Rating: 
Summary: AVIATION CLASSIC
Review: As a near to retiring professional pilot who has logged close to 17,000 flight hours worldwide, including Argentina (where this story is set), all I can say is: Those mail pioneers (for this story was based on fact when Saint Ex went to Argentina about 70 years ago to open up the mail routes) were indeed very brave men. The author portays another place and another time, but for all aviators (from private thru airline) there are always moments when you come face to face with your own fear - be it weather, mechanical failure, fire, or whatever - and hopefully survive. Saint Ex's protaganist and his radio operator are not as fortunate as those of us who walked away, but then we modern pilots do have a lot more going for us in the cockpit than the pioneers did. In France, Saint Ex has always been considered the poet storyteller - the best of the best. In the USA Ernie Gann and Richard Bach, in the UK John Templeton Smith. It seems to me that the finest works with an aviation theme can only come from those who have been there. St Ex, Gann, Bach, Templeton Smith were always first and foremost pilots - that their writing skills happened to be superlative would doubtless have been dismissed by these modest men. Four men in the near hundred year history of aviation with such writing genius is not many. Read them all - imagine if you like that these four flyers are together in a flight (two elements) painting contrails across a blue sky. For me the leader Saint Ex. I leave you to decide who is his wingman.
Rating: 
Summary: Night Flight- so/so for me
Review: I enjoyed parts of it. For my own taste, he spent too much time in introspection, slow-moving thought, and losing the story line. For others it might be a brilliant psychlogical book, but I read it as a pilot looking for interesting perspectives on flight and was a bit disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Searching something beyond individual happiness
Review: Night Flight is about passion. Rivière is the director of a postal company that is experimenting with Night Flights for the South American mail. He is able to extract the best out of his men to help him achieve a higher good, something beyond themselves. What is that something is up for grabs. But it definitely goes beyond individual happiness: it may have to do with the collective good, or with a vision of improving our society. In any case, for Rivière, it is something worth more than a human life, the life of Fabien (pilot from Patagonia) who dies in the middle of a storm because of believing in Rivière's vision.
Rating:
Summary: Night Flight
Review: Often called a poet in prose, Saint-Exupery is also credited with having described flight better than anyone before (or since). When I first read this beautiful book, I could physically feel the sensations of flying as he described them. His lyrical descriptions of an open cockpit bi-plane in contact with the elements showed me new perspectives not only of flight, but of the human condition I could never have imagined. His writing is both vivid and sensitive. The depth and beauty of his insights into humanity is balanced by the well paced action of the plot. One of the best crafted short novels I have ever read. Prabably the most beautifully written book I have read to date.
Rating: 
Summary: The nature of duty
Review: Sitting in the co-pilot's seat of a King Aire over western New Mexico a few years ago, I was eager to see the 11,301 foot high Mt. Taylor where a TWA flight had crashed in the 1930's, killing everyone on board. It's hard to understand how anyone can run into a lone mountain rising a mile above the otherwise flat Colorado Plateau. Surely one could go around, or over, or do anything but hit it. Yet, "flying blind" was a deadly hazard of early aviation. This book is really about the decisions of men who send others to face danger. It doesn't have a happy ending. One pilot, his radio operator, and plane simply vanish. Others are on schedule, and the system operates without pause. It's a reflection on the nature of imposed duty, a contrast to today's voluntary acceptance of risk. Saint Exupery wrote a few years after Charles Lindbergh made the first solo flight across the Atlantic. Aviation progress then rested very much on the courage of pilots, which is why Lindbergh was such a hero. He typified the American spirit, "the lone eagle" accepting great personal risk to be first. 