飞行志飞行员的精神食粮，第一本书《夜航西飞》

各位亲友：

大家好，“飞行志”是我们在2017年推出的一个新栏目，在这里会推荐和分享一些适合飞行学员和飞行爱好者的读物。

在每周一期的“飞行志”中，你将读到有关飞行的名作佳篇。同时，我们会尽力提供中英文双语版本，希望能够为正在学习飞行英语的学员们提供一点微不足道的帮助。

这样做的初衷，是因为我们发现在微信平台上，除了各种专业教学的纯粹书荐和类似“学飞英语900句”这样背单词之外，适合大家利用碎片时间阅读的飞行书籍似乎并不太容易找到。

对学飞者而言，理论和实践是必须的。在这基础上，你还可以通过阅读，收获前人的经验与感悟，聆听他们的心声。

“前有故人，后有来者”，飞行之路并不崎岖，更像是一座独木桥。它需要你有坚强的意志，能镇定自若地独自完成一场试炼。

毕竟，飞行驾照只能发给能够担负起巨大责任的人。

我由衷地喜欢今天即将分享的那本书中的一段话，“For all professional pilots there exists a kind of guild, without charter and without by-laws. It demands no requirements for inclusion save an understanding of the wind, the compass, the rudder, and fair fellowship. ”——所有的专业飞行员都属于一个同盟，这同盟既不派发执照业务明文规定。它也没有入会要求，只要你了解风、指南针、方向操纵杆和无私的友谊就可以参加。

将来的某事某刻，当你在学飞之路上，遭遇类似的状况时（但愿那是好事，但更可能是磋磨你意志的事），希望你能意识到，自己正在走一条成为飞行员的必经之路……

云端斯基

2017年1月3日

《夜航西飞》，特别适合在夜里读，最好伴有一盏微灯，你需要先让自己平静下来。

封面上的这个五官明晰的女士，就是本书的作者柏瑞尔·马卡姆（Beryl Markham）。这本书备受海明威推崇且让他自叹不如，本书是在圣埃克絮佩里的鼓励下写出来的。

你或许不知道谁是圣埃克絮佩里，但是你一定知道《小王子》，那是他的杰作，其实他和本书作者一样是一名飞行员。

本书的作者柏瑞尔，是非洲第一位职业女飞行员，她的路途是孤独的。但是这种孤独的对立面是无聊，她说在伦敦住过，才知道什么是无聊，而非洲，荒蛮，强韧，动感，孤独，危险，却唯独不会和无聊产生什么联系。

当她认识到飞机之后，陆地上的东西已经不能满足她的征服欲，她开始学习开飞机，从高空中俯瞰非洲大陆，凝视非洲的夜。

1931年开始，她驾驶小型飞机在东部非洲载运邮件、乘客和补给物品，成为非洲第一位职业女飞行员。

1936年9月，她从英国出发，驾驶飞机一路向西飞行，最后在加拿大迫降，费时21小时25分，成为第一位单人由东向西飞越大西洋的飞行员。

1942年，《夜航西飞》首次出版。

从今天开始我们将一起读这本书……如果你对英语还不是那么得心应手，云端斯基建议你可以先连贯地看中文版，熟悉内容之后再中英交替阅读。

当然，这个方法很适合我自己，如果你有更适合自己的阅读习惯，请给我们留言，因为很多正在学习飞行英语的朋友，很需要建议。

第一章 来自南格威的消息（节选1）

我曾驾驶我的飞机从内罗毕机场起飞过一千次，但每当机轮滑过陆地进入半空，我都感觉到飞机的不确定与兴奋，就像是开始第一次冒险旅程。

I have lifted my plane from the Nairobi airport for perhaps a thousand flights and I have never felt her wheels glide from the earth into the air without knowing the uncertainty and the exhilaration of firstborn adventure.

凌晨一点，要求我去南格威的电报从穆海迦南乡村俱乐部转到我的小木屋，它就在离俱乐部不远的桉树林中。

The call that took me to Nungwe came about one o’clock in the morning relayed from Muthaiga Country Club to my small cottage in the eucalyptus grove near-by.

