The Platypus Papers

For 40 years Platypus, Sailplane & Gliding magazine's star writer by his own admission, has been entertaining gliding enthusiasts (with some success) as well as lecturing and admonishing them (with no success whatever) in what started as occasional jottings but soon developed into a regular treadmill.

Despite his sporadic attempts to escape, the Editor of the day always dispatched the Rottweilers to drag him back to his desk. Every aspect of gliding is covered, from the sublime (soaring vast distances at near-stratospheric altitudes over California, New Zealand or the French Alps) to the squalid (problems of basic bodily functions at low altitudes and retrieves from quagmires inaccessible to any wheeled conveyance).

Early attempts in open cockpits to stay airborne at all, and thousand-kilometre flights in superships, are given equally heroic treatment. While we're talking about accessibility, although these pieces were originally written for glider pilots, they can all be enjoyed by non-aviators, especially those who are curious about the sport of soaring and the strange people who do it.