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Aloft
In the essays collected here William Langewiesche considers how flying has altered not only how we move about the earth, but also how we view our world and our place in it. With vivid descriptions of the aesthetics and excitement of flight, Langewiesche also writes of the risks that go with this the perils of air traffic control, and the dangers of nervous passengers and bad weather. Full of spare and elegant prose, Aloft is a fascinating journey into the new, profound dimension that flight has added to the human experience.
276 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1998
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587 people want to read
About the author
William Langewiesche
24 books158 followersWilliam Archibald Langewiesche was an American author and journalist who was also a professional airplane pilot for many years. From 2019, he was a writer at large for The New York Times Magazine. Prior to that, he was a correspondent for The Atlantic and Vanity Fair magazines for twenty-nine years. He was the author of nine books and the winner of two National Magazine Awards.
He wrote articles covering a wide range of topics from shipbreaking, wine critics, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, modern ocean piracy, nuclear proliferation, and the World Trade Center cleanup.
He wrote articles covering a wide range of topics from shipbreaking, wine critics, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, modern ocean piracy, nuclear proliferation, and the World Trade Center cleanup.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
February 8, 2022
For most of us, the concept of flight is just a method of transportation. Nowadays especially it is a stress-filled way to travel, full of security checks, virus tests, ad-hoc pat-downs, drunken mayhem, and someone’s bare feet on your armrest. Perhaps that is why we look nostalgically at previous eras when flying meant getting dressed up and passengers were treated as royalty while flight crews had the full respect of the customers. But as author William Langewiesche points out in this thoughtful work, being up in the sky is a privilege, a way to see the world and nature in a whole new light. It certainly made me think about how amazing it is that man conquered the skies and beyond.
Flight’s greatest gift is to let us look around, and when we do we can find ourselves reflected within the sky.
Langewiesche uses the first one hundred years of human flight as the framework for the book, but it goes even deeper thanks to a poetic sense of wonder. The author is a pilot who tries to explain to us landlubbers about the way it really is up in the wild blue yonder. There is confusion. There is danger. There are landscapes of solitude. Originally, pilots just had to stay fairly close to the earth to overcome the vagaries of weather. Instrument flying then allowed the next level of safety, forcing the human mind to ignore what the mind thinks is safe in order to rely upon electronics which are safer. Think of John Kennedy Jr., who wasn’t instrument-trained and flew his plane straight into the ocean. Or the helicopter pilot who flew Kobe Bryant into a hill because poor weather had alleviated any visual advantages. If we try to fly by instinct through the weather, even the best of us will roll into spiral dives.
He tells the story of the Wright Brothers, who were not the first to get off the ground, but they were the first to be successful in actual flight control. They practiced and steadily improved the idea of banking, so they could turn their plane. This required a problem-solving process which made them famous and which is somewhat missing in today’s go-go-go world (I would use Boeing’s decline as an example of profits taking over a culture of quality assurance). When World War I eliminated the need for horses and cavalry, the new air force pilots became the knights of the skies. And yet, those skies are never really safe. We can stand on the ground and look up at a mountain and believe it is all clear at its top but a pilot nearing that peak may be engulfed in a white squall. Think of Dean Martin Jr., an experienced California Air National Guard pilot, flying his plane straight into San Gorgonio Mountain during a sudden snowstorm.
It is a small faith that allows us to fly so deeply into the sky.
Since the Wright Brothers, air travel has become safer, so when crashes do occur, they make front page news. In this book, a chapter is devoted to the Air India disaster of 1978. Just minutes after taking off from the airport in Mumbai, the plane fell into the Arabian Sea. If it is hard to believe that something as massive as a 747 can lift into the sky, it is harder still to accept, once it is engaged in forward flight, that something so stately and certain might come plunging back down. It was later learned that it was pilot error which caused the plummet, as it is in many crashes. The alien nature of a dark sky can cause mistakes in the most experienced pilots, as it did that night. Another chapter is devoted to bad weather and how pilots must somehow overcome incorrect forecasts. And most terrifying of all, a chapter on blatant human error and laziness, using the Valujet 592 catastrophe of 1996. I remember that one, because it was eventually determined that the crash was caused by oxygen canisters that had not been properly capped for safety. At every level, there was missed opportunity to solve the issue. It called the FAA into critical view and instilled more comprehensive safety checks for the new millennium. Think of the Space Shuttle Challenger breaking up because of a defective O-ring.
