Stick and Rudder

"Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying" is a book written in 1944 by Wolfgang Langewiesche, describing how airplanes fly and how they should be flown by pilots. It has become a standard reference text for aviators.

Overview

"Stick and Rudder" was partially derived from a series of articles written by Langewiesche for "Air Facts" magazine, an aviation safety publication. The author explains, in straightforward language with a minimum of technical jargon, how aircraft fly, and methods for flying them. The book covers the principles of lift and the concept of angle of attack, and describes the various modes of flight (glides, stalls, cruise flight, etc.), and goes on to treat a wide variety of flying topics, most of them related directly to safety and actual piloting of an aircraft.

The matter-of-fact and casual writing style of the author and the large amount of information compressed into a fairly compact volume have helped to make "Stick and Rudder" a continuing favorite of aviators and aviation instructors. The principles of flight do not change, and so the book remains relevant even though it was first published in 1944, and as of 2007 it was still in print, with some 250,000 copies sold.

The book has attracted criticism periodically, but the basic ideas put forth by Langewiesche have largely withstood the test of time, and many people in aviation continue to consider and recommend the book as a “must” for student pilots, and even for the recreational fliers of radio control model aircraft, the sort of model aircraft that come closest to emulating full-size aircraft flight behavior.