What should a pilot do if he loses half his wing in a midair collision?

Or both engines cut out while he is flying blind in appalling weather?

Or a strike force of wasps attacks him in the cockpit at 3,000 feet?

What pilots have actually done in these nightmarish situations and in dozens of others is told by the fliers themselves in this gathering of accounts from Flying magazine's popular 'I Learned About Flying From That' column.

The adventures range from the horrendous to the hilarious. Take terror, for example: a pilot is forced to jump from his Pawnee at low altitude as flames lick at his face; a Seneca pilot fights for control at the heart of a thunderstorm while groping towards an airfield buried in cloud; a Twin Beech skipper is caught at night in a blizzard with one less engine than he needs to survive.

On the lighter side, there is the lone airman wandering through a Christmas night, the prisoner of his own Mooney; and a pilot's desperate attempt to lower his gear by venting his morning's intake of coffee. Along with these stories of danger and aeronautical oddities, there are others that movingly convey the wonder of flying.

Inherent in each event is a vital safety lesson: the grandson of Winston Churchill describes the perils of carrying heavy ice into a strong headwind while descending blind toward Alpine ridges; a Cessna 310 captain almost kills himself by neglecting to check his ailerons before taking off.

Contributors are pilots of all levels of proficiency and experience - from jets to J-3 Cubs, and they include such notables as Gordon Baxter, Howard 'Pug' Piper, Duane Cole, Peter Garrison, and the survivor of an extended comedy of errors, Wiliam F. Buckley, Jr.

For every flight-minded reader or anyone interested in flying, MORE I Learned About Flying From That is a treasury of unforgettable true tales and incisive pointers on how not to learn about flying the hard way. hardcover

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