Customer Reviews

Inside the Sky: A Meditation on Flight

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The author, a self-described "child of the sky," writer of two well-received travel books and correspondent to the Atlantic, here offers seven essays exploring and demonstrating the literal and metaphoric "view from above." The essays illustrate the importance of people as a part of geography, the necessity of intimacy and trust for accurate perception, and, more practically, the limits of man's efforts to control the weather, the sky, and, finally, himself. The book is at its best describing events such as the Valujet crash, or in dense journalistic passages on the relationship between the FAA and air traffic controllers, the Fujita scale, or chaos theory. His digressions remind one of John Mc Phee in their spare complexity. At its worst, the distant and sometimes jargon-filled prose only confuses or condescends to his landlocked readers. The reader does not come to know the author, it must be assumed, by his own design. The author seems to see himself as above--exotic, more honest, in sum, betterthan his non-flying readers, or many of his subjects (he is particularly patronizing to tourists). The flying novice would have an easier time reading through to the truly wonderful parts if the author were more accessible. Pilots and pilot wannabes will love the book, however, if flying is a way of thinking, as the author contends, it is not a way of thinking he has made particularly attractive.

This lyrical collection of essays by an accomplished airman illuminates the pilot's soul as much as his environment. The essays on "The Turn" and the Air-India disaster are masterworks, not because they apply to the JFK Jr. tragedy but rather because they speak to the ever-changing relationship between pilots and their sky.

The reader should not be discouraged by the first essay in the volume, a meditation on perspective which probably is better read last. Rather, skip to others and absorb how the author's adopted home--the sky--has enveloped his predecessors, his contemporaries and himself.

Other reviewers have compared William to his father, Wolfgang Langewiesche. The comparison is unfair to both men. "Inside the Sky" is no more a manual of flight than "Stick and Rudder" is a meditation on the topic. Readers, airmen or not, are the richer for the writings of father and son.

This is the first thing I've read by William Langewiesche. The closer you are to aviation, I believe, the more you will like it. As a pilot for 30 years, Langewiesche writes what I would, if I had his incredible ability with words. He captures so much of what how flying changes those who pursue it as their passion. Some other reviewers suggest he rambles a bit, but I felt everything was connected and after all, the subtitle is "Meditations on Flight".

I can't overstate how much I enjoyed this book. Flying is so much more that just piloting an airplane through the sky and Langewieche captures all this better than anyone else I've ever read.

An insightful dissertation on both the technology of aviation and the meaning of flight. The chapters on "The Turn" and "On a Bombay Night" tell of one of the basic challenges facing man in his journey into the sky. A challenge comparable to that of determining longitude at sea as told by Dava Sorbel in "Longitude". Organizational management and systems thinking is touched on in chapters about Air Traffic Control, the FAA, and the Valujet crash. Chapter 2, the "Stranger's Path" may tend to divert one from continuing, but read on, or skip it because the other remaining chapters are worth the effort. William Langewiesche has given us a book that alternates between a personal, intimate view of flying and a broader view of aviation as perhaps the archetype of 20th century discoveries, technologies, and systems.

I enjoyed this book immensely. I read it on the plane which seemed a fitting place to be led through experiences of someone who really knew the sky.

This book contains not only meditations but also technical information that will keep your interest to the end. I came away feeling I had learned something new in more ways than one about the space above and my interest in aviation has been boosted by this book. Each chapter leaves plenty of room for meditating on that certain aspect leaving at the end a panoramic view of the world above.

People of all levels of interest in aviation should read this book: from the person afraid of flying as it explains in realistic terms what causes trouble in flight in a manner that neither glosses over the facts that accidents do happen or scare the dickens out of you, to pilots who inhabit the sky more than the ground by renewing or boosting their love for the world above.

Some of the puzzlement generated by this book and expressed in the reviews may be generated by the fact of Langewiesche's genre.

I'd characterize it as "the critical philosophy of the artisan."

In American culture, people don't reflect deeply on their trade, profession, or career except as how to get ahead, unless they are talking to Studs Terkel.

But in many societies, people do. In societies where "mere" trades have more respect, the artisan often creates his own relationship with the tools of his trade. An example from general philosophy is Heidegger's craftsman.

As Langewiesche points out with regards to the patterns in which working air traffic controllers and their managers fall, it's not the norm to reflect on the truth of one's trade. The truth is, at one and the same time, that Reagan and FAA management was out to screw Patco, and that after the mass firing of 1981, management, as Langewiesche describes, was able to take over.

It is impossible for either a controller or a member of management to actually enunciate this complex truth because to do so would disadvantage the side, in an adversary relationship.

Another way Langewiesche engages truth as an artisan philosopher is with regards to fear of flying, often caused from a lack of knowledge of the passenger's physical relationship to the world. As Langewiesche describes, commercial aviation operates within tight safety and comfort parameters which effectively assure that any one flight is more safe, not only as compared to driving...but even as compared to sitting in your living room watching TV. This is probably especially true if the person in the living room is the normal gun owner (sorry, I just could not resist this.)

