicting over/undershoot.

I thought it was cheap too...for the cost it was the equivalent of like 3-4 minutes of rental time in the 152 I trained in.
 
I picked it up some number of years ago, but every time I opened it I was quickly bored to tears. I've never understood the fascination with it, but many many people disagree with me. Ymmv.
 
I think it is interesting that the author made reference to the then-new Ercoupe. He liked the idea of the rudder being interconnected to the ailerons, to automatically deal with adverse yaw. He was of the mind that this was the wave of the future. Didn't really happen. (...or at least that's what I remember. I read it about 10 years ago)
 
ebetancourt said:
I've read it at least twice, maybe three times, but its been awhile. Thanks for reminding me. Another great book is "Better Aerobatics" by Alan Cassidy. His description of spins and the things that affect the way a particular airplane spins is worth the price by itself. He just does a great job of explaining the how and why of aircraft maneuvers. No need to be a hard core aerobatics person to enjoy it, although I use it more as a reference when struggling with something new. (Currently 1 1/2 turn spins in an airplane with a very slow recovery.)
Click to expand...

Thank you for the recommendation I'm going to purchase it!
 
skier said:
I picked it up some number of years ago, but every time I opened it I was quickly bored to tears. I've never understood the fascination with it, but many many people disagree with me. Ymmv.
Click to expand...

It's one of those books that you can use throughout your flying, no matter what you fly. It's possible you can learn something new every time you read it over again.
 
I think a lot depends on when you first read it.

In my case, it was years before I started flying. To this day I think it helped cement for me the concept that the plane moves through a body of air that is itself moving. That, barring gusts and shear, there is no "wind" acting on an aircraft once it clears the ground.

It's a concept that I've pretty well internalized, but there are many pilots who have not. I remember one fellow who thought his plane needed more nose-down trim in a headwind, for instance. I think he's flying a Cirrus now but never gave any indication of ever having gotten the very basic concepts that Stick and Rudder puts forth*.

But I can see how someone who's been flying a while and already has basic concepts down might find Stick and Rudder a bit primitive and elementary. Still recommend it though.

*Let me dig up a link to a list of "Stick and Rudder Moments" I compiled a while back.

Found it: https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/stick-and-rudder-moments-redux.79699/
 
Langeweische's other books (A Flier's World, Lightplane Flying, and I'll Take the High Road) are also worth reading, though much of the information is dated.
 
In the 70s; His emphasis on angle of attack stuck with me, even if I don't recall how he phrased it. And calling the elevator "flippers".
 
I read it. I didn't get a lot out of it - it seemed a bit outdated, and there are better resources available, IMO.
 
I thought it was odd that at the height of the air war in 1944, a guy with a very German name wrote a book about flying, for US readers. And wrote it compellingly with every sentence and every paragraph very well crafted.

It just seemed so unlikely.
 
When I was instructing in the early 1970s, one of my primary students was an aeronautical engineer at McDonnell Douglas across the field. He knew everything there was to know about aerodynamics, but just couldn't get the feel for the airplane. He was trying to fly the science. I suggested he read Stick And Rudder, and it helped him get his head out of the books and let him start communicating with the airplane.
 
I'm halfway through it and enjoying it immensely. No earth shattering revelations but great to get you thinking differently about the subject. It's not a "sit down and read it cover to cover" for me. I spend as much time absorbing what I read and cross referencing it to my current knowledge as actually reading it.

It has helped me understand a few subtleties of angle of attack better, for example, i understand the mechanics of a spin much better just from considering that a wing lowering results in higher angle of attack, and vice-versa. It's not really new information, the book is just forcing me to think more thoroughly about the subject.
 
LongRoadBob said:
I love the book. The author also has a pretty great sense of humor. I plan on reading it again after ground school as I get more and more out of it each time, after learning and flying.

Another book that blew me away, Linberghs on "Spirit of St. Louis". I was surprised at his writing ability. I didn't see mention of a ghost writer, but he also had a great writing style and there was a ton of interesting information as well as getting the feel of where aviation was at that time, and how huge a thing his flight was.
How he put together the resources also, and got involved with deciding finally to have a custom plane built and was involved with it. He also had to "figure out" how to navigate it. That alone was eye opening. He was asked to speak at the (I think it was) naval Air Force acedemy and dealt stupid because he wasn't very sure his technique he decided on would even work. Just tons of things. Later saw the movie with Jimmy Stewart in his role, and though they dropped a lot, they did keep pretty well to the book.
Click to expand...

Yes, IMHO every pilot should read both S&R and The Spirit of St. Louis. Linbeghs book was a Pulitzer prize winner in the mid fifties. Most young pilots would be unaware of it, but it is great reading.
 
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