The Flying Book: Everything You've Ever Wondered About Flying On Airplanes
Walker & Company | ISBN 0802798675 | 2003 | PDF | 228 pages | 1.1 MB
Walker & Company | ISBN 0802798675 | 2003 | PDF | 228 pages | 1.1 MB
| “ | This is one book that lives up to the seemingly hyperbolic claims of its subtitle. Blatner, the author of books on mathematics, digital imaging, and virtual reality, is also a pilot who has logged hundreds of hours in the air. Concentrating on commercial aviation, he offers a compendium of fascinating facts. Chapters zero in on specific aspects of flight: what keeps planes in the air, for example, or how a jet engine functions, or the workings of air-traffic control, or airplane maintenance, or the often-bewildering universe of ticket prices. In addition to technological facts, he also covers the human side of air travel: fear of flying and how to control it, what the pilots are up to in the cockpit, even the horrors of airline food. There are little boxed nuggets on nearly every page: we learn that our bodies briefly become heavier at takeoff and that the blast from a jet engine can flip a car into the air and send it flying over three other vehicles. A wonderful treat for aviation aficionados. Fearful flyers take heart: Blatner's information-packed book will definitely educate and will probably soothe. Even though most anxious passengers dislike the "emotions and sensations" they experience while in the air rather than flying itself-which is why safety statistics don't always make them feel better-it can't help to read things like: "If air travel were as safe as driving in a car, a jet aircraft carrying 120 people would crash without any survivors every day of the year." Those whom flying fascinates will learn plenty too: why the Bernoulli effect is only part of the reason planes can fly (there's also the counterintuitive Coanda effect, with a neat little experiment to demonstrate it); what those chimes can mean (say, the pilot wants a cup of coffee); and how airplane toilets work, just to name a few. With lots of illustrations and sidebars, this book makes for good browsing, but it can be read straight through from "How Do Airplanes Work?" to "Behind Cockpit Doors" to "Flying Through History." For plane buffs and scaredy-cats alike, this is recommended reading. | ” |
*Please note: this is the 2003 edition of the book.
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