Download or read book Head in the Clouds The Best Stories From 50 Years of Free Flying written by Hugh Miller and published by Cross Country International. This book was released on 2023-09-11 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Head in The Clouds captures the heart and soul of free flying. It is a unique collection of stories and essays that documents the first 50 years of free flying – the adventure sports of paragliding and hang gliding. Since the pioneer hang glider pilots took their first tentative steps into the air in the 1970s, free-flight pilots have enjoyed a golden age. Face in the breeze, arms outstretched, following the birds and soaring high up to the clouds. For 50 years we’ve chased and achieved humankind’s oldest dream. In this hardback collection of 50 stories, pilots describe the highs and lows in free flying firsthand: from the beauty of sunset soaring in the mountains to tales of epic adventure and the fight for survival. Whether traversing the Himalaya, being swept to 20,000ft inside a storm cloud and surviving, or simply the sheer fun of thermalling like a bird to the clouds, the stories convey the joys and challenges of this unique sport, which is enjoyed by tens of thousands of people worldwide. The book is edited by one of Britain’s best paraglider pilots Hugh Miller and former BBC journalist Andrew Craig who between them have more than 50 years of free-flight experience. As Hugh says: “Free flying is adventure and exploration at its best. These stories represent the very best of our sport, the heart and soul of free flying.” Head in the Clouds has been received with much critical acclaim, including being listed as one of the top 10 outdoor books of 2023 by The Scotsman, Scotland’s national newspaper.
Download or read book Vesper Flights written by Helen Macdonald and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times–bestselling author of H is for Hawk explores the human relationship to the natural world in this “dazzling” essay collection (Wall Street Journal). In Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep. Meditating on notions of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, Helen invites us into her most intimate experiences: observing the massive migration of songbirds from the top of the Empire State Building, watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary, seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk’s poplar forests. She writes with heart-tugging clarity about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds’ nests, and the unexpected guidance and comfort we find when watching wildlife.
Download or read book Tiger in the Sea written by Eric Lindner and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-05-14 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: September 1962: On a moonless night over the raging Atlantic Ocean, a thousand miles from land, the engines of Flying Tiger flight 923 to Germany burst into flames, one by one. Pilot John Murray didn’t have long before the plane crashed headlong into the 20-foot waves at 120 mph. As the four flight attendants donned life vests, collected sharp objects, and explained how to brace for the ferocious impact, 68 passengers clung to their seats: elementary schoolchildren from Hawaii, a teenage newlywed from Germany, a disabled Normandy vet from Cape Cod, an immigrant from Mexico, and 30 recent graduates of the 82nd Airborne’s Jump School. They all expected to die. Murray radioed out “Mayday” as he attempted to fly down through gale-force winds into the rough water, hoping the plane didn’t break apart when it hit the sea. Only a handful of ships could pick up the distress call so far from land. The closest was a Swiss freighter 13 hours away. Dozens of other ships and planes from 9 countries abruptly changed course or scrambled from Canada, Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, and Cornwall, all racing to the rescue—but they would take hours, or days, to arrive. From the cockpit, the blackness of the Atlantic grew ever closer. Could Murray do what no pilot had ever done—“land” a commercial airliner at night in a violent sea without everyone dying? And if he did, would rescuers find any survivors before they drowned or died from hypothermia in the icy water? The fate of Flying Tiger 923 riveted the world. Bulletins interrupted radio and TV programs. Headlines shouted off newspapers from London to LA. Frantic family members overwhelmed telephone switchboards. President Kennedy took a break from the brewing crises in Cuba and Mississippi to ask for hourly updates. Tiger in the Sea is a gripping tale of triumph, tragedy, unparalleled airmanship, and incredibly brave people from all walks of life. The author has pieced together the story—long hidden because of murky Cold War politics—through exhaustive research and reconstructed a true and inspiring tribute to the virtues of outside-the-box-thinking, teamwork, and hope.
