Airplane Pilot Stories as a Library display

Captain Sully landing in the Hudson is one more story added to the lore of flying.    New York Magazine 2009 February 9 had a good article about pilots.  Libraries looking for a subject to display should consider flying and airline pilots. 

  The novel “Airport” by Arthur Hailey was made into a hit movie, and the movie spawned sequels.  The movie was better than the sequels, and the book was better than the movie.  The novel “The Right Stuff” by Tom Wolfe was made into a movie.  In that movie, Pancho was played by Kim Stanley.  The local library had a copy of the biography “The Happy Bottom Riding Club: The Life and Times of Pancho Barnes”, but it was weeded a few years back. 

 

It was loosely adapted to a TV Movie “Pancho Barnes” starring Valerie Bertinelli.  An earlier novel was “The High and the Mighty”, which was made into a movie starring John Wayne.  I consider the father of this genre to be the autobiography of Ernest K. Gann titled “Fate is the Hunter”.  This was loosely adapted into a couple of movies:  “Fate is the Hunter” starring Glen Ford, and “Island in the Sky” starring John Wayne.  The movies were average, but the book is among my favorites.  Hollywood seldom makes the movie as good as the book, and script changes sometimes drastically alter the facts.  Other books of interest are “Hard Air” by W. Scott Olsen and “Flying’s Strangest Moments” by John Harding.