Aviation Autobiographies
Revision as of 23:27, 9 January 2023 by Noha307 (talk | contribs) (→Autobiographies: Add Footnote to Jacqueline Cochran Entry)
Introduction
This page is based in large part on the aerospace section of the list of autobiographies Wikipedia page. Said section was entirely self-created, so its inclusion on this website is appropriate.
However, the content of this page may differ from the aforementioned article, as inclusion criteria (i.e. notability requirements) are not in place here. Furthermore, the decision was made to focus solely on individuals involved in atmospheric flight, and not spaceflight.
Autobiographies
| Author | Title | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Alberto Santos-Dumont | My Airships: The Story of My Life | 1904 |
| Manfred von Richthofen | The Red Fighter Pilot | 1917 |
| Billy Bishop | Winged Warfare | 1918 |
| James McCudden | Five Years in the Royal Flying Corps | 1919 |
| René Fonck | My Fights (Mes Combats) | 1919 |
| Richard E. Byrd | Skyward | 1928 |
| Clarence Chamberlin | Record Flights | 1928 |
| Frank Hawks | Speed | 1931 |
| Amelia Earhart | The Fun of It | 1933 |
| Duncan Grinnell-Milne | Wind in the Wires | 1933 |
| C. W. A. Scott | C. W. A. Scott's Book: The Life and Mildenhall-Melbourne Flight of C.W.A. Scott | 1934 |
| Jimmy Collins | Test Pilot | 1935 |
| Beirne Lay Jr. | I Wanted Wings | 1937 |
| Frank Glasgow Tinker | Some Still Live | 1938 |
| Louise Thaden | High, Wide and Frightened | 1938 |
| Igor Sikorsky | The Story of the Winged-S | 1939 |
| Richard Hillary | The Last Enemy | 1940 |
| Beryl Markham | West with the Night | 1942 |
| Ted W. Lawson | Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo | 1943 |
| Guy Gibson | Enemy Coast Ahead | 1946 |
| Henry H. Arnold | Global Mission | 1949 |
| Claire Lee Chennault | Way of a Fighter: The Memoirs of Claire Lee Chennault | 1949 |
| George Kenney | General Kenney Reports: A Personal History of the Pacific War | 1949 |
| Hans-Ulrich Rudel | Nevertheless (Trotzdem)[a] | 1949 |
| Dick Grace | Visibility Unlimited | 1950 |
| William Bushnell Stout | So Away I Went! | 1951 |
| Pierre Clostermann | The Big Show (Le Grand Cirque) | 1951 |
| Hanna Reitsch | Flying is My Life (Fliegen, Mein Leben) | 1951 |
| Adolf Galland | The First and the Last | 1953 |
| Ernst Heinkel | Stormy Life (Stürmisches Leben) | 1953 |
| Heinz Knoke | I Flew for the Führer | 1953 |
| Hugh Henry Home Popham | Sea Flight: A Fleet Air Arm Pilot's Story | 1954 |
| Nevil Shute | Slide Rule: Autobiography of an Engineer | 1954 |
| Bill Bridgeman | The Lonely Sky | 1955 |
| Eino Luukkanen | Fighter Over Finland (Hävittäjälentäjänä Kahdessa Sodassa) | 1956 |
| Johnnie Johnson | Wing Leader | 1956 |
| John Slessor | The Central Blue: Recollections and Reflections | 1956 |
| Saburō Sakai | Samurai! | 1957 |
| Pappy Boyington | Baa Baa Black Sheep | 1958 |
| Robert S. Johnson | Thunderbolt! | 1958 |
| Alan Deere | Nine Lives | 1959 |
| Albert Scott Crossfield | Always Another Dawn: The Story of a Rocket Test Pilot | 1960 |
| Eric Brown | Wings on My Sleeve | 1961 |
| Geoffrey de Havilland | Sky Fever: The Autobiography of Sir Geoffrey de Havilland | 1961 |
| John Braham | Night Fighter | 1961 |
| Nancy Bird | Born to Fly | 1961 |
| Bud Mahurin | Honest John | 1962 |
| Curtis LeMay | Mission with LeMay: My Story | 1965 |
| Arthur Tedder | With Prejudice: The War Memoirs of Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Lord Tedder | 1966 |
