We Have a No Crash Policy

The aircraft we fly and fly in are masterpieces of engineering. They have transformed what was once unimaginable into everyday experience. How is this possible? What lies beneath the global aviation system we have today, and its phenomenal safety record? This book is a practical guide to both the discipline of flying and the factors that predict safe outcomes and mission success both in life and in the cockpit.

Learning to fly is a dream for many – and is also an excellent platform for life lessons in emotional intelligence, risk management, judgment, and decision making. Through engaging stories about flight, readers will learn how interpersonal skills can be tested in the course of attempting hard things, and how a good outcome often depends on the right combination of passion, desire, and skill.

A must read for pilots, aspiring aviators, and passengers interested in the details of aircraft, aerodynamics, propulsion, weather, and what goes on in the cockpit. Readers will get the vicarious experience of flying a wide variety of aircraft while improving their knowledge of the technical aspects of flying. What does it take to fly a WWII fighter, or land without a working engine? What causes flight delays, and those scary near-misses? The answers are revealed over the course of one pilot’s story of 40 years of flying, from cardboard glider to modern jet airplane.