At the same time, Langewiesche's committment to truth is such that he describes how this effective assurance is not a necessary truth. It is possible that fear of flying, like much thinking of an addictive nature, can only be analyzed using modal logic: the logic, that is, of statements which are necessarily true (true in all possible worlds) or only contingently true (true in our world but it could be otherwise.)

The alcoholic realizes in AA when he or she is "Powerless" that their alcoholism is not an accidental, empirical fact, like a possibly cancerous mole which can be excised, and cured. He may realize that his alcoholism is a necessary truth about his existence.

The fearful flyer (who is often beset with addiction issues) wants a similar guarantee of safety and as Langewiesche shows we can approach this without ever completely assuring safety as a necessary truth. To want it is perhaps to want to be god.

In recent years, passenger cabins, formerly under higher fares the abode of the well-dressed and well-behaved, have become snake pits as, perhaps, the passengers insist on a trouble-free experience in which they are the god-consumer of our society. A pilot friend put it simply to me recently, "the passengers are pigs, we just shut the door on them and let the flight attendants do crowd control." Research is called for on the relationship of air travel to addictive thinking, if only for the safety of the attendants. Perhaps airlines should be booze-free as well as smoke free.

Fearful flyers would do well to read this book for it provides in the main comfort. I want an artisan to reflect deeply on his trade, and Langewiesche like his father before him (an authority on flight in the postwar period) fill this need.

Langewiesche reminds me of the early Wittgenstein, who wanted to be an aeronautical engineer. This is because Wittgenstein wrote in the Tractatus that when the problems of science are answered we have the feeling that the problems of life are not addressed. Having gone through the checklists the pilot remains human and reflects on the meaning of it all. To the average American this is unnecessary. To me, it makes you a better artisan as well as a better person.

With the subtitle "Meditations on Flight," this promised to be a thoughtful look at the wonder of flight, or something along those lines. As a reader of Atlantic Monthly for many years, I knew that William Langewiesche had been writing articles for them about aviation. I remembered one article especially, Slam and Jam, about air traffic control, that I read when it first appeared in the magazine in 1997. I was an air traffic controller at the time and read the entire piece with great interest, remarking to colleagues that I thought it was quite a well-balanced look at the conflict between union and management. My colleagues disagreed.

Six years later, and four years after I left air traffic control, I reread the article which appears as one of the seven chapters in Inside the Sky. This time around, the article didn't seem quite as even-handed to me. While Langewiesche doesn't seem to find either management or the union admirable, he really does a number on the controllers, belittling the work they do.

I could go on about Slam and Jam, but I really don't imagine that anyone outside the business of commercial flight would be interested in it in any case. If I hadn't had a professional interest in the subject, I doubt I would have read the article at all.

There are two chapters devoted to air crashes. Even as someone who has more than an average interest in aviation, I do not care to dwell on air crashes and other disasters. I read them when they first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, and did not feel compelled to read them again. It seems that Langewiesche has made a second career (after a career as a pilot) of examining crashes and other disasters, which is a shame. Important as it is to understand the causes of air crashes, so that they may be avoided in the future, I wonder how necessary it is to wallow in disaster page after page for, let's face it, entertainment.

One chapter that lives up to the promise of the subtitle and that I found worth rereading was The Turn, about the physics of flight from a passenger's point of view. This is the sort of article that makes me remember how much I enjoy flying (as a passenger) and how I hate it when the flight attendant asks me to lower the shade so that others may enjoy the movie. The show outside is much better.

This book chagned the way I think about flying. In general it is well written and has the added value of being written by someone who is obviously intimately familiar with the subject matter. The rational and informative discussion of flight safety helped with my anxiety around flying (I read it on the plane). A friend of mine who is an airforce pilot enjoyed the book too but said that most pilots are not as passionate about flying as the author of this book.

An collection of essays united mainly by their general theme of perspective, this book reminded me of John McPhee's work, except that the author is both a flyer and a writer, and in a strange way seems to be a master of his topic, as elusive as that topic is when I try to define it.

The book exists in the shadow of his father's how-to flying book -- without doubt the most famous in its completely practical genre, and remarkably though deservedly still in print after about half a century.

But this book is not about airmanship, although pilots will detect the signs of clear expertise. Few if any other instructors make a specialization of chasing storms from coast to coast, apparently in part for the instructional value but also for the solitary non-landscape seen and felt by the instrument pilot.

It is interesting and perhaps unexpected that this is more a book about perception and awareness, and treated with respect to both individuals and societies.

I know it's cliche, but "I couldn't put it down".

I found this book to be an excellent commentary on the magnetism with flight and flying. Doesn't focus on the nuts and bolts of flying, but rather the fascination with flight and the perspective an aerial view gives mankind. The detailed explanation of the ValuJet crash is disturbing but instructive. There is a considerable detour on storm chasing in a small plane that might not captivate everyone, but is fascinating to pilots. A captivating book!