〔美〕沃夫岡•朗維捨首次單飛是在1934年。在他的飛行早期，他強烈地感受到一種矛盾：在操縱飛機時，語言和現實往往不相符。飛行員口中說的和他實際做的並不一樣。而飛行員實際在做什麼卻鮮有資料提及。

於是，朗維捨立誌要更精確、更實際地描述飛行員在飛行時真正做的事情。他的最初成果是從1940年起，陸續在《空氣事實》（Air Facts）上發錶的一係列文章，分析飛行技藝的各個方麵。在1944年，《操縱杆和方嚮舵》齣版。

朗維捨曾是塞斯納(Cessna)、錢斯（Chance）、沃特（Vought）和科爾斯曼（Kollsman）公司的試飛員。他曾駕駛他的私人飛機繞大半個世界進行長途飛行。

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.