I was completely absorbed in the book, probably because I have never wanted to be a pilot, so it was a new way of viewing flight for me. The author writes with a passion for his profession and for just an overall love of life. Thanks to human flight, our world has grown smaller (easy-to-access travel) yet larger (private flights into orbit) and has allowed us to see things that previous generations of humans would never believe. The writing enthralled me enough to look for his book on the Sahara, which means this read was a success.
Book Season = Summer (close the unencloseable)
Flight’s greatest gift is to let us look around, and when we do we can find ourselves reflected within the sky.
Langewiesche uses the first one hundred years of human flight as the framework for the book, but it goes even deeper thanks to a poetic sense of wonder. The author is a pilot who tries to explain to us landlubbers about the way it really is up in the wild blue yonder. There is confusion. There is danger. There are landscapes of solitude. Originally, pilots just had to stay fairly close to the earth to overcome the vagaries of weather. Instrument flying then allowed the next level of safety, forcing the human mind to ignore what the mind thinks is safe in order to rely upon electronics which are safer. Think of John Kennedy Jr., who wasn’t instrument-trained and flew his plane straight into the ocean. Or the helicopter pilot who flew Kobe Bryant into a hill because poor weather had alleviated any visual advantages. If we try to fly by instinct through the weather, even the best of us will roll into spiral dives.
He tells the story of the Wright Brothers, who were not the first to get off the ground, but they were the first to be successful in actual flight control. They practiced and steadily improved the idea of banking, so they could turn their plane. This required a problem-solving process which made them famous and which is somewhat missing in today’s go-go-go world (I would use Boeing’s decline as an example of profits taking over a culture of quality assurance). When World War I eliminated the need for horses and cavalry, the new air force pilots became the knights of the skies. And yet, those skies are never really safe. We can stand on the ground and look up at a mountain and believe it is all clear at its top but a pilot nearing that peak may be engulfed in a white squall. Think of Dean Martin Jr., an experienced California Air National Guard pilot, flying his plane straight into San Gorgonio Mountain during a sudden snowstorm.
It is a small faith that allows us to fly so deeply into the sky.
Since the Wright Brothers, air travel has become safer, so when crashes do occur, they make front page news. In this book, a chapter is devoted to the Air India disaster of 1978. Just minutes after taking off from the airport in Mumbai, the plane fell into the Arabian Sea. If it is hard to believe that something as massive as a 747 can lift into the sky, it is harder still to accept, once it is engaged in forward flight, that something so stately and certain might come plunging back down. It was later learned that it was pilot error which caused the plummet, as it is in many crashes. The alien nature of a dark sky can cause mistakes in the most experienced pilots, as it did that night. Another chapter is devoted to bad weather and how pilots must somehow overcome incorrect forecasts. And most terrifying of all, a chapter on blatant human error and laziness, using the Valujet 592 catastrophe of 1996. I remember that one, because it was eventually determined that the crash was caused by oxygen canisters that had not been properly capped for safety. At every level, there was missed opportunity to solve the issue. It called the FAA into critical view and instilled more comprehensive safety checks for the new millennium. Think of the Space Shuttle Challenger breaking up because of a defective O-ring.
I was completely absorbed in the book, probably because I have never wanted to be a pilot, so it was a new way of viewing flight for me. The author writes with a passion for his profession and for just an overall love of life. Thanks to human flight, our world has grown smaller (easy-to-access travel) yet larger (private flights into orbit) and has allowed us to see things that previous generations of humans would never believe. The writing enthralled me enough to look for his book on the Sahara, which means this read was a success.
