〔美〕沃夫冈•朗维舍首次单飞是在1934年。在他的飞行早期，他强烈地感受到一种矛盾：在操纵飞机时，语言和现实往往不相符。飞行员口中说的和他实际做的并不一样。而飞行员实际在做什么却鲜有资料提及。

于是，朗维舍立志要更精确、更实际地描述飞行员在飞行时真正做的事情。他的最初成果是从1940年起，陆续在《空气事实》（Air Facts）上发表的一系列文章，分析飞行技艺的各个方面。在1944年，《操纵杆和方向舵》出版。

朗维舍曾是塞斯纳(Cessna)、钱斯（Chance）、沃特（Vought）和科尔斯曼（Kollsman）公司的试飞员。他曾驾驶他的私人飞机绕大半个世界进行长途飞行。

WHAT'S IN STICK AND RUDDER: The invisible secret of all heavier-than-air flight: the Angle of Attack. What it is, and why it can't be seen. How lift is made, and what the pilot has to do with it. Why airplanes stall How do you know you're about to stall? The landing approach. How the pilot's eye functions in judging the approach. The visual clues by which an experienced pilot unconsciously judges: how you can quickly learn to use them. "The Spot that does not move." This is the first statement of this phenomenon. A foolproof method of making a landing approach across pole lines and trees. The elevator and the throttle. One controls the speed, the other controls climb and descent. Which is which? The paradox of the glide. By pointing the nose down less steeply, you descend more steeply. By pointing the nose down more steeply, you can glide further. What's the rudder for? The rudder does NOT turn the airplane the way a boat's rudder turns the boat. Then what does it do? How a turn is flown. The role of ailerons, rudder, and elevator in making a turn. The landing--how it's made. The visual clues that tell you where the ground is. The "tail-dragger" landing gear and what's tricky about it. This is probably the only analysis of tail-draggers now available to those who want to fly one. The tricycle landing gear and what's so good about it. A strong advocacy of the tricycle gear written at a time when almost all civil airplanes were taildraggers. Why the airplane doesn't feel the wind. Why the airplane usually flies a little sidewise. Plus: a chapter on Air Accidents by Leighton Collins, founder and editor of AIR FACTS. His analyses of aviation's safety problems have deeply influenced pilots and aeronautical engineers and have contributed to the benign characteristics of today's airplane. Stick and Rudder is the first exact analysis of the art of flying ever attempted. It has been continously in print for thirty-three years. It shows precisely what the pilot does when he flies, just how he does it, and why. Because the basics are largely unchanging, the book therefore is applicable to large airplanes and small, old airplanes and new, and is of interest not only to the learner but also to the accomplished pilot and to the instructor himself. When Stick and Rudder first came out, some of its contents were considered highly controversial. In recent years its formulations have become widely accepted. Pilots and flight instructors have found that the book works. Today several excellent manuals offer the pilot accurate and valuable technical information. But Stick and Rudder remains the leading think-book on the art of flying. One thorough reading of it is the equivalent of many hours of practice.