Customer Reviews

A Pilot's Guide to Aircraft and Their Systems (General Aviation Reading series)

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There are very little, if any, few diagrams and the explanations are given to you as though you already have a background with electricity and mechanical items. The sections you perceive to be full of information are probably only 3 pages in length. The diagrams are there to show you what the instruments looks like, but no indications on the diagram of how it would work. Not a book I would recommend to people who want to be in-depth about their systems and planes.

The cover of this book contains the phrase, "The more you know about your aircraft systems, the better you fly."

Absolutely!

If you understand the mechanisms that make your plane work, you'll fly better and more safely. You will operate your plane with empathy, that is, a feeling of sensitivity to the systems that make it work. You and your plane will get along with each other as a cooperative team, not human boss and dumb obedient machine. If you understand your plane and care about it, you'll want to prevent hurting it. Result: Safer Flying. (... And piloting your own plane can be dangerous! Ask any experienced pilot who has had a "close call," or pick up a periodical magazine on flying and read about that. I did.)

Dale Crane takes the reader from "Forces Acting on an Airplane in Flight," in the first chapter, to "Phases of Flight," "Types of Structures," "Hydraulic Principles," "Electricity and the Aircraft, " "Avionics" "Oxygen Systems," "Ice Control Systems" and "Propeller Servicing," to name a few chapter headings. I was glad to see the content on helicopters.

This book is for people with an adult reading level. Some of the material is complicated.

This is a good book. It's an excellent summary of complex technology at work. If you're an adult just getting started, it's perfect. Read the book as a foundation and then move on.

I have two criticisms:
The book focuses on civilian aircraft.
The reader might want to skip lightly over the chapters on instrumentation. Today's aircraft have sophisticated touch-screen displays and many computer assists.