Book Season = Summer (close the unencloseable)
February 4, 2009
Langewiesche, one of my favorite technology writers, and author of the fascinating dissection of the ValueJet crash in Atlantic several months ago, is in love with flying. Inside the Sky is his attempt to convey that passion to non-pilots. He disdains commercial flight, which has reduced the experience of flying to being squeezed into tiny little seats, eliminates any sensation of flying, and suppresses the beauty of being able to see the world from a different vantage.
He's a little crazy, too. He and friends make a fetish of flying into storms, testing their ability to read the weather, avoid ice conditions, and to push the envelope, trying to gain an accumulation of experience. He has critics, of course. "I have always understood their concern. But the pursuit of such weather is an internal act, not a public one, and it is neither as reckless nor as arbitrary as it first may seem. It involves dangers, of course, but to a degree unimaginable to the critics, those dangers are controllable" His chapter recounting one such flight is fascinating, but a trip I prefer to make via page turning, never having been a fan of airsickness.
He writes about the business of air traffic controllers, noting that their job is not so much to prevent collisions - although that's the mystique that has grown up around them - but to get the most efficient use of airspace, which means actually getting planes as close together as possible. Since deregulation and the more prevalent use of hubs, airports have become extremely crowded. Helping the airlines to stay on time is a primary responsibility of the controllers. His comments on the antagonism between controllers and the FAA should be read by everyone. It may exp lain why your next plane is late.
Langewiesche analyzes several accidents to reveal certain basic lessons about flying. The crash of an Air India 747 several years ago resulted from the pilot's misreading of an instrument. Despite other instruments that gave him correct information, he flew the plane into the ground. The pilot relied too much on the instrument, failing to remember that "the cockpit's automated warnings, horns, and flashing lights provide largely just the appearance of safety and that for a variety of practical reasons no amount of automation can yet relieve pilots of the old-fashioned need to concentrate and think clearly in times of trouble." The planes themselves are incredibly strong and the traveler's fear of turbulence is misplaced. Planes are the most weather-worthy of vehicles, stronger than even pilots can imagine.
He's a little crazy, too. He and friends make a fetish of flying into storms, testing their ability to read the weather, avoid ice conditions, and to push the envelope, trying to gain an accumulation of experience. He has critics, of course. "I have always understood their concern. But the pursuit of such weather is an internal act, not a public one, and it is neither as reckless nor as arbitrary as it first may seem. It involves dangers, of course, but to a degree unimaginable to the critics, those dangers are controllable" His chapter recounting one such flight is fascinating, but a trip I prefer to make via page turning, never having been a fan of airsickness.
He writes about the business of air traffic controllers, noting that their job is not so much to prevent collisions - although that's the mystique that has grown up around them - but to get the most efficient use of airspace, which means actually getting planes as close together as possible. Since deregulation and the more prevalent use of hubs, airports have become extremely crowded. Helping the airlines to stay on time is a primary responsibility of the controllers. His comments on the antagonism between controllers and the FAA should be read by everyone. It may exp lain why your next plane is late.
Langewiesche analyzes several accidents to reveal certain basic lessons about flying. The crash of an Air India 747 several years ago resulted from the pilot's misreading of an instrument. Despite other instruments that gave him correct information, he flew the plane into the ground. The pilot relied too much on the instrument, failing to remember that "the cockpit's automated warnings, horns, and flashing lights provide largely just the appearance of safety and that for a variety of practical reasons no amount of automation can yet relieve pilots of the old-fashioned need to concentrate and think clearly in times of trouble." The planes themselves are incredibly strong and the traveler's fear of turbulence is misplaced. Planes are the most weather-worthy of vehicles, stronger than even pilots can imagine.
June 17, 2018
I started reading this on the airplane last time we flew out to San Diego, so it's taken me awhile to get through it. It consists of a number of essays about flight, and partly I found it really interesting and beautifully written, while partly I feel like Langewiesche has a tendency to go on longer than necessary, and I almost always found myself losing interest before he got to the end of each essay. But I mostly enjoyed this, and would be interested in trying a full-length book of his at some point.
