Books and films on aviation that I have read and watched.
The Voyage of the Southern Sun
Michael Smith | Film & Book | Read/Watched 2022
The book.
In 2015, Michael Smith flew a small amphibious Searey flying boat from Melbourne, Australia to London, retracing the 1938 Qantas Empire flying boat route through Asia, India, the Middle East, and Europe. He had 450 hours of flight time and a plane with 13 hours of fuel range. The route took him through Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and across the Mediterranean.
What struck me about this story is the simplicity of the ambition: one person, one small plane, and a route that crosses most of the world. He was not a military pilot or a sponsored adventurer. He was a filmmaker with a pilot certificate and a kit-built airplane.
More details on the flight at southernsun.voyage | ▶ Watch on YouTube
Aiming High: The Little Australian Built to Fly the World
Jon Johanson | Book | Read 2022
Jon Johanson was an Australian nurse who was told as a child that he would never amount to much. He trained as a nurse, got his pilot certificate, and then built a Van's RV-4 in his shed. In 1995 he flew it eastbound around the world, stopping at Oshkosh to a reception of 200,000 people. In 1996 he did it again, westbound. He became the first person to fly solo around the world twice, and the first to fly solo over all four major oceans in a single-engine homebuilt aircraft. He set 48 world records in that RV-4 and was awarded the FAI gold medal.
The book is about persistence. Johanson was not a natural. He failed nursing exams multiple times and scraped through. His flying career started with a PPL funded by a carpentry apprenticeship. What he had was grit. He planned meticulously, built carefully, and flew with a level of determination that is hard to comprehend. The fact that he did all of this in a homebuilt Van's RV-4 makes it directly relevant to anyone building an RV today.
His westbound flight log and track.
More at Wikipedia
Flight of a Lifetime: Around the World in a Homebuilt Airplane
William Randolph | Book | Read 2024
William Randolph was 76 years old when he flew his homebuilt RV-8 solo around the world. 27,000 nautical miles over three oceans, eight seas, and three gulfs. He built the airplane himself. Along the way he was intercepted by fighters over the Mediterranean, arrested multiple times, dealt with a fire, and navigated a thunderstorm over the Amazon. He wrote the book at 83. This is the most directly relevant book on this list because it is an RV-8, the same airplane I am building.
The flight path. 27,000 nautical miles in an RV-8.
Sky Polaris: A Record-Breaking Global Flight
Michel Gordillo | Book | Read 2022
Michel Gordillo of Madrid, Spain, built an RV-8 and flew it around the world over both the North and South Poles. 47,000 miles in two legs in the shape of a figure eight. He is the first and only person to have done this in a homebuilt aircraft under 1,750 kg. The book covers extreme flight conditions over desert, jungle, mountains, ocean, and ice. Another RV-8.
The figure-eight route over both poles.
More at skypolaris.org
Chasing the Morning Sun: Flying Solo Round the World in a Homebuilt Aircraft
Manuel Queiroz | Book | Read 2024-2025
In 2006, Manuel Queiroz circumnavigated the globe solo in a homebuilt airplane. 27,056 miles, thirty-nine days, eighteen stops in twelve countries. No copilot, no ground staff. He flew through sandstorms in the Saudi desert and faced the constant threat of mechanical failure over open ocean. He is the only Briton to have done this in a homebuilt aircraft.
The flight deck. Auxiliary fuel tank in the passenger seat.
Aircraft specifications.
The Dalgety Flyer: London to Sydney by Microlight
Brian Milton | Book | Read 2024
In 1988, Brian Milton flew a microlight from London to Sydney as part of Australia's Bicentennial Celebrations. A two-month journey through some of the most inhospitable skies in the world in a tiny open aircraft. Milton writes well, and the book captures the absurdity and beauty of long-distance flight in something barely larger than a hang glider.
Global Flyer: Around the World in 80 Flying Days
Brian Milton | Book | Currently reading (started 2024)
Ten years after the Dalgety Flyer, Brian Milton went around the entire world in a single-engine microlight. 24,301 miles in 80 days. Engine failures, atrocious weather, a Syrian MiG-21 harassing him, and endless bureaucratic obstacles. Milton's second book and a more ambitious flight than the first.
First Gyro: Around the World in an Autogyro
Norman Surplus | Book | Currently reading (started 2022)
Norman Surplus was a Northern Irish businessman who was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 at age 40. While undergoing chemotherapy he saw a TV programme about restoring an autogyro and decided that if he recovered, he would fly one around the world. He did. 27,000 miles across 32 countries in an open-cockpit gyrocopter nicknamed "Roxy." It took nine years of attempts (including being denied permission to cross Russia). He completed it in 2015 and passed away in 2022.
Flight of the Kiwi: Around the World Solo in a Tiny Single-Engined Plane
Cliff Tait | Book | Currently reading (started 2025)
In 1969, Cliff Tait flew a tiny AESL Airtourer 115 from New Zealand around the world. He was 40 years old. The Airtourer was believed to be the smallest aircraft to have attempted such a flight at the time. Tait was a patriotic New Zealander who learned to fly at 37 and decided to take his country's flag around the globe.
Cliff Tait and his Airtourer.
Song of the Sky: An Exploration of the Ocean of Air
Guy Murchie | Book | Currently reading (started 2025)
Written in 1954 by Guy Murchie, a wartime pilot and flight instructor. This is not an adventure book. It is a meditation on the atmosphere itself: wind patterns, weather systems, the physics of flight, the history of aviation, and the biology of the sky. Murchie uses a transatlantic flight as the vehicle for a survey of everything above us. A classic of aviation literature.
Murchie's hand-drawn world map of winds.