FATE IS THE HUNTER

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Summary: Fate is the Hunter
Review: This 1986 paperback does not contain all of the material included in the original edition of 1961. There are numerous experiences and anecdotes omitted. For example, the episode on which the movie, "Fate is the Hunter" is based, is not included in this new edition. Some of the best material has been left out.

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Summary: Ernest K. Gann is back!!
Review: I am so glad Ernest K. Gann is back and thrilling a new audience! I read every book he wrote when I was a teenager -- including Fate is the Hunter -- and loved every one. I can still remember the bumps I got at the ending of The High and the Mighty, and his books about barnstorming pilots put you right in the pilot's seat. Every book he wrote is a five-star. Are there any plans to re-publish the rest of his books?

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Summary: Doesn't get any better than this.
Review: Amazing stuff, beautifully written.

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Summary: Gann's Theory of Life
Review: This classic ought to be read by every pilot. Not only is the prose superb but along the way he treats us to his Theory of Life

He regards life as a war -- an undeclared war against fate, the fate that hunts men down. "... One can never know when, where, or how fate will strike. Yet sooner or later it does...." Blind random events without a perceptable cause. FATE.

"Tell me now,... by what ends does a man ever partially controls his fate? It is obvious ... that favorites are played, but if this is so, then how do you account for those who are ill-treated? The worship of pagan gods, which once answered all this, is no longer fashionable. Modern religions ignore the matter of fate. So we are left confused and without direction".

Gann concludes, "Perhaps we should hide in childlike visions of afterlife wherein those pronounced good may play upon harps and those pronounced evil, stoke fires?" The first chapter sets the theme of the book. A mid-air collision is averted simply because Gann chose to descend 50 ft to his assigned altitude of 5,000 a few moments before. The other plane was just a tad sloppy. In these days before ATC and radar, it was all position reports. Why did Gann chose to descend? Why was the other pilot 50 ft high? His only explanation is FATE, and it is as good an answer as any. At these times, Gann says, "... diligently acquired scientific understanding is suddenly blinded and the medieval mind returns. In describing NTSB investigations of crashes, a cause always has to be arrived at, even when the investigators privately know that the true explanation is that "...some totally unrecognizable genie has once again unbuttoned his pants and urinated on the pillars of science".

FATE IS THE HUNTER is dedicated "To these old comrades with wings now folded"... a listing of 349 names, in an unknown order. Echoing the randomness of FATE, at random places throughout this book Gann repeats his litany: So-and-so was killed in an instrument approach to SLC. etc

Gann describes an encounter with freezing rain on a night trip from BNA to EWR. They picked up 4" of clear ice and carried it all the way to Cincinnati. He characterizes this encounter as his first with true disaster, "... heretofore we had not yet been thoroughly frightened or forced to look disaster directly in the face and stare it down". After having "merely nodded to fear" he found that "Now we must shake its filthy hand". They survived, landing with rudder frozen, forward visibility obscured, and empty tanks. Was it skill or fate? Gann notes that due to some unknown quirk, the DC-3 they were scheduled to fly that night was down for maintenance, and an ancient DC-2 was substituted. The DC-2 was a much better ice carrier...

After a (zero-zero) takeoff from Presque Isle during which steel radio tower pieces slid to the rear, making the DC3 almost unflyably tail heavy, they proceed to Goose Bay in Labrador, and then 1300 miles to their "dubious destination", Bluie West One (now the town of Narssarssuaq), 60 miles up the center of a trio of fog shrouded fiords in Greenland. He is advised to enter the correct fiord, unless he has learned how to back up an airplane. The flight and approach to Greenland is hard for today's instrument rich pilots to imagine. Finding the coast of Greenland obscured by a low lying stratus, they are forced to let down (sans radio aids) gingerly. They break out a few hundred feet above the water, 1 mile visibility, and find an iceberg ahead to them, its top poking up to the overcast. Describing it as "wickedly beautiful" he contemplates that FATE has let him off once again. They choose a fiord (can't see the other three in the mist, consequently can't be sure if it is the right one), and 15 minutes later land on a one-way runway.

