"if you're a pilot or into aviation, definitely read Fate is the Hunter." Second that, "Fate is the Hunter" [0] by Ernest Gann [1] describes the precarious lif

"if you're a pilot or into aviation, definitely read Fate is the Hunter." Second that, "Fate is the Hunter" [0] by Ernest Gann [1] describes the precarious life of a US career airline pilot (including descriptions of flying DC2's, DC3's & DC4's, flight seniority and luck) between the 30's to the 50's. The book is dedicated to a hundred or so commercial pilots not as fortunate as EKG. "Although we can never be absolutely certain, we now believe the Eastern Airline crash at Bainbridge was caused by unporting. Do you know what that is?" I confessed that I had never heard of it. [Unporting: could be caused by a missing elevator hinge bolt, like that missing on Gann's DC-4, and cause an uncontrollable nose-dive, if the plane were flown at certain speeds and center of gravity loadings.] "Did you slow down when you first noticed the vibration? You did not because you had no fear of it. But if you had been the nervous type, if you slowed down, the center of gravity would have changed. That would have been quite enough to complete the process of unporting which had partially begun." The title of the book is derived from the fickle nature of flight and how cumulative mistakes become catastrophic depending on luck and fear associated with flying. [2] One interesting chapter I do remember is Ch16, "A Pretender" where an untrained pilot takes command of an aircraft only to be found out by very poor co-ordination. Gann describes how nobody checked his credentials prior to employment of commercial flying. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate_Is_the_Hunter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate_Is_the_Hunter [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_K._Gann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_K._Gann [2] http://rwebs.net/avhistory/fate.htm http://rwebs.net/avhistory/fate.htm