Fly And Be Damned

Peter McManners gets underneath the well-known facts about the unsustainable nature of the aviation industry and argues for fundamental change to our travelling habits. The first book to transcend the emotional debate between the entrenched positions of those who are either for, or against, flying, this groundbreaking work argues that aviation is stuck in a stalemate between misguided policy and a growing imperative to deal with its environmental impact and that there is now little possibility that the transition to sustainable flying can be a smooth evolution.

Peter McManners gets underneath the well-known facts about the unsustainable nature of the aviation industry and argues for fundamental change to our travelling habits. The first book to transcend the emotional debate between the entrenched positions of those who are either for, or against, flying, this groundbreaking work argues that aviation is stuck in a stalemate between misguided policy and a growing imperative to deal with its environmental impact and that there is now little possibility that the transition to sustainable flying can be a smooth evolution.

Join Otis Allen, a young black man fresh out of High School as he takes his chance at life through a stint in the United States Air Force. Follow his many trials, tribulations and exploits on his way to becoming a man, courtesy of Uncle Sam's University! He even takes the time to show you his indoctrination to the baby boomer's war-Vietnam! If you've ever served in the military or served in Vietnam, this book will bring back memories. Not only will you have a chuckle or two, but also you might see someone you know in Otis. And for those that haven't been in the military, this sometimes verbally raw story opens up another side of the Vietnam War that will enlighten and amuse you.

Bob Mahoney has vividly portrayed the pressures, the dedication, and the fabled resourcefulness ofthe Mission Control Center team. His book comes alive because of his own personal experience and expertise to give us a 'Clancy-like' thriller of a story.Glynn S. Lunney, Former Apollo Flight Director* * * * *A work of fiction initially conceived more than twenty years ago, Damned to Heaven immerses the reader in a fast-paced world of real-time shuttle and space station operations, weaving an uncannily realistic storyline that taps the underlying yearning for humankind's continued exploration of the solar system.Like many, William Francis Drake grew up on the exhilarating promise of the early space program. Now a flight director in Mission Control, he must admit that his space program has fallen far short of that youthful promise. The bureaucracy of the present has eroded his passion for the future. Yet a new hope has been born-the President has formulated a grand but controversial blueprint for solar system exploration and exploitation. This new program's first critical milestone, however, involves unfinished business-completion of the ailing International Space Station Alpha.Into this technical and political maelstrom a crisis descends. During one of the final ISS assembly missions, orbital debris strikes space shuttle Discovery, compromising its cabin and rendering a successful reentry dubious. Flight Director Drake and his team must swiftly advise the seven-person crew to either attempt reentry with their damaged thermal protection system or dock the dying Discovery to Alpha (already supporting a three-person crew) in the hope the ground can launch a rescue before the Station'sdegraded systems reach their limits.Drake's struggle to retain his passion for spaceflight has suddenly become a matter of life and death-and even through the crisis, his battle with the bureaucracy rages on.

Set in ancient Japan, Natsuhiko Kyogoku's chilling series interweaves tales of karma and retribution with supernatural tricksters and spirits. In Chojiro the Horse Eater, a wealthy horse trader’s life is forever changed after his entire family is waylaid and killed by bandits on a mountain road. In this Rashomon-like tale of murder and greed, the Mendicant must untangle irreconcilable eyewitness accounts to get at the truth and dig deep into his bag of tricks to set the past right.

They joined an R.A.F. known as "the best flying club in the world," but when war pitches the young pilots of 409 Squadron into battle over Germany, their training, tactics and equipment are soon found wanting, their twin-engined bombers obsolete from the off. Chances of completing a 30-operation tour? One in three. At best. Robinson's crooked salute to the dogged heroes of the R.A.F.'s early bombing campaign is a wickedly humorous portrait of men doing their duty in flying death traps, fully aware, in those dark days of war, there was nothing else to do but dig in and hang on.

"Time travel, UFOs, mysterious planets, stigmata, rock-throwing poltergeists, huge footprints, bizarre rains of fish and frogs-nearly a century after Charles Fort's Book of the Damned was originally published, the strange phenomenon presented in this book remains largely unexplained by modern science. Through painstaking research and a witty, sarcastic style, Fort captures the imagination while exposing the flaws of popular scientific explanations. Virtually all of his material was compiled and documented from reports published in reputable journals, newspapers and periodicals because he was an avid collector. Charles Fort was somewhat of a recluse who spent most of his spare time researching these strange events and collected these reports from publications sent to him from around the globe. This was the first of a series of books he created on unusual and unexplained events and to this day it remains the most popular. If you agree that truth is often stranger than fiction, then this book is for you"--Taken from Good Reads website.

An artist, a cop, a cowboy, several fly fishermen and even a reluctant romance novelist inhabit these revealing and often hilarious stories. An old man ends up in a high-speed chase with the cops after stealing the car that blocks the garbage bin at his apartment building. A stranger gets a job at a sandwich shop and fixes everything in sight: a manual mustard dispenser, a mouthful of crooked teeth, thirty-two parking tickets and a sexual identity problem. Everett skewers race, class, identity, surrealism and much more in this masterful short story collection from a genius of American letters.