Skyfaring

Author: Mark Vanhoenacker
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385351828
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Book Description
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.

Glider Flying Handbook

Author: Federal Aviation Administration
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
ISBN: 1602390614
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Book Description
For both certified glider pilots and students attempting certification in the glider category, this is an unparalleled...

Rod Machado's Private Pilot Handbook

Author: Rod Machado
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780963122995
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 580

Book Description
Learn everything you need for the FAA private pilot exam, biennial flight reviews, and updating and refreshing your knowledge.

Backcountry Pilot

Author: Thomas Bowen
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816547165
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Book Description
When people get together around southern Arizona, there's a good chance that somebody will say, "That reminds me of the time I flew with Ike Russell. . . . " A backcountry pilot famous for his jaunts into the wildest, most remote regions of the borderlands, Alexander "Ike" Russell has become something of a legend since his death in 1980, and the stories surrounding his flights never fail to amaze. This book combines biography and oral history by offering a wide range of anecdotes and remembrances about Ike by friends and family. Many describe the great adventures and gut-wrenching close calls that have become enshrined in local folklore as classic "Ike Russell stories," in all their hair-raising and hilarious splendor. Russell was an easterner who moved to Arizona for his health and got his pilot's license in 1948—despite suffering from a respiratory disorder that would have kept other men firmly anchored to the ground. Over the years he flew scientists and other scholars to remote field locations in Mexico's Gulf of California and Sierra Madre Occidental that otherwise might not have been investigated. He often landed on short and dangerous airstrips and never seemed to mind running out of gas, getting caught without provisions, or attempting night landings in unlighted terrain. He took along a teapot wherever he went—and wherever he stopped, his first priority was to brew a quick cup. Backcountry Pilot is the story of a larger-than-life adventurer, with those who knew Ike sharing tales tall and true about his famous exploits, brushes with fate, and sometimes narrow escapes from the jaws of disaster. It includes reminiscences by such scientists and friends as botanist Richard Felger, whom Ike frequently flew down to Seriland; ethnohistorian Bernard Fontana, whom Ike took to Tarahumara country; and paleoecologist Paul Martin, who talked Ike into a nine-month trip through Africa over totally unfamiliar terrain. A concluding chapter by Thomas Bowen offers a brief biographical sketch of Russell. Ike Russell was a central figure for a generation of people who studied the southwestern desert and who helped others see it as a biological treasure rather than a wasteland. More than a highly skilled bush pilot, he was an extraordinary human being who touched the lives of everyone he met. For those who never got the chance, Backcountry Pilot secures Ike Russell's legacy in the desert skies.

Physiological Aspects of Flying

Author: United States. War Department
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 84

Book Description

Flying Freestyle

Author: Jerry Pook
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1844682587
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 487

Book Description
A British Royal Air Force pilot recounts his 25-year career in the cockpit during the Cold War in this military memoir. During a twenty-five-year flying career in the RAF, Jerry Pook has flown Hunter Fighter/Ground Attack aircraft in the Gulf, Harriers in West Germany, the supersonic Starfighter with the Dutch Air Force, the Harrier in Belize, Central America and the Tornado bomber at the Tri-national Tornado Training Establishment where he trained German and Italian pilots and navigators. Jerry had a long relationship with the Harrier Fighter/Ground Attack vertical take-off aircraft. This he flew in West Germany at the height of the Cold War operating from Wildenrath and off-base operations with Field Wing operations based in the fields and woods of the German countryside. Jerry saw action during the Falklands War when based on HMS Hermes and flying one of the few RAF Harriers in the Ground Attack role in support of the troops fighting ashore. He then enjoyed flying the American-built Starfighter RF 104G during a three-year exchange tour with the Dutch Air Force—he describes the Starfighter as “beautiful to fly, smooth and sophisticated, supremely fast and powerful—if you took liberties with it you knew it would kill you in an instant.” After three years with No 1 (Fighter) Squadron and again flying the Harrier, he moved to the then new Tornado, flying in its bomber role. This he continued to fly operationally and in the instructional role for thirteen years until grounded from military flying for medical reasons.

Ask the Pilot

Author: Patrick Smith
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781594480041
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
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.

