He’s flown more planes (and sold more books) than the entire staff of most aviation magazines. In 2018 Richard was kind enough to answer my question: What is core to flying them all?
Flying all these aircraft is based on one single prayer that will never come true:
Please let me become the sky.
From 10 mph in a paraglider to Mach 2 in an F-106 waits the same feeling. Surrounded by forever in the center of the sky, we yearn to become that foreverness, ourselves. Some say that's so, that our spirit lives forever.
Flying is the closest I've found to expressing that feeling, in this lifetime.
Richard Bach has owned 41 planes, flew fast jets in the Air Force, spent summers barnstorming in biplanes, and as West Coast editor of Flying magazine flew even more. He’s written several classic books on flying, including the best-selling meditation Jonathon Livingston Seagull.