Mr. Tangye begins early on with his disclaimer found on pages 8 - 9 of the introduction:
"The title, "Teach Yourself to Fly", I do not intend to be taken literally. However confident the reader may feel when he has reached the last page, it will not be advisable for him to go to an aerodome and jump into a waiting airplane in the belief that he may be able to fly it."
His book is a bit outdated (published in 1938) but all the basic essentials are there. Flight controls, flight instruments, manuevers, landings, how centrifugal and centripetal forces affect blood to the vital organs...
"When he becomes a pilot, a man enters an element which is unfamiliar - he knows land and water, but not air."
~Herr Rudolph Lochner