Download or read book Ask the Pilot written by Patrick Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2004 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though we routinely take to the air, for many of us flying remains a mystery. Few of us understand the how and why of jetting from New York to London in six hours. How does a plane stay in the air? Can turbulence bring it down? What is windshear? How good are the security checks? Patrick Smith, an airline pilot and author of Salon.com's popular column, "Ask the Pilot," unravels the secrets and tells you all there is to know about the strange and fascinating world of commercial flight. He offers: A nuts and bolts explanation of how planes fly Insights into safety and security Straight talk about turbulence, air traffic control, windshear, and crashes The history, color, and controversy of the world's airlines The awe and oddity of being a pilot The poetry and drama of airplanes, airports, and traveling abroad In a series of frank, often funny explanations and essays, Smith speaks eloquently to our fears and curiosities, incorporating anecdotes, memoir, and a life's passion for flight. He tackles our toughest concerns, debunks conspiracy theories and myths, and in a rarely heard voice dares to return a dash of romance and glamour to air travel.

Download or read book Skyfaring written by Mark Vanhoenacker and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A poetic and nuanced exploration of the human experience of flight that reminds us of the full imaginative weight of our most ordinary journeys—and reawakens our capacity to be amazed. The twenty-first century has relegated airplane flight—a once remarkable feat of human ingenuity—to the realm of the mundane. Mark Vanhoenacker, a 747 pilot who left academia and a career in the business world to pursue his childhood dream of flight, asks us to reimagine what we—both as pilots and as passengers—are actually doing when we enter the world between departure and discovery. In a seamless fusion of history, politics, geography, meteorology, ecology, family, and physics, Vanhoenacker vaults across geographical and cultural boundaries; above mountains, oceans, and deserts; through snow, wind, and rain, renewing a simultaneously humbling and almost superhuman activity that affords us unparalleled perspectives on the planet we inhabit and the communities we form.

Download or read book Cockpit Confidential written by Patrick Smith and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller For millions of people, travel by air is a confounding, uncomfortable, and even fearful experience. Patrick Smith, airline pilot and author of the popular website www.askthepilot.com, separates fact from fallacy and tells you everything you need to know: • How planes fly, and a revealing look at the men and women who fly them • Straight talk on turbulence, pilot training, and safety. • The real story on delays, congestion, and the dysfunction of the modern airport • The myths and misconceptions of cabin air and cockpit automation • Terrorism in perspective, and a provocative look at security • Airfares, seating woes, and the pitfalls of airline customer service • The colors and cultures of the airlines we love to hate COCKPIT CONFIDENTIAL covers not only the nuts and bolts of flying, but the grand theater of air travel, from airport architecture to inflight service to the excitement of travel abroad. It's a thoughtful, funny, at times deeply personal look into the strange and misunderstood world of commercial flying. "Patrick Smith is extraordinarily knowledgeable about modern aviation...the ideal seatmate, a companion, writer and explorer." —Boston Globe "Anyone remotely afraid of flying should read this book, as should anyone who appreciates good writing and great information." —The New York Times, on ASK THE PILOT.

Download or read book Pilotless Planes written by Carla Mooney and published by Norwood House Press. This book was released on 2010-08-01 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pilotless Planes or “drones” have become an important aspect of modern military operations. Developed for espionage and warfare, pilotless planes are also used for public safety issues and can reduce injury or death rates for pilots. Glossary, additional resources and index. Every great invention begins with a great idea! Read all the books in this series and learn about the history and impact of some of the most fascinating innovations and inventions of our time. Explore the idea’s early stages of development, problems encountered along the way, and how each great idea has influenced our lives. From popular culture and the environment to life-saving machines, learn about the ideas, people, and technologies that made it all happen. This series correlates with The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (S.T.E.M.) curriculum initiative.

