North Star Over My Shoulder

In direct contrast to Flight of Passage by Rinker Buck, North Star Over My Shoulder by Bob Buck (apparently no relation) is a very credible account of his life and professional career in aviation. In the first line of Flight of Passage, Rinker claims in a roundabout way that he and his brother hold a record as the "youngest aviators ever to fly America coast to coast". However, this just is not a fact, the actual holder of that record is Bob Buck who performed the feat in 1930. As he himself said in an interview in 2005: "I was the youngest to fly coast to coast and that record still stands. I had my license at 16 and after that, they raised the minimum age to 17. With that change no one could break my record." Now, that I feel like I have given credit, where credit is due, I have to say that this is another book that I consider essential reading for all pilots and aviation enthusiasts. His career spanned the early days of barnstorming types of flying, the early days of airline flying--such as in the DC-2...which really was one with the elements...even in the interior and finally he retired as a Captain on a 747. I especially liked three parts of the book: First, I liked his description of a cockpit, in particular the smell: "The smell of the cockpit hits you first--an aroma collected through hours of flight...there was an odor of metal, of spilled fluids...a little whiff of food that had slopped on the floor during a turbulent moment and had time to spoil. A scent too of sweat permeated the pilot's seat cushions and the black control wheel. It isn't particularly unpleasant, just part of the trade; blindfold any pilot and lead him into a cockpit, even a new one, and the first whiff will tell him where he is. Next, Buck, who did his first flight in a homemade glider, went back to gliding after his retirement. He talks eloquently about gliding: "You are alone, with all the world of nature spread out below, and blue sky and white clouds above." It really inspires me to move forward on my next flying goal: my glider rating! Finally, his description of what it was like to be an airline pilot in the early days and the glamour days of the first jets was really interesting and clearly as many men would, he spoke with a lot of respect and admiration for the stewardesses. Another thing I thought was interesting was the early navigational aids...such as the night airways that had light beacons dispersed at 10 mile intervals and then the early radio navigation...flying the beam. Finally, thus the title of the book, I think about celestial navigation and learning a little bit about it....not for practical reasons perhaps in the days of multiple GPS's etc, but just because it is cool to learn something unique and stretches back through the centuries...a bond with early navigators. This book was truly an education and essential reading for aviation buffs, historians and pilots. Sadly, Bob is no longer with us, he died in 2007 at the age of 93...but he surely lived a full life.