September 24, 2017
Picked this up on a whim at a library book sale & enjoyed it immensely. While it is offered as a meditation on flight, about airplanes, pilots and air travel, I found much of it applicable to daily life. The chapter on our inability to feel the bank/turn struck me particularly as a metaphor for our inexplicable inability to know when we are making harmful choices or taking a painful turn in our personal/social lives. Other areas of Langewiesche's investigation were also illuminating. So, yes, it's a fascinating and well-written book about flight, full of history, information, theory and practice. Also thought provoking at other levels.
January 28, 2017
Yes, just finished this last night!
Two of my favorite things right here; American Airlines and Contemplation.
But, in all seriousness this book was so lovely and written all in all,
Through a very spirited and dynamic motion.
I really did feel like I WAS there. It was so fluent too understand,
even though my dad (being the pilot he is) had to explain a few things...
Just awesome, made me realize I have passion for more than what's inside my own comfort zone.
Two of my favorite things right here; American Airlines and Contemplation.
But, in all seriousness this book was so lovely and written all in all,
Through a very spirited and dynamic motion.
I really did feel like I WAS there. It was so fluent too understand,
even though my dad (being the pilot he is) had to explain a few things...
Just awesome, made me realize I have passion for more than what's inside my own comfort zone.
November 23, 2017
Great Book...Meditations on/of negotiating through the sky in good and difficult times...as well as some issues that pop up in life. Interesting perspective from an experienced pilot and his thoughts along the way. Lots of technical issues as well as some problems associated with humans travelling through the air and life....well worth reading.
November 6, 2013
Interesting, but what lost me was the lack of poetry. It is less a meditation on flight and more a technical exploration of a couple of facets of flight. In one section, he mocks Saint de Expury's romanticization of flying, but that's really what I wanted from this book.
April 12, 2023
The reason to read this book is really the final essay, which shows to great advantage all of Langewiesche's strengths as a writer:
-Knowledge of the subject (flying, and in particular the airline industry)
-Lack of pretentiousness
-Clear, unimprovable rhetorical skills (using 'rhetoric' in the old-fashioned sense of the ability to convince others)
The events described are horrific: A jetliner catching fire six minutes after takeoff, 11,000 feet up in the air, and crashing at 500mph into the ground about three minutes later. Five crew and 105 passengers were less killed than obliterated.
Langeweische is not an alarmist, and is not trying to frighten people away from flying -- it is still the safest travel option we have, by rather a large margin. That said,
And here's that lack of pretension I was talking about:
This is all wrapped up with a riveting (if you're a limits-of-technology nerd like myself) discussion of "normal accidents," so named by my hero Charles Perrow. Like Chernobyl, like Three Mile Island, this plane was ultimately brought down by one of its pieces of safety equipment. Perrow has dubbed the failure of complex, dangerous systems 'normal accidents' because they are a completely normal, i.e. unpreventable consequence of complex technologies.
Some systems are so complicated and have so many intertwining elements that there is no way to predict the ways in which they will actually fail, and so one fine day a small thing goes wrong, followed by another small thing, and ultimately it snowballs into catastrophe. In this case, a mechanic who mistook the word 'expended' for 'expired'; a salesperson taped up the resultant mess in a cardboard box because a potential customer was touring the hanger and he wanted the place to look neat and tidy; somehow the mislabeled box ended up in a shipping clerk's office, who did what shipping clerks do, and shipped it; the ramp agent and copilot failed to cut open the box and look inside, and once in the air, 120 people were the unwilling sacrifices to a system that allows the rest of us to fly cheaply and conveniently.
-Knowledge of the subject (flying, and in particular the airline industry)
-Lack of pretentiousness
-Clear, unimprovable rhetorical skills (using 'rhetoric' in the old-fashioned sense of the ability to convince others)
The events described are horrific: A jetliner catching fire six minutes after takeoff, 11,000 feet up in the air, and crashing at 500mph into the ground about three minutes later. Five crew and 105 passengers were less killed than obliterated.
