“Stranger to the ground” is a book ‘of a pilot, for a pilot, by a pilot.’
The book taken at face value, is actually a factual account of one of Richard Bach’s war missions – as a courier from England to France.
Flying is obviously Bach’s first love and love for his country comes a close second.The book is replete with quotes on war, pilots, patriotism, flying and the love of a pilot for his flying machine.
“I left an interesting civilian job, flying small airplanes and writing for an aviation magazine, and was ordered back into the air force…..
I have never before been needed by the country to which I owe so much.”
Bach dwells at length about his passion – flying.
Richard Bach, pilot, is so much at home in the sky that for a moment he feels like an “alien, ” and “a stranger to the ground” when back on terra firma.
“Divorced from my airplane I am an ordinary man, and a useless one…”
“What better work is there than flying airplanes?”
“I fly at 30, 000 feet, doing what I enjoy more than anything else in all the world….”
The book gives us an insight into the mind of a pilot. Why Bach trained to be a pilot - “it had something to do with excitement and adventure, and I would have begun Life.” His place is in the sky “ a place for living and for whistling and for singing and for dying.” “The sky is there for everyone, yet only a few seek it out.”
Bach tries to dispel the myth of “glamour and glory” linked with the calling of a jet fighter pilot.He goes on to say that while “flying is not dangerous, ” he is “not a superman, but flying is an interesting way to make a living.” To Bach “the ease of flying” is also “exacting and difficult.”
His tremendous love for his aircraft comes across throughout the book.
“Because I call her “she”.Because I love her.”
“I respect her and she in turn respects me.”
“We enjoy our life together.”
The book is full of technical details about his “F-84 Thunderstreak”, a single-engine aircraft. Those who fly airplanes will be able to understand the jargon fully, but to give Bach due credit, one can say that he has suitably simplified it for the lay reader.
About his peers, the “men of action, ” Bach says, “airplane pilots speak the same language and understand the same words.”
His detached attitude towards the enemy pilot, “that he might actually be a man, a human being”, “a man not unlike myself, who is flying an airplane fitted with rockets and bombs and machine guns not because he loves destruction but because he loves his airplane….”
We get a glimpse of his battle with his own conscience… “the curse of sentimentality is a strong curse.”
“My targets will be solely and completely military ones.”
“I hope , simply that I will never have to throw one of the repellant things at living people.”
“The enemy is evil.” “I will kill him before he does…”
Bach’s patriotic zeal is also reflected in his writing, “my country is a country for which I would gladly lay down my life.”
His message to his fellow citizens is loud and clear, “Give it a try, men, your country needs fine-honed men of steel.”
We have here Richard Bach’s typical first person narrative, which every fan is ’no stranger to’.
This book is an unusual tribute to “those magnificent men and their machines.”