Download or read book With My Head in the Clouds written by Gwyn Mullett and published by . This book was released on 2015-04-09 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It was in the March that I nearly met my maker. I was in the descent and as we passed 10,000ft I brought the speed down to the required two hundred and fifty knots. We had just cleared the cloud cover and into clear skies and I was just changing a radio frequency when I suddenly looked up and saw a light aircraft about half a mile ahead coming straight at me descending at the same rate as I was. At our closing speeds we would have collided within a few seconds so there was no time for the standard recommended avoidance procedure of each aircraft turning to the right. I remember grabbing the control column and shoving it fully forward to go underneath the guy but at that instant he did the same. The force that I used disconnected the autopilot accompanied by the loud wailing sound. So there I was heading steeply down with the opposition doing the same. I instinctively pulled the controls fully backwards to try to go over the top of him. He did the same. So I just kept pulling back harder and harder until the control column was fully wedged in my stomach. This all happened over a timespan of about three seconds and he was looming larger and larger in my windscreen and there was nothing I could do about it." The author, Captain Gwyn Mullett, was born in Montreal, Canada in 1946 and moved to England at an early age. He went to the College of Air Training near Southampton in 1964 direct from school. Graduating in 1966 he joined BOAC in the same year and commenced his airline flying world as a Co-Pilot on the magnificent VC-10. He flew a wide range of airliners until his retirement in 2001 after 34 years of continuous service. He finally retired to Berlin, Germany with Jo his wife and has two children Paul and Jenny. "
Download or read book The Cloudspotter s Guide written by Gavin Pretor-Pinney and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-06-05 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in paperback: the runaway British bestseller that has cloudspotters everywhere looking up. Where do clouds come from? Why do they look the way they do? And why have they captured the imagination of timeless artists, Romantic poets, and every kid who's ever held a crayon? Veteran journalist and lifelong sky watcher Gavin Pretor-Pinney reveals everything there is to know about clouds, from history and science to art and pop culture. Cumulus, nimbostratus, and the dramatic and surfable Morning Glory cloud are just a few of the varieties explored in this smart, witty, and eclectic tour through the skies. Illustrated with striking photographs (including a new section in full-color) and line drawings featuring everything from classical paintings to lava lamps, The Cloudspotter's Guide will have enthusiasts, weather watchers, and the just plain curious floating on cloud nine.
Download or read book THERMAL FLYING written by BURKHARD. MARTENS and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Next Hour The Most Important Hour in Your Logbook written by Richard L. Collins and published by Sporty's Pilot Shop. This book was released on 2009 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book How I Learned to Fly Goosebumps 52 written by R. L. Stine and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2018-11-27 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wilson Schlame loves to make Jack Johnson feel like a total loser. And Jack's had it. That's how he ended up down at the beach. In a creepy, old abandoned house. In the dark. Trying to hide from Wilson.But everything is about to change. Because Jack just dug up the coolest book. Its called Flying Lessons. It tells how humans can learn to fly.Poor Jack. He wanted to get back at Wilson. But now that Jack's learned how to fly, things down on earth are getting really scary...
Download or read book Soar written by Tom Bunn and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Captain Bunn founded SOAR to develop effective methods for dealing with flight anxiety. Therapists who have found this phobia difficult to treat will find everything they need to give their clients success. Anxious flyers who have “tried everything” to no avail can look forward to joining the nearly 10,000 graduates of the SOAR program who now have the whole world open to them as they fly anxiety free wherever they want. This approach begins by explaining how anxiety, claustrophobia, and panic are caused when noises, motions—or even the thought of flying—trigger excessive stress hormones. Then, to stop this problem, Captain Bunn takes the reader step-by-step through exercises that permanently and automatically control these feelings. He also explains how flying works, why it is safe, and teaches flyers how to strategically plan their flight, choose the right airlines, meet the captain, and so on. Through this program, Captain Bunn has helped thousands overcome their fear of flying. Now his book arms readers with the information they need to control their anxiety and fly comfortably.
Download or read book Berlin Candy Bomber Special Edition written by Gail Halvorsen and published by Cedar Fort Publishing & Media. This book was released on 2023-07-10 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Berlin Candy Bomber is the story of how two sticks of gum and one man's kindness to the children of a vanquished enemy grew into an epic of goodwill‚-spanning the globe and touching the hearts of millions in both Germany and America. In June 1948, Russia cut off the flow of food and supplies to Berlin. The Americans, joined by the English and French, began a massive airlift to bring sustenance to the city and thwart the Russian siege. Gail Halvorsen was one of hundreds of U.S. pilots involved in the airlift. While in Berlin, he met a group of children standing by the airport watching the planes. He was impressed to share two sticks of gum with them, and he promised to drop candy the next time he flew to the area. The next day he wiggled the wings of his plane to identify himself and then dropped several small bundles of candy, using parachutes crafted from handkerchiefs. Local newspapers picked up the story. Suddenly, letters addressed to ""Uncle Wiggly Wings"" began arriving as the children requested candy drops in other areas of the city. Enthusiasm spread to America, and candy contributions came from all across the country. The blockade and airlift ended in 1949, but the story of the Candy Bomber lives on-a symbol of human charity, and the candy drops have continued into a new century.
Download or read book Silent Swift Superb written by Timothy Walker and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title presents the definitive history of the largest civil jet transport to be designed, built and enter service in the UK. It also covers all variants such as the V1000, VC11 and VC10 Superb, and includes a close-up-detail section for modellers.
