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Summary: Flying life
Review: A wonderfully written book of an amazing life. From DC-2 to 747, it was a career spaning the greatest changes in civil aviation. A story that is now told by someone who was active in advancing the skill of airline flying and can make it very readable. The airline pilot autobiography is not a new idea - there have been some good ones and boat-loads of just OK ones - but this is the best I've read.A pilot's pilot (Captain Buck flew the line, did research and wrote some best-selling classic pilot education books) who can make the flight through the decades come alive. Imagine sitting down with an old man at a small airport who still pilots gliders and he turns out to be a storyteller of great wit and charm, a man who still remembers when crossing the Atlantic was a battle, who was there when airline flying advanced from shaky pistons to huge jets. Who would not want to relax in the sun, watch the airplanes, and listen to the wonders of TWA unfold. In the tradition of St. Exupery, Ernest Gann and Len Morgan. And yes, I liked it.
Rating:
Summary: Life story of a great aviator
Review: Buck's latest book shifts gears away from his classic style of teaching pilots to fly better. This book is autobiography at its best. The reader travels with the author as he learns to fly open cockpit biplanes and then sets aviation records as a teenager. We then join him in the DC-2/DC-3 days as a new copilot for TWA. The upgrade to Captain, flying a B-17 doing research, numerous ocean crossings in all kinds of weather and then the transition to flying jet airliners - it's all here. Along the way I was introduced to Tyrone Power and Howard Hughes. Fascinating stuff. I enjoyed this book for its many stories but most of all for the tremendous amount of history about the golden age of aviation that Captain Buck passes along to us. This book is a treasure.
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Summary: From DC-2s to 747s!
Review: From DC-2s to 747s, Captain Buck flew all the great American airliners of the 20th century. Along the way, he wrote the classic "Weather Flying" and other how-to books. Here he turns his shrewd eye to his own career, and he makes it ours. What a wonderful tale! I really don't care for the High Literary Style that seems to afflict aviation writers, so I really appreciated this homespun account of flying with the North Star over your shoulder (and on a few occasion with it directly overhead). I wish I'd known Captain Buck in his glory days, and I would be a happier passenger if only he were in the cockpit today.
Rating:
Summary: A Fascinating Story
Review: In spite of a somewhat slow start, the story quickly improves and becomes an incredible account from the early days of commercial aviation, where you read about the author becoming a TWA captain flying DC-2s and DC-3s, through his retirement in the 1970s where he flew 747s across the Atlantic. The fact that one individual lived and experienced all these monumental changes that shaped modern aviation (such as radio navigation, the birth of the ILS (Instrument Landing System), not to mention having a chance the meet and chat with Charles Lindbergh himself as well as Amelia Earhart), plus the quality of the story-telling, makes this a book that can be enjoyed by pilots and non-pilots alike. I won't spoil the story by going into great detail, but I highly recommend this book for anyone; from aviation history buffs to bold and bald pilots, or for anyone who simply wants to read a great-and true-story.
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Summary: Best book in a while
Review: North Star Over my Shoulder is the best flying book I've ever read, and one of the most fun books that I've read in a long time. Captain Buck has an easy to read style and has had a fascinating life centered around aviation. From the earliest planes through 747s, Buck has flown them all. He bring us along through his life with entertainment and a sense of humor. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Best book in a while
Review: North Star Over my Shoulder is the best flying book I've ever read, and one of the most fun books that I've read in a long time. Captain Buck has an easy to read style and has had a fascinating life centered around aviation. From the earliest planes through 747s, Buck has flown them all. He bring us along through his life with entertainment and a sense of humor. Highly recommended!
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Summary: An unknown Aviation Legend
Review: North Star Over my shoulder was an interesting look at the life of a pilot who was along for the ride throughout modern aviation history. As a pilot, I enjoyed Capt. Buck's stories spanning from the early open cockpit days to his international flights as the first TWA 747 Captain. This book offers insight to the history of aviation and how it has changed since Capt. Buck started flying. A very entertaining book with a historical flair.
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Summary: Guided by the Stars
Review: NORTH STAR OVER MY SHOULDER
Bob Buck
ISBN 0-7432-1964-3 Bob Buck's book about a long life in professional flying is enjoyable reading. Buck has an unpretentious writing style. One who reads his book may gain insight about the pilot's perspective on that next trip across the Atlantic and hope that someone like Buck is flying the plane. Much difficulty and uncertainty faced the pilots of early passenger planes like the DC-2 and DC-3. The engines were temperamental and navigation was crude. Pilots often maintained their orientation by following railroad tracks, highways, and rivers in the day and by the stars at night. The crew accommodations at the end of the flights were anything but luxurious. Buck met some interesting people along the way, such as the actor Tyrone Power, who flew cargo planes in WWII. They once flew around the world together, and Power, who died at the age of forty-four, was a decent person, who attributed the adulation of the crowds to the parts he played rather than to himself. Howard Hughes was another that Buck knew well. He was a rather polite man, Buck found, but one who insisted on being involved in every project down to the smallest detail. People were often kept waiting for decisions in Hughes' far-flung enterprises. Buck also briefly met Amelia Earhart, who came along in the heyday of spectacular flying. He thinks that she tried to fly planes beyond her experience. She had about eight accidents during takeoffs and landings, and she, generally, was not regarded by other pilots as a good pilot. Buck also writes about the early flyer and writer, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, who wrote the books, THE LITTLE PRINCE and the image-rich WIND, SAND, and STARS. Of a flight along the coast of Africa, where Saint-Exupery had flown the mail, Buck writes "I looked down, on the lonely barren land, thinking of him and the other pilots flying their ancient Breguet XIVs ... that periodically failed and dropped them down on the lonely sandscape, and sometimes into unfriendly arms." During this book, Buck is seldom on the ground for long, and there are enough stories of airplane excursions to satisfy the most avid fans of aviation. But Buck also includes interesting details about some of the places visited. For example, about a flight to the island of Iwo Jima, where 24,000 were killed in WWII, Buck observes that the island was "a flat featureless place; it held no beauty, no tenderness, nothing forgiving, it was simply a place to kill and be killed." Buck recollects the days of flying by the stars, and he writes that the romance and skill of being guided by them is something that future flyers will never experience. Sometimes, he says, he stands outside on a clear, winter night and just looks up at "my old friends Sirius, Vega, and Polaris".
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Summary: A Fascinating Story
Review: Simply amazing , one of the best aviation "history" books I have ever read, Truly those were unique times for aviation : the author started flying wood and fabric airplanes and finished his carreer flying 747. I reccomend this book to pilots and to everybody intersted in the history of commercial aviation and its developments. In my opinion it is comparable if not better than another classic : Fate is the hunter.
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Summary: Pilot's Bible for Survival
Review: This book is awesome, easily the best book I've read in years. I do enjoy flying so that helps. Bob Buck tells great stories beginning with his start in aviation prior to WW2. I purchased this book as an eBook and read it on my iPac PocketPC. It was my first eBook, and I'd do that again too.
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