The Joy Of Flying

A great photo journal that showcases the joy of flight and will add some joy to your collection. This photo journal is a must for anyone who loves flying.

Looks at the pleasures, challenges and requirements of becoming a pilot

Presents an overview of the challenges and requirements of learning to pilot your own airplane.

**Sunday Times Bestseller** **Book of the Week on Radio 4** 'A beautiful book about a part of the modern world which remains genuinely magical’ Mark Haddon 'One of the most constantly fascinating, but consistently under-appreciated aspects of modern life is the business of flying. Mark Vanhoenacker has written the ideal book on the subject: a description of what it’s like to fly by a commercial pilot who is also a master prose stylist and a deeply sensitive human being. This is a man who is at once a technical expert – he flies 747s across continents – and a poet of the skies. This couldn’t be more highly recommended.' Alain de Botton Think back to when you first flew. When you first left the Earth, and travelled high and fast above its turning arc. When you looked down on a new world, captured simply and perfectly through a window fringed with ice. When you descended towards a city, and arrived from the sky as effortlessly as daybreak. In Skyfaring, airline pilot and flight romantic Mark Vanhoenacker shares his irrepressible love of flying, on a journey from day to night, from new ways of mapmaking and the poetry of physics to the names of winds and the nature of clouds. Here, anew, is the simple wonder that remains at the heart of an experience which modern travellers, armchair and otherwise, all too easily take for granted: the transcendent joy of motion, and the remarkable new perspectives that height and distance bestow on everything we love. ‘A beautiful, contemplative book... What Skyfaring gives is something we need: elevation; another perspective... Normally when I find a volume where prose style and subject matter fuse so pleasingly, I tear through it in a day. Here, I found myself pausing on almost every page, as I absorbed its detail or phrasing.’ Nicholas Lezard, Guardian **A 2015 Book of the Year – The Economist, The New York Times, GQ and more**

From the vantage point of flight, the world appears different, calm, quiet, and almost magical. Human occupation gives way to the natural majesty of mountains, forests, and lakes. Seas, rivers, and barren landscapes remain. Looking below at this wonder of nature, crafted over thousands of years, and marveling at the ability to see them in all their natural beauty is truly an awesome view to behold. As the aerodynamic forces of thrust overcome drag and weight to lift the aircraft off the earth's surface, the same forces under the pilot's control bring it down. Pulling back on the throttle or rolling off the power, adding drag in the form of landing gear or flaps, or lowering the collective and gently pulling back on the cyclic helps gravity bring the aircraft back to its bond with the earth. The pilot lines his aircraft up with the distant runway and, drawing on hours of experience, manages its controls and power to gently bring it safely down onto the runway. The flight ends with the chirp of tires or the transition from flight to hover. Once the aircraft is shut down and secured, the pilot's work is done. But, the joy of flight remains in his memory.

From Golden Valley Aero News""December 1982 Joseph B. Conner Joe writes "Conner's Corner" every month. He has been writing for Livermore Valley Airmen's Association's newsletter for several years, and his stories are now included in Golden Valley Aero News. Joe works for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and commutes""by car""from Tracy, California. In Joe's stories, we learn about Fidelia, the Varga he uses when he cruises around the valley on his excursions. Fidelia is not just any Varga. To Joe, she is a real she, an airplane with soul and personality. Reading Joe's stories, you get this feeling that he is talking about a real live being. "Conner's Corner" describes real events, things that have happened to Joe on his flights. They are cute stories so well told by Joe in his easygoing, "talking" style. Many of them have an undertone of philosophy that adds a pleasant color to the events Joe is describing. He writes in such a manner that the reader actually gets the feeling of being the pilot or passenger. Most enjoyable reading.