| José Larios | Combat over Spain: Memoirs of a Nationalist Fighter Pilot, 1936-1939 | 1966 |
| Eddie Rickenbacker | Rickenbacker: An Autobiography | 1967 |
| Benjamin Foulois | From the Wright Brothers to the Astronauts: The Memoirs of Benjamin D. Foulois | 1968 |
| George William Goddard | Overview: A Lifelong Adventure in Aerial Photography | 1969 |
| George Meager | My Airship Flights, 1915-1930 | 1970 |
| Francis Gary Powers | Operation Overflight: The U-2 Spy Pilot Tells His Story for the First Time | 1970 |
| Alexander Sergeyevich Yakovlev | The Aim of a Lifetime: The Story of Alexander Yakovlev, Designer of the YAK Fighter Plane | 1972 |
| Raymond Collishaw | Air Command: A Fighter Pilot's Story | 1973 |
| Donald Wilson | Wooing Peponi: My Odyssey through Many Years | 1973 |
| Jan Zumbach | Mister Brown[b] | 1973 |
| Arthur Lee | No Parachute: A Fighter Pilot in World War I | 1974 |
| Cecil Arthur Lewis | Never Look Back: An Attempt at Autobiography | 1974 |
| Igor Kaberov | Swastika in the Gunsight (В прицеле свастика) | 1975 |
| Charles Lamb | War in a Stringbag | 1977 |
| Alan Cobham | A Time to Fly | 1978 |
| Murray Peden | A Thousand Shall Fall | 1979 |
| Jean Batten | Alone in the Sky | 1979 |
| George Gay | Sole Survivor | 1980 |
| Wladek Gnyś | First Kill: A Fighter Pilot's Autobiography | 1981 |
| William R. Dunn | Fighter Pilot: The First American Ace of World War II | 1982 |
| Duke Cunningham | Fox Two: The Story of America's First Ace in Vietnam | 1984 |
| Gerhard Neumann | Herman the German: Enemy Alien U.S. Army Master Sergeant | 1984 |
| Stanley Hooker | Not Much of an Engineer | 1985 |
| Al Mooney | The Al Mooney Story: They All Fly Through the Same Air | 1985 |
| Chuck Yeager | Yeager: An Autobiography[c] | 1985 |
| Roald Dahl | Going Solo | 1986 |
| Haywood S. Hansell | The Strategic Air War Against Germany and Japan: A Memoir | 1986 |
| Jackie Cochran | Jackie Cochran: An Autobiography[d] | 1987 |
| Alberto Briganti | Beyond the Clouds the Serene: Memories of Forty Years of Flight and Adventure (Oltre le Nubi il Sereno: Ricordi di Quarant'anni di Volo e di Avventura) | 1988 |
| Robert Lee Scott Jr. | The Day I Owned the Sky[e] | 1988 |
| Fred Weick | From the Ground Up | 1988 |
| Hugh Dundas | Flying Start: A Fighter Pilot's War Years | 1989 |
| Kelly Johnson | Kelly: More Than My Share of It All | 1989 |
| Bud Anderson | To Fly and Fight | 1991 |
| Jimmy Doolittle | I Could Never Be So Lucky Again[f] | 1991 |
| Gabby Gabreski | Gabby: A Fighter Pilot's Life[g] | 1991 |
| Hajo Herrmann | Eagle's Wings | 1991 |
| Joe Foss | A Proud American: The Autobiography of Joe Foss[h] | 1992 |
| Tex Johnson | Tex Johnston: Jet-Age Test Pilot[i] | 1992 |
| Lawrence A. Hyland | Call Me Pat: The Autobiography of the Man Howard Hughes Chose to Lead Hughes Aircraft | 1993 |
| Diana Barnato Walker | Spreading My Wings: One of Britain's Top Women Pilots Tells Her Remarkable Story | 1994 |
| Marion Eugene Carl | Pushing the Envelope: The Career of Fighter Ace and Test Pilot Marion Carl | 1994 |
| Neal Vernon Loving | Lovings Love: A Black American's Experiences in Aviation | 1994 |
| Ben Rich | Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed | 1994 |
| No Kum-Sok | A MiG-15 to Freedom: Memoir of the Wartime North Korean Defector Who First Delivered the Secret Fighter Jet to the Americans in 1953[j] | 1996 |