Langeweische is not an alarmist, and is not trying to frighten people away from flying -- it is still the safest travel option we have, by rather a large margin. That said,
Taken as a whole, the airline system is complex indeed. It is also competitive, and if one of its purposes is to make money, the other is to move the public through thin air cheaply and at high speed. Safety is never first, nor can it be, but for obvious reasons it is a necessary companion to the venture.This is probably the most masterful example of cutting through the bullshit that I have ever read, and it isn't meant to be frightening or polemical, just one adult talking to another. I love this.
And here's that lack of pretension I was talking about:
It was known from the start that fire took the airplane down. The federal investigation began within hours, with the arrival that evening of a National Transportation Safety Board team from Washington. The investigators set up shop in an airport hotel, which they began to refer to without embarrassment as the "command center." Twenty miles to the west, deep in the Everglades, the recovery operation was already underway. The NTSB had set up a staging area -- a "forward ops base," as one official called it -- beside the Tamiami Trail.
This is all wrapped up with a riveting (if you're a limits-of-technology nerd like myself) discussion of "normal accidents," so named by my hero Charles Perrow. Like Chernobyl, like Three Mile Island, this plane was ultimately brought down by one of its pieces of safety equipment. Perrow has dubbed the failure of complex, dangerous systems 'normal accidents' because they are a completely normal, i.e. unpreventable consequence of complex technologies.
Some systems are so complicated and have so many intertwining elements that there is no way to predict the ways in which they will actually fail, and so one fine day a small thing goes wrong, followed by another small thing, and ultimately it snowballs into catastrophe. In this case, a mechanic who mistook the word 'expended' for 'expired'; a salesperson taped up the resultant mess in a cardboard box because a potential customer was touring the hanger and he wanted the place to look neat and tidy; somehow the mislabeled box ended up in a shipping clerk's office, who did what shipping clerks do, and shipped it; the ramp agent and copilot failed to cut open the box and look inside, and once in the air, 120 people were the unwilling sacrifices to a system that allows the rest of us to fly cheaply and conveniently.
Valujet 592 burned and crashed not because the airplane failed but because the airline did.
Read
May 8, 2023While there is a lot of flying in this, there is a lot more crashing.
I was cruising in the dark at 39,000 feet in a 787 reading about an Indian Air 747 crashing into the ocean right after takeoff and a Valujet DC-9 crashing into the Everglades, and then while sitting on a couch thinking about a lot of upcoming air travel read about the disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia when it reentered the atmosphere, an EgyptAir flight that seems to have been deliberately flown into the Atlantic by its pilot, and a mid-air collision over the Amazon between a brand new 737 and an Embraer bizjet.
I was cruising in the dark at 39,000 feet in a 787 reading about an Indian Air 747 crashing into the ocean right after takeoff and a Valujet DC-9 crashing into the Everglades, and then while sitting on a couch thinking about a lot of upcoming air travel read about the disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia when it reentered the atmosphere, an EgyptAir flight that seems to have been deliberately flown into the Atlantic by its pilot, and a mid-air collision over the Amazon between a brand new 737 and an Embraer bizjet.
March 3, 2024
I love William Langwiesche's writing. As a pilot his knowledge and fascination with flight shines through. At turns he's lyrical, sarcastic, witty or forensic. Anyone with an interest in flying and aviation will find something to like in this collection of essays.
The only thing I found disappointing about this book was a comment about Linda Ham, one of the managers involved in the space shuttle Columbia accident. He claims she was "youngish and attractive", wore "revealing clothing" and was "not smooth." Langwiesche tells us about another male manager who wears cowboy boots to work but conversely sees him as cool and interesting. It's a pity that Langwiesche resorts to lazy stereotypes about Ham. The official enquiry into the accident held NASA's culture going back many years before Ham's tenure to be as responsible for the accident as the foam strike on the left wing. Ham deserves criticism for her part in NASA's toxic management culture but not for him she chooses to dress.