Download or read book Flying Blind written by Peter Robison and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2022-10-11 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS BEST SELLER • A suspenseful behind-the-scenes look at the dysfunction that contributed to one of the worst tragedies in modern aviation: the 2018 and 2019 crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX. An "authoritative, gripping and finely detailed narrative that charts the decline of one of the great American companies" (New York Times Book Review), from the award-winning reporter for Bloomberg. Boeing is a century-old titan of industry. It played a major role in the early days of commercial flight, World War II bombing missions, and moon landings. The planemaker remains a cornerstone of the U.S. economy, as well as a linchpin in the awesome routine of modern air travel. But in 2018 and 2019, two crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 killed 346 people. The crashes exposed a shocking pattern of malfeasance, leading to the biggest crisis in the company’s history—and one of the costliest corporate scandals ever. How did things go so horribly wrong at Boeing? Flying Blind is the definitive exposé of the disasters that transfixed the world. Drawing from exclusive interviews with current and former employees of Boeing and the FAA; industry executives and analysts; and family members of the victims, it reveals how a broken corporate culture paved the way for catastrophe. It shows how in the race to beat the competition and reward top executives, Boeing skimped on testing, pressured employees to meet unrealistic deadlines, and convinced regulators to put planes into service without properly equipping them or their pilots for flight. It examines how the company, once a treasured American innovator, became obsessed with the bottom line, putting shareholders over customers, employees, and communities. By Bloomberg investigative journalist Peter Robison, who covered Boeing as a beat reporter during the company’s fateful merger with McDonnell Douglas in the late ‘90s, this is the story of a business gone wildly off course. At once riveting and disturbing, it shows how an iconic company fell prey to a win-at-all-costs mentality, threatening an industry and endangering countless lives.

Download or read book One Adventure After Another written by John Lewis and published by Author House. This book was released on 2013-04-23 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is not about heroes like military pilots who risk their lives protecting our country, or commercial pilots who wing their way across the world transporting us from one place to the other or general pilots who daily perform tasks that can only be done from the air. We owe all of these pilots a great respect and gratitude for the job that they do. Most of the books written are about them. This book is about the private pilot who is the average man or woman who does not intend to risk their lives flying an airplane. This book is about those people who simply want to take to the air for the joy of being airborne and for the intellectual challenge of keeping up with the birds. If I thought for a moment that flying was not safe, I would not step into an airplane. For years I felt that flying was for the foolhardy until by chance I discovered that flying is safer than driving a car if you learn how to fly and follow the rules. This book attempts to describe the transition from becoming a land person to becoming an air person and the pleasures experienced on the way. John O. Lewis My first adventure with John as an airplane pilot gave me the surprise of my life. After vehemently refusing to go flying with him, I agreed once and for all to join him in the cockpit for a brief tour around Chicago. Once airborne my imagined fears were replaced by sheer joy of seeing the sights and realizing the wonders both above and below. This initial flight was the beginning of adventures of our lifetime. Never again was any coaxing on his part needed for me to join him on flights. Edna M. Lewis

Download or read book Stick and Rudder written by Wolfgang Langewiesche and published by McGraw-Hill Companies. This book was released on 1994 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic first analysis of the art of flying is back, now in a special 50th anniversary limited edition with a foreword by Cliff Robertson. leatherette binding, and gold foil stamp. Langewiesche shows precisely what the pilot does when he or she flies, just how it's done, and why.