Download or read book Dory Fantasmagory written by Abby Hanlon and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My name is Dory, but everyone calls me Rascal. This is my family. And I'm the littlest. Meet Dory - an irresistible scamp with a huge imagination. Dory's the youngest in her family, which STINKS because it means everyone's always too busy to play with her. Or worse! They call her too little to join in. Luckily Dory has plenty of friends to keep her company - even if everyone else says they're just imaginary. And Dory has a lot to do: outsmarting the monsters that live in her house, escaping from prison (aka time-out) and exacting revenge on her sister's favourite doll... Fully illustrated throughout, and with perfect-for-bedtime length chapters, this adorable little mischief-maker is sure to capture your heart.
Download or read book Motel of the Mysteries written by David Macaulay and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 1979-10-11 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is the year 4022; all of the ancient country of Usa has been buried under many feet of detritus from a catastrophe that occurred back in 1985. Imagine, then, the excitement that Howard Carson, an amateur archeologist at best, experienced when in crossing the perimeter of an abandoned excavation site he felt the ground give way beneath him and found himself at the bottom of a shaft, which, judging from the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from an archaic doorknob, was clearly the entrance to a still-sealed burial chamber. Carson's incredible discoveries, including the remains of two bodies, one of then on a ceremonial bed facing an altar that appeared to be a means of communicating with the Gods and the other lying in a porcelain sarcophagus in the Inner Chamber, permitted him to piece together the whole fabric of that extraordinary civilization.
Download or read book Behave written by Robert M. Sapolsky and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 801 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestseller • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • One of the Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year “It’s no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read.” —David P. Barash, The Wall Street Journal "It has my vote for science book of the year.” —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times "Immensely readable, often hilarious...Hands-down one of the best books I’ve read in years. I loved it." —Dina Temple-Raston, The Washington Post From the bestselling author of A Primate's Memoir and the forthcoming Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will comes a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do? Behave is one of the most dazzling tours d’horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted. Moving across a range of disciplines, Sapolsky—a neuroscientist and primatologist—uncovers the hidden story of our actions. Undertaking some of our thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, and war and peace, Behave is a towering achievement—a majestic synthesis of cutting-edge research and a heroic exploration of why we ultimately do the things we do . . . for good and for ill.
Download or read book Children of the Flying City written by Jason Sheehan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Richly imagined and emotionally resonant, Children of the Flying City is a fantasy for young and old alike. This book gave my heart wings.” –Pierce Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Red Rising “Children of the Flying City feels, at once, timeless and wondrously, gloriously new.” –Katie Williams, author of Tell the Machine Goodnight Brought to the flying city of Highgate when he was only five years old, orphan Milo Quick has never known another home. Now almost thirteen, Milo survives one daredevil grift at a time, relying only on his wit, speed, and best friends Jules and Dagda. A massive armada has surrounded Highgate’s crumbling armaments. Because behind locked doors—in opulent parlors and pneumatic forests and a master toymaker’s workshop—the once-great flying city protects a powerful secret, hidden away for centuries. A secret that’s about to ignite a war. One small airship, the Halcyon, has slipped through the ominous blockade on a mission to collect Milo—and the rich bounty on his head—before the fighting begins. But the members of the Halcyon’s misfit crew aren’t the only ones chasing Milo Quick. True friendship is worth any risk in this clever, heart-racing adventure from award-winning author and journalist Jason Sheehan. Sheehan weaves together wry narration and multiple points of view to craft a richly imagined tale that is dangerous and surprising, wondrous and joyful.
Download or read book Above the Clouds written by Anatoli Boukreev and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A breathtaking and lavishly illustrated autobiography in essays on Anatoli Boukreev, the late world-famous mountaineer and author of The Climb. When Anatoli Boukreev died on the slopes of Annapurna on Christmas day, 1997, the world lost one of the greatest adventurers of our time. In Above the Clouds, both the man and his incredible climbs on Mt. McKinley, K2, Makalu, Manaslu, and Everest-including his diary entries on the infamous 1996 disaster, written shortly after his return-are immortalized. There also are minute technical details about the skill of mountain climbing, as well as personal reflections on what life means to someone who risks it every day. Fully illustrated with gorgeous color photos, Above the Clouds is a unique and breathtaking look at the world from its most remote peaks.
Download or read book Cloud Atlas written by David Mitchell and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-07-16 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A timeless, structure-bending classic that explores how actions of individual lives impact the past, present and future—from a postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in fiction One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. The novel careens, with dazzling virtuosity, to Belgium in 1931, to the West Coast in the 1970s, to an inglorious present-day England, to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok, and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history. But the story doesn’t end even there. The novel boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, David Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky. As wild as a video game, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon.