They fly by dead recogning across the North Atlantic, make a night let down (sans weather), Reykjavik remains curiously radio silent, and breakout at a mere 60 feet or so. They determined the nearness of the ocean by trailing their radio antenna, with its lead "fish" weight on it. When yanked away by striking the ocean they know to stop descending. They find their destination airport, at night, by dead reckoning alone. The radio silence was the result of a mix-up. Given the wrong code they were thought to be enemy aircraft.

The war over, the tyranny of seniority numbers frustrates Gann. He quits his job, and joins the verteran Sloniger (seniorty #1) to fly for an un-named steamship company that wanted to fly the Pacific and compete with Pan Am. Flying DC-4's with new Dash-13 engines, Gann has all four quit on a run to Honolulu. He limps back to SF and all work fine. The mechanics can find nothing wrong. The engineers chide him on now knowing how to properly lean them. This all culminates in a flight with the engineers (by then Gann knows they will run fine below 3,000 ft.) When they cut out despite the engineers manipulating all engine controls, Gann enjoys their discomfiture then brings them home safely. They never did figure out what was wrong with the engines. Eventually they were scrapped. (The nameless genie again.)

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Summary: Pilots Need Not Apply
Review: Anyone who thinks this book is about flying should be grounded. Gann is a remarkable writer with a gift for portraying human conceit and courage. The raw honesty of his struggle to lay open his soul and honor those who accomplish great things is unique in literature.

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Summary: Fate is the Hunter
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read. I myself am an airline pilot, so these stories fit my life to a " T ". I had to keep checking the publishing date to make sure this book was not written last year or so. It is amazing to me how the industry has not changed a whole lot from Mr. Ganns time to now. If you are a pilot please read this book, especially if you are an old crusty captain. By the way the movie with Glenn Ford and Rod Taylor( great job by both ) has nothing and I mean nothing to do with this book. Also, check Robert Searling's Wings (great).

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Summary: Fate is the Hunter is too good to keep for yourself.
Review: But read it yourself first so you can take in full measure the pleasure of giving, no, sharing it. Don't think that having had the misfortune of seeing the movie means you know about the book. The book is a wonderful collection of stories about people in love with what they do. The challenges and dangers of their profession ties them together and isolates them at the same time. Boredom and terror are separated by threads of matter and time, a difference that holds them in awe. They oftentimes handle their precarious situations with teasing, humor, and clever self deprecation. Again and again the question comes up: why them and not me? And you can share the pleasure and the wonder in a good read.

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Summary: required reading for the aviator or really just anyone
Review: Being a fan of aviation and spending a great deal of my timereading about various pilots and aircraft, it is without a doubt easyto confess that FATE IS THE HUNTER is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. Probably one of the greatest things about this book is that you really do not have to know a lot about aviation to really understand it. While it is true that Gann writes in a style that is somewhat different from most of the more contemporary writers, it can still be said that the way that he tells this story is will entertain, inform and captivate who ever reads it. Probably the most unique thing about this book is that you do not have to know much about aviation to appreciate and enjoy it. Infact, just about anyone who has been in an aircraft can and most likely will find this story at the least appreciable and at the most an eye opener to the world of commercial aviation and the courages pioneers of commercial flight who insticts and abilities are seldom matched by todays standards. Those who have read this book know what I speak of and to those who have not read it I strongly recommend it. The pilots, the planes and the elements of flight have never been described the they have been in FATE IS THE HUNTER. Read it, enjoy it and appreciate it.

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Summary: Take This Book With You Next Time You Fly the Airlines
Review: Gann sets the tone of this book with a dedication "to these old comrades with wings ... forever folded," and lists hundreds of pilots whose "fortune was not so good as mine." He provides a vivid account of his life as a commercial airline pilot in the 40's and early 50's and gripping, informative, funny and always thoughtfully written accounts of his flying adventures in the DC-2's and 3's of the day. You hear the motors purring and see the ominous clouds building as fate sneaks up, throws the airplane around like a toy and and mysteriously releases it at the last moment. You will never take air travel for granted again after reading this book.

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Summary: The best flying book I have ever read
Review: If you are a pilot and anything that is described in this book hasn't happened to you (or someone you know) it will, given time.

I found the descriptions of the approach to "Bluey West One" (now called Narsasuak) the best preparation I could get for actually going there!

The book is written by a man who knows his subject. The descriptions of an aeroplane icing up and of preparations for a ditching, get nearer the truth than any operations manual ever has.

This book should be standard issue to anyone who seeks to make flying his career.