Fate Is the Hunter: A Pilot's Memoir

This is the book that pushed me over the edge, prompting me to make my own journey from being an enthusiastic Private Pilot to becoming a Captain at a major airline, over the course of thirty years. This is Gann's autobiography and follows his amazing flying career, starting with his new-hire class at American Airlines during the 1930's. During World War II, he flies cargo missions across the Atlantic, and alsó in Asia across the Himalayas, usually tired, overloaded, in the most dreadful weather, with dead reckoning often the primary means of navigation. It is a riveting true story that makes the reader feel like an invisible observer riding along on the jumpseat during countless flights, dealing with mechanical failures, perfect storms, colorful characters, and inevitable human error. Gann has a disarming honesty, disavowing any heroic mantle or superhuman airmanship. He is a highly skilled master of his craft, but he grimly comes to acknowledge that Fate or chance circumstance will often be the salvation of one man and his plane, or a cruel grim reaper to another, for no apparent reason. Reading this book gives us a greater appreciation of the fine transport category aircraft we enjoy flying today, and the myriad ways safety has been enhanced. I have read it numerous times over the years, with new perspective as I had my own moments of elation or despair. Although written many years ago, the job and the circumstances of professional aviation still have a great deal in common with those long ago days. Many times I have thought of a situation from this book as I faced a similar hazard or situation. You will too. I am sure you will also become a better pilot by reading this book, and gain a greater appreciation of the flying pioneers who came before us. Who knows, it may inspire you to make the leap, as it did for me many years ago.

With a lifetime aloft as an airline, corporate and freight pilot this book brought back many memories; some good some not so good. Great read for any professional aviator.

Earnest K. Gann is a well known aviation writer and before that, a succesful pilot of airliners and military transports in the time period during, before, and after World War II. "Fate is the Hunter" is probably his best known book, and it deserves to be. Reading it, we are in the presence of a classic that can be read on at least two levels: as a drawn-out adventure story taking place over a period of years, studded with gems of aviation art from a period that now seems very long ago, or as a thoughtful reflection on danger and man's reaction to it, guided by a deep familiarity with the psychology of superstition. From the first point of view, we get to see the near-collision with the Taj Mahal on takeoff, and the wild ride in ice-laden clouds over the Applachians that nearly brought down Capt. Gann's airliner in a time period when anti-ice equipment was primitive and instrument navigation in its infancy. Straddling the two points of view we have the Arctic adventure when a military transport with wounded coming back from Europe has to land on a frozen lake in Canada, in a region with so much natural magnetism that navigation systems of the day are useless, a region so vast that radio contact can only be made when the target has already been localized and the search aircraft is getting rather close to it. I'm remembering a movie of this that I saw in childhood, although I lack the online skills to find the name and date; but Mr. Gann's description of it is ever so much scarier. As we read through the book, which is a fast, exciting read, we begin to see the second point of view. Like everything that humans perceive as very dangerous, early aviation had superstitions. Looking back on his career at a mature age, Capt. Gann names all his colleagues, pilots just as good as himself in all humility, and wonders why, after so many near misses, he is practically the only one still alive to tell the tale. He concludes, I believe, that there is a mysterious fate choosing its next victim like a Valkyrie flying in formation with each airplane. You can soar effortlessly above the clouds in godlike majesty for many hours, but someday this force will rear back and bite you. If you live you'll have a tale like Mr. Gann's to tell your grandchildren, and if you don't, it could be months before the search parties find what's left of your body. Those of us who have learned to fly in "modern times" (say, after 1970?), and the general public as well, have little notion of how dangerous flying really is. We are taught that 80% (or something) of accidents are caused by pilot error, and if you follow procedures meticulously, "flying is safer than driving to the airport." (This is a familiar cliche now.) Mr. Gann's book shows us this isn't true. Like everything, flying depends on humans to carry it out. Humans forget they have already loaded an airplane to capacity and fill the fuel tanks to capacity as well. Humans fail to tie down the cargo. Humans make navigational errors, or start an approach when the airport is below minimums because the wind was different than predicted and they don't have enough fuel to fly someplace else to land. Humans get a report from the stewardess that there is an unusual vibration coming from the rear and ignore it because they are scheduled to go on leave after this flight and want badly to get home. Pilots will devour this book. But everyone, even those who don't give a d@#n about aviation and have never flown in their lives, should read it. When they have finished, they should re-think our present day delusion that we can make any technology safe that involves energy management (high speeds, high altitudes, high pressures or temperatures, explosive or flammable fuels). However, they also need to reflect that before aviation and automobiles, before railroads, one of the most common causes of death for healthy males in England was falls from horseback. (This is attested in Dr. Paul Johnson's book, " The Birth of the Modern: World Society 1815-1830 .") Danger is omnipresent in this world. When humans are aware enough of it to trigger our natural reaction, fear, we develop superstitions to help us cope. The reality might well be that it's mostly random, even after you've done everything right. But humans can't coldly face that unless they are very special. Earnest K. Gann was that kind of person, and his thoughts on danger are therefore relevant for the rest of us.

This fictionalized memoir is a great read for pilots and anyone interested in 20th-century history. Ernest K. Gann writes beautifully. I could not put it down.

The author writes very well of the beginning of the modern aviation era. Exciting and informative. Nothing about his real life. This made the work seem contrived as he seemed to always be flying or working somewhere or another. Never during the entire book did he seem to have a home life. His actual life when I checked was a bit of a mess and he was a financial wreck so it is understandable that he skipped much of his private life. But his working life is worth the ride.

I've read hundreds, maybe thousands, of flying books and stories of all types. Like many, I assume, I find that stories about combat aviation and pilots are by far the most interesting. It amazes me then that this book, about a commercial aviator and his experiences, shares my #1 favorite spot (with an incredible WWII flying ace's memoir, of course). It is absolutely that good. The author's way of telling his story of a long career, running the gamut from boring and mundane to unbelievably tense and frightening, made me feel like I was riding along in the cockpit in each experience he described. There are many of his moments that I will not forget, almost as though I had been there. The storytelling was such that I could see in my mind what was happening, and I felt the same emotions of joy, excitement, frustration, fear, sheer terror, but also the wonder, admiration and love of flying. This book belongs in the most easily reachable location on the bookshelf of EVERY fan of flying.

Each chapter is a story about the author’s direct experience as a pioneer of commercial aviation. It is perilous, full of tension, fear, sadness, danger we can’t easily comprehend today, and learning and advancing airplane technology and flying. Truly a page turner. Anyone with an interest in aviation or more generally in exploring new frontiers and the heroes who die for the sake of advancing untested technology and the inevitable push forward will love this book.

1st - This guy can write... 2nd - Mr Gann's long and varied career as a commercial pilot and a wartime pilot is never less than exciting.... (and hair raising)... Something I never knew: As the airlines (and the US government) were promoting flying as convenient and safe, the life insurance industry would not insure any pilots until about 1959. Mr Gann and his fellow pilots knew the risks all too well. Excellent Book.