No Visible Horizon: Surviving the World's Most Dangerous Sport

by Joshua Cooper Ramo

The flying life has always demanded a passage across the razor's edge. At any moment you could slip to the other a gas leak, weather, fire in the cockpit. Sometimes what made the risks particularly horrible was that you could watch your mistakes play out in front of you, as a chorus of guilt followed you down. Usually you survived and could describe this music to others, but none of you -- not even with a long and growing trail of dead friends -- ever stopped flying. That was the truly unthinkable thing. In a good year aerobatics is one of the most beautiful sports imaginable. Pilots pull through impossibly elegant figures, twisting their planes at hundreds of miles an hour. The stress on their bodies reaches ten times the force of gravity, but this is nothing compared to the strain on their minds and the tension in their souls. In a bad year no sport kills more of its participants. To fly really well and to win you must depart the land of the possible and enter a place of pure faith. In this stunning literary debut, Joshua Cooper Ramo has crafted a meditation on the seduction of flight and a passionate love letter to a life of risk. It is partly the story of his own decision, after a decade of casual aerobatics, to transform himself into a serious competitive pilot aiming to finish high at the U.S. national competition. He introduces us to some of the greatest aerobatic pilots in the geniuses like Leo Loudenslager, a mild-mannered American Airlines pilot who spent his weekends redefining what it was possible to do in the air with a plane, flying figures so hard they made his eyes bleed as he whimpered with pain in the cockpit; or Kirby Chambliss, the Arizona pilot who performed figures just inches off the runway and sent his plane shooting through holes in cliffs. The classics of flight and extreme adventure, West With the Night; Wind, Sand, and Stars; and Into Thin Air have brought a poetic vision to their subjects. No Visible Horizon is an elegant and thrilling exploration, not simply of a pilot's physical battle against gravity, but of his dream of perfection and his quest for faith.

Genres: Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published May 20, 2003

About the author

JOSHUA COOPER RAMO IS CO-CEO OF KISSINGER ASSOCIATES, THE ADVISORY FIRM OF FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE DR. HENRY KISSINGER. HIS LAST BOOK WAS THE INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLER “THE AGE OF THE UNTHINKABLE”

Based in Beijing and New York, Ramo serves as an advisor to some of the largest companies and investors in the world. He is a member of the boards of directors of Starbucks and Fedex.

A Mandarin speaker who has been called “one of China’s leading foreign-born scholars” by the World Economic Forum, Ramo is best known for coining and articulating “The Beijing Consensus,” among other writings on China.

His views on global politics and economics have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time, Foreign Policy and Fortune. He has been a frequent guest on CNN, CNBC, NBC and PBS. In 2008 he served as China analyst for NBC during the Beijing Olympic Games. For his work with Bob Costas and Matt Lauer during the Opening Ceremony, Ramo shared in a Peabody and Emmy award.

Before entering the advisory business, Ramo was a journalist. He was the youngest senior editor and foreign editor in the history of Time magazine, wrote more than 20 cover stories and ultimately oversaw the magazine’s technology coverage and online activities.

Ramo has been a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Leaders for Tomorrow, The Leaders Project, The Asia Society 21 Group, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a founder of the US-China Young Leaders Forum, and Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. His last book, “The Age of the Unthinkable,” was translated into more than a dozen languages. His first book, “No Visible Horizon,” described his experiences as a competitive aerobatic pilot.

Raised in Los Ranchos, New Mexico, Ramo holds degrees from the University of Chicago and New York University. He is an avid pilot and motorcyclist.

Reviews

[Sanne Zwart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erg goed geschreven, je kan je erg goed inleven in het kunstvliegen. Net geen 5 sterren omdat het voor my liking wel veel over 1 onderwerp gaat en het dus een vrije lange zit is.

[Hella Comat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I've read in a long time, not because it was especially well written, but because it's one of the very very few books about competition aerobatics. The author tells of his introduction, training, and first contests but he also relates the stories of the masters of aerobatics - Leo Loudenslager and Kirby Chambliss and Robert Armstrong, who flew my Pitts! I really liked his description of the tough mental side of contests - it was interesting to read how challenging he found the total focus required and how 'easy' it is to make mistakes. Nice to know I'm not the only one:)

[Tricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the mix of technical language, descriptive and displays of those who live for the ride with true faith that the ride itself is worth the risk of living it. Bravo.