电文简明扼要，要求立即用飞机送一罐氧气到定居点，抢救一位因肺病儿奄奄一息的旷工。发出求助信号的人我从没听说过，心想，发出求救信号这个举动本身就到这近乎可悲的乐观，因为要将这条信息送到我手里，唯一的办法就是到姆万扎发电报，而那儿距离南格威一百英里，只有靠当地人步行才能到达。电报在路上的这两三天，需要氧气的人要么已经死亡，要么展现出过人的求生意志。

It was a brief message asking that a cylinder of oxygen be flown to the settlement at once for the treatment of a gold miner near death with a lung disease. The appeal was signed with a name I had never heard, and I remember thinking that there was a kind of pathetic optimism about its having been sent at all, because the only way it could have reached me was through the telegraph station at Mwanza — itself a hundred miles by Native runner from Nungwe. During the two or three days the message had been on its way, a man in need of oxygen must either have died or shown a superhuman determination to live.

据我所知，那时我是非洲唯一的专业女飞行员。在肯尼亚，我没有别的竞争对手，无论男女。所以像上面这种十万火急的电报，或者其他不那么紧迫、伤感的电报，多得足够让我白天黑夜忙个不停。

So far as I know I was the only professional woman pilot in Africa at that time. I had no free-lance competition in Kenya, man or woman, and such messages, or at least others not always so urgent or melancholy, were frequent enough to keep me occupied most days and far too many nights.

即便在有航道的地区，即便有仪器的帮助和无线电的指引，夜航依旧是种孤独的工作。但飞跃牢不可破的黑暗，没有冰冷额耳机陪伴，也不知道前方是否会出现灯光、生命迹象活标志清晰的机场，这就不仅仅是孤独了。有时那种感觉如此不真实，相信别人的存在反而成了毫不理性的想象。山丘、树林、岩石，还有平原都在黑暗中合为一体，而这黑暗无穷无尽。地球不在是你生活的星球，而是一颗遥远的星星，只不过星星会发光。飞机就是你的星球，而你是上面唯一的居民。

Night flying over charted country by the aid of instruments and radio guidance can still be a lonely business, but to fly in unbroken darkness without even the cold companionship of a pair of ear-phones or the knowledge that somewhere ahead are lights and life and a well-marked airport is something more than just lonely. It is at times unreal to the point where the existence of other people seems not even a reasonable probability. The hills, the forests, the rocks, and the plains are one with the darkness, and the darkness is infinite. The earth is no more your planet than is a distant star — if a star is shining; the plane is your planet and you are its sole inhabitant.

开始这样的飞行前，真是对这种孤独的预料比身体可能遭遇的危险更令我忧虑，也让我怀疑这份工作究竟是不是世界上最好的差事。而结论永远是：不管孤独与否，它都让你免遭无聊的荼毒。

Before such a flight it was this anticipation of aloneness more than any thought of physical danger that used to haunt me a little and make me wonder sometimes if mine was the most wonderful job in the world after all. I always concluded that lonely or not it was still free from the curse of boredom.

一般情况下，我会在半小时内到达机场，准备飞往南威格。但却发现自己遇到了问题，这问题是凌晨一点的半睡状态。它是那种看来无法解决的问题，事实也确实如此。但你一旦被它就缠住，就无法逃脱，也无法忽略它的存在。

Under ordinary circumstances I should have been at the aerodrome ready to take off for Nungwe in less than half an hour, but instead I found myself confronted with a problem much too difficult to solve while still half asleep and at one o’clock in the morning. It was one of those problems that seem incapable of solution — and are; but which, once they have fastened themselves upon you, can neither be escaped nor ignored.

有个为东非航空公司工作的飞行员，名叫伍德，她消失在塞伦盖提大草原的某处，而且已失踪了两天，对于我以及所有的朋友来说，他就是伍迪：一个优秀的飞行员和一个好人。伍迪这个名字在内罗毕并不陌生，他失踪的消息却没有很快引起注意。一旦人们意识到这并非航程延误，而是失踪，顿时一石激起千层浪。其中一部分原因，我想是公众对悬疑和肥皂剧的喜闻乐见，尽管内罗毕这两样都不缺。

A pilot, a man named Wood who flew for East African Airways, was down somewhere on the vast Serengetti Plains and had been missing for two days. To me and to all of his friends, he was just Woody — a good flier and a likeable person. He was a familiar figure in Nairobi and, though word of his disappearance had been slow in finding attention, once it was realized that he was not simply overdue, but lost, there was a good deal of excitement. Some of this, I suppose, was no more than the usual public enjoyment of suspense and melodrama, though there was seldom a scarcity of either in Nairobi.