The only thing I found disappointing about this book was a comment about Linda Ham, one of the managers involved in the space shuttle Columbia accident. He claims she was "youngish and attractive", wore "revealing clothing" and was "not smooth." Langwiesche tells us about another male manager who wears cowboy boots to work but conversely sees him as cool and interesting. It's a pity that Langwiesche resorts to lazy stereotypes about Ham. The official enquiry into the accident held NASA's culture going back many years before Ham's tenure to be as responsible for the accident as the foam strike on the left wing. Ham deserves criticism for her part in NASA's toxic management culture but not for him she chooses to dress.
April 4, 2024
Read this while I was on a plane. Probably not the best idea as it transitioned from flying poetry to horrible plane accidents very quickly. I enjoyed some of the quotes in the opening chapters from the author or other sources. The book has a tone that as a non-pilot reader came off as 'I'm smarter than you let me dumb this down for you'. I didn't appreciate that. Author should stick to philosophical musings about flight instead of how great of a pilot he is.
August 2, 2018
A wonderful collection of essays related to flying planes. Starts off with some early history and what it feels like to fly and ends with detailed analysis of some flying disasters including the space shuttle Columbia. Highly recommended for anyone that enjoys aviation
January 15, 2021
Rambling. Whimsical. Well intended. The book, written by the son of the author of Stick and Rudder, was an okay attempt at a love letter to the sky. The turn chapter was the best written and the chapters about ATC and the ValuJet crash were too technical for this type of book. Meh.
July 9, 2018
50% wonky stuff about the technical aspects of flight, 50% details about plane crashes = i loved it
December 26, 2018
Solid book, good prose. Definitely more mediations and ruminations than flying "war stories". Reflects on geography, society, risk, through lens of flight.
December 31, 2020
An invasive replication to the romantic nature of flight.
April 4, 2021
It was an interesting book. Some of the chapters were great, but some seemed a bit out of place and disparate for me. However, William writes as I feel about flight.
February 22, 2023
As a former pilot, this book put me in mind of the writings of Ernest Gann and Antoine de Sainte Exupery. Beautiful and soulful writing.
October 31, 2025
Greatest damn reporter of this century.
January 12, 2015
Langewiesche is an author, pilot, and journalist-correspondent. He is also a gifted storyteller. At first glance Inside The Sky appears to be a collection of seven essays on different aspects of aviation, each independent of the others and capable of being read and understood individually. It becomes clear to the reader early on that these are not mere essays, however, but rather personal devotionals to Langewiesche’s true love—flight.
The author’s style is reminiscent of Ernest Gann, particularly as Gann displays it in Fate Is The Hunter. Flight for both authors transcends gravity and the mundane lives of those who have never experienced the spiritual, perspective-broadening aspects of sojourns through the lower heavens. The essays introduce the reader to odd and attractive eccentrics, like John Jackson. Born to wealth and privilege, Jackson served honorably in combat in World War II, eventually settling in La Cienega, New Mexico. There he divested himself of privilege, wrote, worked menial jobs and generously gave of his time and money to the community. Flight for him was an awakening of the spirit, essential for understanding his fellow human beings and the wonders, and limits, of modern life.
Throughout the book Langewiesche’s storytelling style, combined with the subject matter, pleasurably and thoughtfully engages the reader. Not surprisingly there are bouts of the flight life sprinkled with catastrophe and fear, but the author is clear—on balance flying is liberating and not inherently dangerous. In the essay entitled “The Turn” he meticulously shows, for example, that the natural human reaction to poor visibility is to become disoriented and crash rather than rely on instruments to drive the flying. Ultimately this lesson is learned over time after much experimentation, the development of new technologies, and loss of life. Though still threatened by human hubris and disbelief, faith in technology over instinct in this instance has given humans the ability to fly in most conditions of visibility.
In “Inside An Angry Sky” Langewiesche best describes the joy of flying as he and his friends purposefully chase bad weather across the United States in a small private plane. Common sense, pre-planning and weather research make this type of flying exciting and not insurmountably dangerous, as one might first surmise.
