A couple of books I’ve been dipping into lately strike me as epitomizing some changes that have occurred in the past 50 or 60 years. One of them, Wolfgang Langewiesche’s classic Stick and Rudder, found its way to me through an old friend who, being well into his 80s, sold his airplane and with great regret quit flying. He turned over to me a carton full of miscellaneous aviation-related stuff, which included a nice clean copy of Stick and Rudder. I have my own somewhere, but I can’t find it; so it was nice to get a fresh one.
The other book was sent to me as a friendly gift by its author, who certainly never imagined that I would write something about it. His name is Dan Raymer. He is somewhat of an authority on airplane design, having written a compendious yet surprisingly readable introduction to the subject called Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach, and having had an illustrious career as a configuration specialist for Rockwell, Lockheed and RAND. The book he sent me, Living in the Future, is his personal and professional autobiography, up to now — he is 56 and will probably assemble enough material for a sequel before his tank runs dry.