Download or read book How to Land a Plane written by Mark Vanhoenacker and published by The Experiment. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Take a seat—the captain’s seat, that is—and relax. You’re about to land a Boeing 747. “Brilliant.” —The Sunday Times A Daily Mail and Spectator Best Book of the Year A Points Guy Best Book of the Year The mystery of flight is magical; the reality even more so—from the physics that keeps a 450-ton vehicle aloft, to the symphony of technology and teamwork that safely sets it down again. Take it from Mark Vanhoenacker—British Airways pilot, international bestselling author, and your new flight instructor. This is How to Land a Plane. Vanhoenacker covers every step—from approach to touchdown— with precision, wit, and infectious enthusiasm. Aided by dozens of illustrations, you’ll learn all the tools and rules of his craft: altimeters, glidepaths, alignment, and more. Before you know it, you’ll be on the ground, exiting the aircraft with a whole new appreciation for the art and science of flying. “A good choice for anyone who's fantasized about suddenly having to get an aircraft safely down on the ground . . . walks you through some of the basics of flight and landing, from how to recognize a cluster of instruments known as the ‘six pack’ to knowing what purpose the PAPI lights near the runway serve.” —Popular Science “A work of humorous and outright poetic travel geekery.” —National Geographic Traveler

Download or read book Contact Flying written by Jim Dulin and published by Contact Flying. This book was released on 2008-05 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike conventional aviation authors and instructors I do not teach primary flying, crop dusting, pipeline patrol flying, bush flying, helicopter medical evacuation flying, and air to ground gunnery using instruments inside the aircraft as the primary situational awareness tool. Rather I teach Dutch rolls, slow flight and stalls over the runway, the energy management turns, use of ground effect on all takeoffs, the brisk walk apparent rate of closure approach, hover taxi in fixed wing aircraft, and low level low power mountain flying using sights, sounds, smells, and kinetics. Sight is used 99.9% of the time looking at the ground. Airspeed, nor any other instrument is used in takeoff or landing. This text teaches the art of flying in the old style at low level using ground references. Its author has over sixteen thousand hours of flying Army helicopters, crop dusters, and pipeline patrol airplanes at three feet to five hundred feet above ground level.

Download or read book Instrument Flying Training written by and published by . This book was released on 1942 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Flying the Old Planes written by Frank Tallman and published by Doubleday Books. This book was released on 1973 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Ferry Pilot written by Kerry McCauley and published by . This book was released on 2022-06-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kerry McCauley has the job most pilots only dream of; delivering small used aircraft to locations around the world. In his 30 years an international ferry pilot, Kerry has delivered almost every kind of airplane you can name to almost every location you can think of. In his long career Kerry battled fuel system malfunctions over the Atlantic, a total electrical failure at night over the Sahara, getting lost over Africa and being struck by lightning off the coast of Portugal. Kerry's almost insatiable, reckless quest for danger and adventure also led to putting international smuggler and bank robber on his resume. Kerry found the answer to the question "what could possibly go wrong?" time and time again. But his skill, ingenuity and luck were what allowed him to survive the countless mishaps, catastrophes and close calls including a nearly fatal plane crash. While "Ferry Pilot" is an account of one man's crazy thirst for thrills and adventure, his coming to grips with the dangerous nature of his career and just how much he wants to test the depth of his luck bag. It's also a portrait of the perseverance and bravery of a devoted family man who lost many close friends and his first wife to the dangerous skies.

Download or read book Autonomy Research for Civil Aviation written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2014-07-23 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The development and application of increasingly autonomous (IA) systems for civil aviation is proceeding at an accelerating pace, driven by the expectation that such systems will return significant benefits in terms of safety, reliability, efficiency, affordability, and/or previously unattainable mission capabilities. IA systems range from current automatic systems such as autopilots and remotely piloted unmanned aircraft to more highly sophisticated systems that are needed to enable a fully autonomous aircraft that does not require a pilot or human air traffic controllers. These systems, characterized by their ability to perform more complex mission-related tasks with substantially less human intervention for more extended periods of time, sometimes at remote distances, are being envisioned for aircraft and for air traffic management and other ground-based elements of the national airspace system. Civil aviation is on the threshold of potentially revolutionary improvements in aviation capabilities and operations associated with IA systems. These systems, however, face substantial barriers to integration into the national airspace system without degrading its safety or efficiency. Autonomy Research for Civil Aviation identifies key barriers and suggests major elements of a national research agenda to address those barriers and help realize the benefits that IA systems can make to crewed aircraft, unmanned aircraft systems, and ground-based elements of the national airspace system. This report develops a set of integrated and comprehensive technical goals and objectives of importance to the civil aeronautics community and the nation. Autonomy Research for Civil Aviation will be of interest to U.S. research organizations, industry, and academia who have a role in meeting these goals.