| Charles W. Dryden | A-Train: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman | 1997 |
| James V. Hartinger | From One Stripe to Four Stars | 1997 |
| Boris Sergievsky | Airplanes, Women, and Song: Memoirs of a Fighter Ace, Test Pilot, and Adventurer | 1998 |
| Paul Tibbets | Return of The Enola Gay | 1998 |
| Jeffrey Quill | Spitfire: A Test Pilot's Story | 1998 |
| Frederick Libby | Horses Don't Fly: A Memoir of World War I | 2000 |
| Roland Beamont | The Years Flew Past: 40 Years at the Leading Edge of Aviation | 2001 |
| Robert K. Morgan | The Man Who Flew the Memphis Belle: Memoir of a WWII Bomber Pilot | 2001 |
| Peter Masefield | Flight Path: The Autobiography of Sir Peter Masefield[k] | 2002 |
| Donald L. Mallick | Smell of Kerosene: A Test Pilot's Odyssey | 2003 |
| Bernard F. Fisher | Beyond the Call of Duty: The Story of an American Hero | 2004 |
| Colin Downes | By the Skin of my Teeth: The Memoirs of an RAF Mustang Pilot in World War II and of Flying Sabres with USAF in Korea | 2005 |
| Clayton Kelly Gross | Live Bait: WWII Memories of an Undefeated Fighter Ace | 2006 |
| Joe Sutter | 747: Creating the World's First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures from a Life in Aviation[l] | 2006 |
| Captain Nicholas Gravino, Jr. | A Pilot's Memoirs: From the Ground Up | 2007 |
| Leland Snow | Putting Dreams to Flight | 2008 |
| Anna Yegorova | Red Sky, Black Death: A Soviet Woman Pilot's Memoir of the Eastern Front | 2009 |
| John Freeborn | Tiger Cub: A 74 Squadron Fighter Pilot in World War II[m] | 2009 |
| Mitsuo Fuchida | For That One Day: The Memoirs of Mitsuo Fuchida, the Commander of the Attack on Pearl Harbor[n] | 2011 |
| Wayne A. Warner | One Trip Too Many: A Pilot's Memoirs of 38 Months in Combat over Laos and Vietnam | 2011 |
| Don Volz | A Pilot's Story: An Autobiography of a Pilot | 2012 |
| Mick Greene | The Life and Adventures of an Old Bold Pilot: Skill, Courage, Luck | 2012 |
| Albert J. DeGroote | A Flight Through Life: An Aviator's Memoir | 2013 |
| J. F. Langer | From the Spitfire Cockpit to the Cabinet Office: The Memoirs of Air Commodore J F 'Johnny' Langer | 2016 |
| Carl G. Schneider | Jet Pioneer: A Fighter Pilot's Memoir | 2017 |
| Harold Brown | Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman | 2017 |
| Norman Kleiss | Never Call Me a Hero: A Legendary American Dive-Bomber Pilot Remembers the Battle of Midway[o] | 2017 |
| D. D. Smith | Above Average: Naval Aviation the Hard Way | 2018 |
| Steve Ladd | From F-4 Phantom to A-10 Warthog: Memoirs of a Cold War Fighter Pilot | 2020 |
| Richard E. Miralles | War and Fire: From Fighting in World War II to Fighting California Wild Fires | 2020 |
| Christopher Coville | Fighter Pilot: From Cold War Jets to Spitfires | 2021 |
| Denis Elliott | From Orphan to High-Flyer[p] | 2021 |
| Robert J. Gilliland | Speed: The Life of a Test Pilot and Birth of an American Icon | 2021 |
| Ed Cobleigh | And I Lived to Tell the Tales: The Life of a Fighter Pilot | 2022 |
References
Footnotes
- ↑ This would later be re-edited and published in English as Stuka Pilot.
- ↑ Published in English as On Wings of War: My Life as a Pilot Adventurer.
- ↑ Coauthored.
- ↑ Coauthored.
- ↑ An earlier memoir was published as God is My Co-Pilot.
- ↑ Coauthored.
- ↑ Coauthored.
- ↑ Coauthored.
- ↑ Coauthored.
- ↑ Coauthored.
- ↑ Coauthored.
- ↑ Coauthored.
- ↑ Coauthored.
- ↑ Published posthumously.
- ↑ Coauthored.
- ↑ Coauthored.