Aviation Safety and Pilot Control

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309056888
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 221

Book Description
Adverse aircraft-pilot coupling (APC) events include a broad set of undesirable and sometimes hazardous phenomena that originate in anomalous interactions between pilots and aircraft. As civil and military aircraft technologies advance, interactions between pilots and aircraft are becoming more complex. Recent accidents and other incidents have been attributed to adverse APC in military aircraft. In addition, APC has been implicated in some civilian incidents. This book evaluates the current state of knowledge about adverse APC and processes that may be used to eliminate it from military and commercial aircraft. It was written for technical, government, and administrative decisionmakers and their technical and administrative support staffs; key technical managers in the aircraft manufacturing and operational industries; stability and control engineers; aircraft flight control system designers; research specialists in flight control, flying qualities, human factors; and technically knowledgeable lay readers.

Private Pilot Airman Certification Standards - Airplane

Author: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
Publisher: Ravenio Books
ISBN:
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 275

Book Description
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has published the Private Pilot - Airplane Airman Certification Standards (ACS) document to communicate the aeronautical knowledge, risk management, and flight proficiency standards for the private pilot certification in the airplane category, single-engine land and sea; and multiengine land and sea classes. This ACS incorporates and supersedes the previous Private Pilot Practical Test Standards for Airplane, FAA-S-8081-14. The FAA views the ACS as the foundation of its transition to a more integrated and systematic approach to airman certification. The ACS is part of the safety management system (SMS) framework that the FAA uses to mitigate risks associated with airman certification training and testing. Specifically, the ACS, associated guidance, and test question components of the airman certification system are constructed around the four functional components of an SMS: Safety Policy that defines and describes aeronautical knowledge, flight proficiency, and risk management as integrated components of the airman certification system; Safety Risk Management processes through which internal and external stakeholders identify and evaluate regulatory changes, safety recommendations and other factors that require modification of airman testing and training materials; Safety Assurance processes to ensure the prompt and appropriate incorporation of changes arising from new regulations and safety recommendations; and Safety Promotion in the form of ongoing engagement with both external stakeholders (e.g., the aviation training industry) and FAA policy divisions. The FAA has developed this ACS and its associated guidance in collaboration with a diverse group of aviation training experts. The goal is to drive a systematic approach to all components of the airman certification system, including knowledge test question development and conduct of the practical test. The FAA acknowledges and appreciates the many hours that these aviation experts have contributed toward this goal. This level of collaboration, a hallmark of a robust safety culture, strengthens and enhances aviation safety at every level of the airman certification system.

No Empty Chairs

Author: Ian Mackersey
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 0297859951
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Book Description
The 1914-18 conflict narrated through the voices of the men whose combat was in the air. 'This moving book uses letters and diaries to evoke the terrible cost of such warfare...Sleepless nights, separated lovers and grieving parents are recalled with painful immediacy in this meticulously researched tribute to those who died or were lucky enough to survive' DAILY MAIL The empty chairs belonged, all too briefly, to the doomed young First World War airmen who failed to return from the terrifying daily aerial combats above the trenches of the Western Front. The edict of their commander-in-chief was the missing aviators were to be immediately replaced. Before the new faces could arrive, the departed men's vacant seats at the squadron dinner table were sometimes poignantly occupied by their caps and boots, placed there in a sad ritual by their surviving colleagues as they drank to their memory. Life for most of the pilots of the Royal Flying Corps was appallingly short. If they graduated alive and unmaimed from the flying training that killed more than half of them before they reached the front line, only a few would for very long survive the daily battles they fought over the ravaged moonscape of no-man's-land. Their average life expectancy at the height of the war was measured only in weeks. Parachutes that began to save their German enemies were denied them. Fear of incarceration, and the daily spectacle of watching close colleagues die in burning aircraft, took a devastating toll on the nerves of the world's first fighter pilots. Many became mentally ill. As they waited for death, or with luck the survivable wound that would send them back to 'Blighty', they poured their emotions into their diaries and streams of letters to their loved ones at home. Drawing on these remarkable testimonies and pilots' memoirs, Ian Mackersey has brilliantly reconstructed the First Great Air War through the lives of its participants. As they waited to die, the men shared their loneliness, their fears, triumphs - and squadron gossip - with the families who lived in daily dread of the knock on the door that would bring the War Office telegram in its fateful green envelope.