Gann Ernest K.
FATE IS A HUNTER
ISKRY 1965, p. 332, 1st EDITION
This is a fictionalized biography of an American passenger pilot, covering the difficult period of the emergence and formation of passenger aviation.
"Fate is the hunter" (Fate is the hunter) is a fictionalized autobiography of an American passenger pilot passionate about his profession, covering the difficult period of the emergence and formation of passenger aviation, which in the interwar period and during World War II transformed from a not very reliable and popular means of communication into the powerhouse it is today.
Ernest Kellogg Gann was born in 1910 in Lincoln, Nebraska. After graduating from the military academy, he spent two years studying at Yale. He begins his aviation career of seventeen years as an amateur. In the late 1930s, he enrolls in a transport pilot course organized by one of the airline companies, and then works for a time on domestic airlines. In 1941, Gann is among the first group of aviators forming the nucleus of the famous Air Transport Command, a unique civilian formation in the service of the military.
"Up to now we had known Fear only by sight. Now it was time to make a closer acquaintance. Both engines begin to abruptly break. First one, then the other. For one terrifying moment both fall completely silent. Then there is silence, which is in fact not silence, but a chilling disappearance of all sound.
This is how one dies.
Three minutes past two in the morning.
And suddenly the engines come back to life. We feel them break d, but we have lost a priceless 500 feet! We are at a lower altitude than the summit, which must be around here somewhere. Something has to be done with the engines. The rest is unimportant. With a jerk, Hughen switches the carburetors to a rich mixture. He takes himself to the main fuel tank again and pumps. All the while he tries to keep the plane in something resembling even flight.
The engines falter again. Some mysterious disease has afflicted them. We can argue with our sense of flying, but not with the charging pressure indicator. Both instruments indicate a slow, but steady, decline in power. This cannot be the fault of ice on the carburetor. Of this we are sure, since the other instruments say the heater is working. Losing another two hundred feet, Hughen nervously jerks the gas lever. He checks the spark arrestors. His amazement is greater than his fear and I don't know how to help him.
We're way too low..."
SOFTCOVER WITH WINGS
BDB-/ condition, small tear on the spine, otherwise a NICE piece.