对伍迪的不幸遭遇最为感同身受的，当然是他的同行们。我指的不单单是飞行员。很少有人意识到，如果自己经手的飞机未能返航，以为尽心尽责的地勤机械师会承受怎样的痛苦和焦虑。他不会考虑坏天气的因素，或者是飞行员的判断失误，相反，他会拿线路排布、燃油管道、碳化器、油门是否安装妥当这类无法回答的问题，以及其他上百件他必须考虑到的事情折磨自己。他会觉得，如果出现这样的状况，他一定是一楼了什么：一些细小但关键的调整。真是由于他的疏忽，导致了飞行坠毁活飞行员丧生。

Where Woody’s misfortune was most sincerely felt, of course, was amongst those of his own profession. I do not mean pilots alone. Few people realize the agony and anxiety a conscientious ground engineer can suffer if an aeroplane he has signed out fails to return. He will not always consider the probability of bad weather or a possible error of judgement on the part of the pilot, but instead will torture himself with unanswerable questions about proper wiring, fuel lines, carburation, valves, and all the hundred and one things he must think about. He will feel that on this occasion he must surely have overlooked something — some small but vital adjustment which, because of his neglect, has resulted in the crash of a plane or the death of a pilot.

不管机场的设备有多简陋，空间有多狭小，一旦有发生事故的可能，所有的地勤人员就会分担同一种忧虑和紧张。

All the members of a ground crew, no matter how poorly equipped or how small the aerodrome on which they work, will share equally the apprehension and the nervous strain that come with the first hint of mishap.

由于风暴、引擎故障或随便什么原因，伍迪失踪了。在过去的两天里，我一直驾驶飞机在塞伦盖提背部和半个马赛马拉保护区上空盘旋，却没有看见一丝烟雾信号或者是阳光照在破损机翼上的折光。

But whether storm, or engine trouble, or whatever the cause, Woody had disappeared, and for the past two days I had been droning my plane back and forth over the Northern Serengetti and half the Masai Reserve without having sighted so much as a plume of signal smoke or the glint of sunlight on a crumpled wing.

焦虑日渐严重，甚至转为忧虑，我原本打算在日出时再次起飞，继续搜救工作。但南格威的电报却从天而降。

Anxiety was increasing, even changing to gloom, and I had expected to take off again at sunrise to continue the search; but here suddenly was the message from Nungwe.

所有的专业飞行员都属于一个同盟，这同盟既不派发执照业务明文规定。它也没有入会要求，只要你了解风、指南针、方向操纵杆和无私的友谊就可以参加。这种情谊，对那些曾驾驶木船在尚未开辟航道的海域航行的船员来说并不陌生，这也是他们生命的维系。

For all professional pilots there exists a kind of guild, without charter and without by-laws. It demands no requirements for inclusion save an understanding of the wind, the compass, the rudder, and fair fellowship. It is a camaraderie sans sentiment of the kind that men who once sailed uncharted seas in wooden ships must have known and lived by.

我是自己的老板，自己的飞行员，时长也兼任自己的地勤人员，所以，我可以轻易地拒绝前往南格威的飞行，这么做或许也合乎清理，我可以辩解说营救失踪的飞行员更加重要——对我来说，确实如此，但其中掺杂的私人情谊却让这样的理由缺乏说服力。就像他的一大帮朋友一样，我对伍迪几乎一无所知，却又熟稔得懒于牢记他的姓氏。但如果换作是伍迪，他也宁愿拒绝这个有利于自己、却会牺牲维多利亚湖畔一个不知名旷工性命的决定。

I was my own employer, my own pilot, and as often as not my own ground engineer as well. As such I might easily, perhaps even justifiably, have refused the flight to Nungwe, arguing that the rescue of the lost pilot was more important — as, to me, it was. But there was a tinge of personal sympathy about such reasoning that weakened conviction, and Woody, whom I knew so little and yet so well that I never bothered to remember his full name any more than most of his friends did, would have been quick to reject a decision that favoured him at the expense of an unknown miner choking his lungs out in the soggy swamplands of Victoria Nyanza.

文章来源：《夜航西飞》、《West with the night 》

内容编辑：云端斯基