The Flying Book: Everything You've Ever Wondered About Flying On Airplanes [Paperback]

David Blatner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 29, 2005

Whether you fear, thrill at, or, like many, have never bothered to stop and think about the wonder of commercial flight, The Flying Book will inform, surprise, reassure, and entertain. David Blatner takes readers from the cockpit to the runway, the control tower, the baggage and security systems, the airplane manufacturing plant, and beyond, explaining the many factors that make airline travel possible. There are stops along the way to examine airplane maintenance, pilot training, the effects of weather, safety statistics, tips for staying healthy, oddball aviation inventions such as the air car, and what aerodynamicists have learned from birds and bugs.

With a brief history of aviation just to put it all in perspective, as well as minibiographies of some of history's great aviators, The Flying Book is a treasure trove of fascinating aviation facts. A delight for travelers-business, pleasure, or armchair-or any readers who like to indulge their sense of curiosity, The Flying Book captures the spirit, illuminates the science, and reveals the magic of flight.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

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. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company (September 29, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802776914
• ISBN-13: 978-0802776914
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 7.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,040,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kind of a neat book, May 29, 2003

By 

Dave English (Arizona, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Flying Book: Everything You've Ever Wondered about Flying on Airplanes (Hardcover)

This is a well researched, well written book. It's not a book for pilots on how to fly, or one of those big glossy books on every airplane, but it is a great book for normal people with a wondering about the how and the history of traveling in a metal tube going 500 mph, 5 miles in the air.

There are lots of books like this -- for children! Pictures at the airport, cute stuff. But now we have a book for adults. It's fascinating stuff. As an airline pilot, I get asked a lot of these questions on a daily basis. If people do want to learn some more without being bored to death or talked down to -- I will recommend them this book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cured!, March 11, 2005

By 

Increasingly Frequent Flyer (Mid-Atlantic) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Flying Book: Everything You've Ever Wondered about Flying on Airplanes (Hardcover)

For the past ten years I have been terrified of flying. I never let my fear stop me going anywhere, and so on each trip I had to run the gauntlet of dread and anxiety before the flight, cold sweats and panic during the flight, and exhaustion and the occasional nightmare afterwards. I picked up "The Flying Book" in an airport last summer. I read the book during the flight, and by the time we touched down, I was cured! I thought it was too good to be true -- but I have flown several more times since then, and it still works. I am now actually looking forward to flying to new places (and I never thought I'd be saying that).

How does Blatner do it? There's really no mystery: early on in the book he notes that many people are afraid of flying because a) they don't understand what's going, 'imagine the worst', and feel out of control; and b) they have no confidence in the people who are in control -- the pilots, engineers, ground crew etc... So, Blatner sets about explaining everything about every aspect of how planes work -- so that you have fewer gaps in your knowledge to fill with worst-case scenarios. And he discusses at length the extensive training given to pilots and cabin crew; and makes you aware of the vast network of support on the ground -- from the engineers who check hundreds of aspects of the plane before it takes off, to air traffic control who steer planes around storms and pockets of turbulence.

By plugging these two holes in the psyche of the nervous flyer, Blatner ensures that readers retain the enormously encouraging figures on airplane safety -- statistics that would otherwise seem coldly irrelevant. Thus Blatner is able to show how the enhanced design of airplanes, and the growing experience of the industry, has led to an ever-improving safety record. There were absolutely no air fatalities in the US or Europe in 2003, for example.

I now carry the book with me on every flight -- just in case, although I have yet to use it -- and flying seems no more traumatic to me than catching a bus or a train. I have also bought copies for friends and family who have similar problems with flying. And I thought I'd write this review to indirectly thank Blatner for vastly improving my quality of life, and to spread the word to other nervous flyers. Bon voyage!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fun and rewarding read for all ages, September 18, 2003

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Flying Book: Everything You've Ever Wondered about Flying on Airplanes (Hardcover)

The Flying Book: Everything You've Ever Wondered About Flying On Airplanes by David Blatner is a straightfoward, "reader friendly", highly enjoyable, educational survey of aviation which accessibly explains in lay terms everything from how airplanes work, to air turbulence, to what goes on behind cockpit doors, to dealing with stress and fear, to building airplanes, to a brief history of powered flight, and more. A fun and rewarding read for all ages, The Flying Book is most especially recommended for nervous first-time flyers, as well as inquisitive young (and not-so-young!) minds who want to know more about the modern mechanical miracle of aviation.