"On Being a Bird" review

ISBN 0 7153 7426 5

"On being a bird" is my favorite soaring book that captures the soaring pilot's intimacy with the desire to fly. Written in 1953 by a witty Englishman, Philip Wills writing style is an eloquantly flowing description of what it is to understand the air from a glider pilot's perspective.

The chapter list includes: (click chapter 5 for a pdf)

1 IS IT ANY USE?
2 WE CUT LOOSE
3 FLIGHT WITHOUT POWER
4 A FEW SQARE FEET OF PLYWOOD
5 ON BATHWATER
6 A GLANCE (RATHER NERVOUS) AT THE WEATHER
7 THE SPIN TEST
8 STABILITY AND CONTROL
9 GETTING UP AND STAYING UP
10 GOING WEST
11 BRINGNG THEM BACK ALIVE
12 THE INSTRUMENT BOARD
13 COMPETITION FLYING
14 TO MAIDEN AUNTS
15 COMPETITION FLYING
16 BLIND FLYING
17 BIG STUFF
18 SUCCESS STORY

An excellent short biography on Philip Wills was found at the Lakes Gliding Club website and is as follows.

"With the death of Philip Wills on January 17th 1978 at the age of 70, a great mass of British gliding history seemed to have suddenly shifted into the past. The records show that he started gliding in 1933. He found what he described as "the most absorbing sport of all time", and glider pilots for generations to come are going to benefit from his decision in 1932. The gliding world, with good reason regards him as rather especially their man, because he was one of the pioneers who demonstrated time and again to pilots that there were new frontiers to conquer and, in addition, taught the movement how to organise itself and look after its interests.

He was the second man in the UK to obtain his Silver C in 1934. In 1938 a magnificent flight of 209 miles from Heston to Cornwall which, together with a subsequent height record of 10080ft at Dunstable, won him the third Gold C in the world. In those early days the mere ability to stay airbourne was a major achievement. It was this above all that we learned from Philip, for he was always willing to pass on his hard earned experience. His peak as a competition pilot was reached in 1952, when he won the World Gliding Championship in Spain."

By the same author: The Beauty of Gliding, Free as a Bird, The Inevitability of Confrontation, Where No Birds Fly

Philip Wills

Philip's son: Justin Wills
Home of the Lakes Gliding Club profile: Philip Wills
Lasham Gliding Bookshop