Aviation forms the basis of Gann's best work. His first novel, Island in the Sky, recounts the hunt for a downed plane in Labrador during the Second World War; while his colleagues in the Air Transport Command spend days fighting bad weather and limited fuel searching uncharted wastes, Dooley and the crew of the crashed Corsair attempt to survive the arctic conditions on the ground. The book is a lean, dramatic, and totally convincing account of search, rescue, and survival.

Blaze of Noon (1946) and Band of Brothers (1973) deal with the early days of airmail flying and the crash of a jet in China, with effective flying sequences but less successful stories. Gann's popular novel, The Aviator, is a short, parablelike story of a jaded airmail pilot's rediscovery of life after he crashes and tries to survive with his passenger, a precocious eleven-year-old girl. The nonfiction Flying...