The last two essays are devoted respectively to the man-made deficiencies found in the regulatory model that drives U.S. aviation and the tragic results of systems failures. In the first, the FAA is depicted as an overly bureaucratic, efficiency-driven political entity that values safety only slightly ahead of the condition of the carpet down a commercial airliner’s port aisle. In the second essay, the consequences of airline, human, FAA, and complex system failures lead to the May 1996 loss of ValueJet flight 592 and 110 souls—needlessly. This loss at first seems to be the result of obvious human mistakes that should have been avoided—mismarking hazardous materials and failure to follow simple maintenance procedures. Closer scrutiny reveals that the complex systems operating airlines are ‘complex’ beyond human understanding and control and therefore vulnerable to unpredictable events that may lead to destructive, unanticipated conditions. Every situation cannot be regulated or anticipated in the interest of flight safety—or any other ‘master’ be it efficiency, comfort, or profit. Individual common sense, curiosity, competence, loyalty to one’s responsibilities, and the instinct to survive are the most effective and ultimately the likely difference between flight catastrophe and survival.
Throughout these essays, Langewiesche’s love of flight remains undiminished. His effort to educate the reader about the beauty and inherently safe nature of flight are mostly successful. Despite the hard facts of the ValueJet incident, this book brings the uninitiated into the inner sanctum of flight. The prose flows smoothly and the author’s unshakeable optimism in the importance of flight for every person is convincing. Inside The Sky is a short, pleasurable journey into the world of flight and is just about the right length to be fully read and appreciated during a transcontinental flight.
January 12, 2013
We have become creatures of the air, and flying has changed the way we see the world. That aerial view — of orderly houses in neat little rows, of farmland being swallowed by urban growth, of congested highways and abandoned factories — allows us to see ourselves in context.
It is a story of human geography written across the landscape in a narrative as obvious as any book. You don’t need statistics to interpret the growth of office parks, the division of farms, and the inflated architecture of large houses on small lots to see the conclusion of New Jersey farm life when flying up the Eastern seaboard, for example.
Langewiesche writes of the beauty and solitude of flight, but he tempers his observations with a clear examination of the risks. He provides a fascinating pilot’s-eye-view of the inner workings of air traffic control, describes in vivid detail what it’s like to fly through extreme weather, and pauses to examine those rare instances of bad luck when, despite our best efforts, the entire careful system of checks and balances fails.
We now take air travel for granted. We fixate on speed, delays, and the boredom of long confined hours spent with strangers. We focus our attention on the distractions of crossword puzzles, bland meals on plastic trays, and the canned “entertainment” of a TV screen. Aloft, with it’s precise lucid prose, urges us to look outward to read our own human story as it unfolds across the land far below.
It is a story of human geography written across the landscape in a narrative as obvious as any book. You don’t need statistics to interpret the growth of office parks, the division of farms, and the inflated architecture of large houses on small lots to see the conclusion of New Jersey farm life when flying up the Eastern seaboard, for example.
Langewiesche writes of the beauty and solitude of flight, but he tempers his observations with a clear examination of the risks. He provides a fascinating pilot’s-eye-view of the inner workings of air traffic control, describes in vivid detail what it’s like to fly through extreme weather, and pauses to examine those rare instances of bad luck when, despite our best efforts, the entire careful system of checks and balances fails.
We now take air travel for granted. We fixate on speed, delays, and the boredom of long confined hours spent with strangers. We focus our attention on the distractions of crossword puzzles, bland meals on plastic trays, and the canned “entertainment” of a TV screen. Aloft, with it’s precise lucid prose, urges us to look outward to read our own human story as it unfolds across the land far below.
November 15, 2011
This book was absolutely fascinating! I would caution however this is not a book for those who have a fear of flying. I love going on airplanes so for me this was a great book and all of the information was of great interest to me. I love this particular quote "Flight's greatest gift is to let us look around." I think that the author who has been a professional pilot wrote about it with a heart and a depth that only someone who has experienced the sheer passion of flying can write about it. I have one other quote that really applies to more than just taking flight " There is such a thing as being too careful. If you give into your fears, if you don't gently push against them, you will turn around too soon. And the next time you fly you will turn around sooner. Eventually you will turn around before takeoff, which is the unhappy fate of some pilots: to choose finally to never fly again." (p.126-127) Amazing how we can apply this to our whole lives. A Meditation On Flight, becomes a meditation on life and how we live it! I now want to spread my wings and fly! I will be reading more of Langewiesche's books. I have read articles he wrote for Vanity Fair and I am so glad that I read this.
