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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gann's Theory of Life, February 19, 2001
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 LifeHe 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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