THE MAKING OF A PILOT

This is for a vocationally committed or strongly intrigued readership. It also has potential as a good book for this age level as avocational information. No reader will leave the book in the least doubt that being the man in control of an airplane is the best of all things to be. Mr. Richter's enthusiasm is personal and he shares his own training and experience as a pilot from his pre-flying days to his biggest jobs. There's an extra aid to learning at the end of the book in the author's you-are-there, motion-by-motion description of how the most complex planes of today are taken up, handled and brought down. These chapters make it very clear without lecturing that flying today's planes and commanding their equipment requires the pilot to make rapid calculations based on a thorough familiarity with advanced formulas in math and physics. The author slips this over without making it sound discouragingly difficult, but necessary and practical. This will get to the boys who don't get through or appreciate Wind, Sand and Stars until after they've held the controls.