Nothing by Chance

This is a simple, well written account of a summer spent trying to recreate the 1920s 'flying circus' days of aviation in the America of 1965. Flying a 1929 vintage biplane, with a young parachute jumper and a friend with another aircraft, Bach flies more or less at random across the Mid-West, charging $2 for a five minute ride at the small air-strips dotting the landscape. Part travelogue, part hymn to old aircraft technology, this is great read for anyone interested in flyers and flying. From a 2000 perspective, the book (accidently) gains some resonance. Vietnam is in the near future (there's a brief conversation on the draft) and the Cuban missile crisis is just past. The 1960s social revolution is around the corner but for a brief moment the sun is shining, the corn is ripe, and adventures like this one seem possible and almost sensible - in that respect this book is very much of its time... Early Richard Bach works have been neglected since the astonishing success of the mawkish seagull tale published in 1970. 'Nothing by Chance' is perhaps the best of his early books, the ones that concentrated on living life rather than slushy 'philosophy' and flying rather than levitation.

I found this book in my father's library when I was 15 and starting groundschool. It's now 20 years later but I have a suppressed desire to someday have a go at the gypsy-pilot lifestyle. Mr. Bach's novel speaks to the romantic heart of every pilot and leaves a lasting imprint.

Bach has captured flight in its purist form. He set out to do this and he did. Bach acquires an antique biplane (in this book a Fleet Biplane and in "Biplane" a Parks-Detroiter Biplane) and spends a summer in the early 1960's flying passengers throughout the mid-west, sleeping under the wing, eating questionable food, and meeting people who, in many cases remember the golden days of flight. This was the age of the Barnstormers. Bach wanted to re-create the majic and romance of these eariler aviators, share with them the joy of introducing flight to the every-day people who make up the back-bone of the great mid west. Bach cared little, as did the majority of the early aviators, of the rigid regulations imposed upon the early aviators by the Federal Government. These same regulations that soon became the demise of that beautiful time in aviation history. Part of that summer was spent traveling with a young "parachutist" and a young photographer who flew an old Luscomb. Together they re-wrote the exploits of the Barnstormers as only they could and as only Bach can write about. I loved this book, and all of Bach's books, and read it frequently. I loved the book so much I too finally was able to obtain my own antique biplane-a 1930 WACO KNF, and intend to recreate the adventure of Bach in his quest for the purist form of flight, that is, the true freedom of flight.

Richard Bach writes of his 1960's attempt at living a 1920's gypsy-pilot life: barnstorming. With descriptions of wordless flight that only Bach can capture so well, he paints a beautiful collage of the sky, the lakes and the people of the midwest. This magnificent book comments on friendship, destiny, and what it means to be human