Literary images in the works of A. de Saint-Exupéry are dictated by the specific nature of the flight

The subject of this research article is the professional experience of A. de Saint-Exupéry as a pilot, captured in literary images; the object of the study consists of artistic texts in which this personal experience is reflected in one way or another. The authors of the article analyze Saint-Exupéry's works "Wind, Sand and Stars," "Night Flight", "Flight to Arras," and "The Little Prince." Using these works as material, they examine in detail three groups of phenomena found in Saint-Exupéry's creativity, dictated by the psychophysiological characteristics of special cases in flight, which have a directly physical meaning that goes beyond literary metaphors. These are meteorology, spatial illusions, and the interaction between humans and aircraft in non-standard flight conditions. This study is situated at the intersection of the humanities (philology, history), natural sciences (physics), and technical sciences (aviation mechanics), and is thus interdisciplinary. The main method used for analyzing the flight experience captured in Saint-Exupéry's prose was the phenomenological approach to text analysis. There are numerous works dedicated to the literary creativity of Saint-Exupéry, as well as biographical studies that highlight his flying activities. The novelty of this article lies in the fact that it appears to be the first to pose and address the task of reconstructing the personal experience of a pilot reflected in Saint-Exupéry's writings, emphasizing the physical aspect of the process. The main conclusion of this research is that, despite the literary merits of Saint-Exupéry's texts, a number of images in them were not artistic allegories, as traditionally interpreted in philological science, but directly corresponded to the reality known to most pilots. The article shows that these images reflect the characteristic problems faced by flight crews under manual piloting conditions. The authors believe that drawing attention to the "real," physical meaning of the episodes of flight practice captured by Saint-Exupéry should contribute to a more complete and profound understanding of his literary heritage by readers.