Download or read book In Search of Time written by Dan Falk and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-01-05 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Time surrounds us. It defines our experience of the world; it echoes through our every waking hour. Time is the very foundation of conscious experience. Yet as familiar as it is, time is also deeply mysterious. We cannot see, hear, smell, taste, or touch it. Yet we do feel it—or at least we think we feel it. No wonder poets, writers, philosophers, and scientists have grappled with time for centuries. In his latest book, award-winning science writer Dan Falk chronicles the story of how humans have come to understand time over the millennia, and by drawing from the latest research in physics, psychology, and other fields, Falk shows how that understanding continues to evolve. In Search of Time begins with our earliest ancestors' perception of time and the discoveries that led—with much effort—to the Gregorian calendar, atomic clocks, and "leap seconds." Falk examines the workings of memory, the brain's remarkable "bridge across time," and asks whether humans are unique in their ability to recall the past and imagine the future. He explores the possibility of time travel, and the paradoxes it seems to entail. Falk looks at the quest to comprehend the beginning of time and how time—and the universe—may end. Finally, he examines the puzzle of time's "flow," and the remarkable possibility that the passage of time may be an illusion. Entertaining, illuminating, and ultimately thought provoking, In Search of Time reveals what some of our most insightful thinkers have had to say about time, from Aristotle to Kant, from Newton to Einstein, and continuing with the brightest minds of today.

Download or read book The Dangers of Automation in Airliners written by Jack J. Hersch and published by Air World. This book was released on 2020-11-24 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning journalist delves “into the confluence of modern airplane technology and pilot behavior to probe how and why flight disasters happen” (BookTrib). Aviation automation has been pushed to its limits, with pilots increasingly relying on it. Autopilot, autothrottle, autoland, flight management systems, air data systems, inertial guidance systems. All these systems are only as good as their inputs which, incredibly, can go rogue. Even the automation itself is subject to unpredictable failure. And what of the pilots? They began flight training with their hands on the throttle and yoke, and feet on the rudder pedals. Then they reached the pinnacle of their careers—airline pilot—and suddenly they were going hours without touching the controls other than for a few minutes on takeoff and landing. Are their skills eroding? Is their training sufficient to meet the demands of today’s planes? The Dangers of Automation in Airliners delves deeply into these questions. You’ll be in the cockpits of the two doomed Boeing 737 MAXs, the Airbus A330 lost over the South Atlantic, and the Bombardier Q400 that stalled over Buffalo. You’ll discover exactly why a Boeing 777 smacked into a seawall, missing the runway on a beautiful summer morning. And you’ll watch pilots battling—sometimes winning and sometimes not—against automation run amok. This book also investigates the human factors at work. You’ll learn why pilots might overlook warnings or ignore cockpit alarms. You’ll observe automation failing to alert aircrews of what they crucially need to know while fighting to save their planes and their passengers. The future of safe air travel depends on automation. This book tells its story.

Download or read book 30 Planes for the Paper Pilot written by Peter Vollheim and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Briefly discusses the basics of aerodynamics and provides complete instructions on how to make and fly paper models of airplanes.

Download or read book Planes Without Pilots written by Bill Siuru and published by T A B-Aero. This book was released on 1991 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a broad overview of current UAV (unmanned air vehicles) research and the many ways this technology is being used in the development of a variety of applications: "Smart" weapons, unmanned attack aircraft, atmosphere sampling, space probes, advanced aerial sensors, weather reporting . . . and much more. The author also describes how specific advances in microelectronics, robotics, and optics have made recent UAV breakthroughs possible. He also peculates on the direction of future UAV experimentation.