February 7, 2016
Interesting, as always, providing beautifully written descriptions of modern air flight, but descending into a battery of chapters on aviation disasters. But he makes a point not often seen in the press, flying is inherently easy and mundane and mistakes are constantly being made and adjusted for. He upends Murphy's Law, telling us that it is wrong--and that what actually happens is that what can go wrong usually goes right. And that when this happens there is "a collective relaxation of technical standards...the normalization of deviance". That leads people to accept greater and greater risk. In fact, to not even recognize it as "risk". (FYI Paul Kedovsky wrote a fascinating New Yorker article on deviance normalization as it related to the VW emission brouhaha. ). Anyhow, I enjoyed the book, and Langewiesche can write about dirt and I'd probably read it.
April 19, 2013
Fans of books about flying and flight should reach unhesitatingly for this collection of meditations on the art and science of those magnificent men in their flying machines. Which sometimes crash and burn in a fairly scary way, as some of these articles relate.
Written with precision by a journalist and pilot, I dropped the book a star because the subjects and the narrative are a bit patchy from article to article. Some are gripping and informative while others had me stifling a yawn and wishing the author would move things on a bit. But, I think, in my Top Ten list of books about flying, I think this collection would get a listing. (And I am really looking forward to read Langwiesche's account of the airliner that hit a bird strike and made an emergency landing on the Hudson!)
Written with precision by a journalist and pilot, I dropped the book a star because the subjects and the narrative are a bit patchy from article to article. Some are gripping and informative while others had me stifling a yawn and wishing the author would move things on a bit. But, I think, in my Top Ten list of books about flying, I think this collection would get a listing. (And I am really looking forward to read Langwiesche's account of the airliner that hit a bird strike and made an emergency landing on the Hudson!)
May 20, 2013
Although the subject of this book is not one that I would normally seek out, I picked the book up because I had read some extremely interesting articles in The Atlantic in 2002 by this author titled "Amercian Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center". This book did not diaappoint and is a very fascinating insight into various aspects of flying and aviation. I learned a lot from the book and when I take a cross-country commercial flight in the coming week, it will be with a broader awareness and perspective.
September 15, 2011
Would have liked to give this book 3.5 stars, but that's not an option. I really liked the book for the information about the nuts and bolts of flying. Even thought the author goes into some detail about specific plane crashes, it was interesting and comforting to me to see how really safe it is to fly. The only reason I didn't give it a higher rating is because it was sometimes a bit boring. I found it was a good book to read before bed.
March 23, 2015
Hmm...I love aviation, and this book looked promising. The book, though, is really three or so essays that are (barely) stitched together into a whole. There isn't much cohesion and it reads like separate sections.
Some parts were interesting, mainly when he's describing flight, others not so (some of the storm-chasing was way too much, as well as the long treatise about the FAA and its battles with the flight controllers).
Some parts were interesting, mainly when he's describing flight, others not so (some of the storm-chasing was way too much, as well as the long treatise about the FAA and its battles with the flight controllers).
October 9, 2014
Good observations on the nature of safety checks in aviation, but a little too fatalist for my liking. Overall, his writing style is compelling and well-paced, but sometimes that typical "pilot hubris" tends to overshadow the point. A good read, but I don't think that I would want to have a beer with the author.
March 17, 2013
Langewiesche is at his absolute best when writing about flight (besides being an experienced pilot himself, his father literally wrote the book on aviation). Just about every essay in this book is riveting. Highly recommended.
November 13, 2016
Don't bother with this book - Just a Pompous Manifesto
The author misses the point regarding aviation repeatedly. On one hand struggles for details and on the other fails to recognize the value of aviation.
The author misses the point regarding aviation repeatedly. On one hand struggles for details and on the other fails to recognize the value of aviation.
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