'Night Flight' is the opposite side of the coin, it deals with the willingness of men to order others to endure great risk for a new venture. Weather's bad? In Saint Exupery's words, "if you only punish men enough, the weather will improve." Pilot's afraid? For the supervisor, "a man was a mere lump of wax to be kneaded into shape." Everyone is trapped within an impersonal system that leaves the supervisor without one confidant, and pilots facing instant death in the pitch black tumbling winds of a storm. In the 1930's, aviation was the cutting edge of high tech. Today, it's electronics. Sure, in our dot com society, people risk their health, sanity, careers and families to the relentless demands of the system. However, risk takers are now volunteers. If they win, they share mightily in the profits. If they lose, with their career scattered like little bits of broken aircraft metal across a harsh landscape, they're invited to try again "because of what you've learned from your last failure." Progress always involves risk. Saint Exupery examines the need to risk others for the benefit of society. He treats it with sympathy, understanding, compassion and a view that is touching and yet as impersonal and relentless as a storm. It's "fate," as people have said for thousands of years. Over New Mexico, the King Aire automatic pilot clicked off the tenths of a mile, accurate to within a few feet because of Global Positioning Satellites. Radar scanned the sky for any hazard; on the proper setting, it even shows rain in nearby clouds. Finally I asked, "Where's Mount Taylor?" "Down there," the pilot answered. It was 10,000 feet, about two miles below. It's hard to comprehend an airliner of the 1930's flying blindly into a mountain, when positions are now known to within a few feet. Saint Exupery paints a brilliant portrait of that earlier era, framed in a discussion of the duties of bosses who order employees to do extraordinary work. It's not a management book, nor a call for workers' rights; it's a fundamental discussion of the oldest problem in human relations -- How do I order someone to take risk? Today, much risk is voluntary. Societies with people ready, willing, capable and the guts to accept risk become economic leaders. It's why Amazon dot com exists; launched by a man with the guts to risk the money -- no longer the lives -- of others to create an entirely new way of doing business. 'Night Flight' is based on a simple premise, "No guts, no glory." The nature of risk has changed, but it's as applicable now as in 1932 when this book was first published. Anyone who thinks about the duty of management will find this book interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Mercifully brief
Review: St. X certainly showed his penchant for authoritarianism. His obvious emotional attachment to Riviere was the most frightening part of the book. To love duty for its own sake is both mindless and soulless, and St. X not only embraces it but revels in it. The hero of this book is Fabien, not Riviere. Not enough time is spent on him, especially at the end as his plane runs out of fuel. I understand St. X's point, and I'm glad I only had to slog through 87 pages to get it.
Rating:
Summary: An early flight of St. Exupery
Review: St.Exupery's later books, particularly non-fiction, give a fuller account of his early flying experiences. But this is not a technical book on flying, or an aviation history, but uses flying in a more metaphorical vein. Written in spare language, it explores what drives man to challenge his limits, the role of responsibility and perseverance in the face of impending defeat and ultimately tragedy. It is a story of modern heroism, not the John Wayne type, but that of a persons quietly doggedly carrying out their duties even when knowing the ultimate costs to their friends and themselves. There is more to this brief novel than first meets the eye.
Rating:
Summary: A most evocative book
Review: This is an epic narrative of a single evening in the Argentine night mail service. The chief character is the air manager, with peripheral characters being pilots, pilots' wives, and other personnel. Without spoiling the plot, an unexpected crisis occurs in the way of a trans-Andean storm, and the pace quickens to unforgettable climax.
But read the book. It's short, and not so much as a phrase is excess weight. A spine-tingling thriller about men in crisis, and the women who wait alone. You may grimace at the manager's resolve, but you will never forget him or the pilot coming from far southern Argentina. A masterful insight into the days when character was a desirable thing and profit wasn't the only motive for excellence.
Rating:
Summary: A most evocative book
Review: This is an epic narrative of a single evening in the Argentine night mail service. The chief character is the air manager, with peripheral characters being pilots, pilots' wives, and other personnel. Without spoiling the plot, an unexpected crisis occurs in the way of a trans-Andean storm, and the pace quickens to unforgettable climax.
But read the book. It's short, and not so much as a phrase is excess weight. A spine-tingling thriller about men in crisis, and the women who wait alone. You may grimace at the manager's resolve, but you will never forget him or the pilot coming from far southern Argentina. A masterful insight into the days when character was a desirable thing and profit wasn't the only motive for excellence.
Rating:
Summary: Not a favourite
Review: This was not a book that I enjoyed. He is indeed a poet, but I found the Nitzschean hero-worship rather dated and the character became clichés to me. Not recommended.
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