Though we routinely take to the air, for many of us flying remains a mystery. Few of us understand the how and why of jetting from New York to London in six hours. How does a plane stay in the air? Can turbulence bring it down? What is windshear? How good are the security checks? Patrick Smith, an airline pilot and author of Salon.com's popular column, "Ask the Pilot," unravels the secrets and tells you all there is to know about the strange and fascinating world of commercial flight. He offers: A nuts and bolts explanation of how planes fly Insights into safety and security Straight talk about turbulence, air traffic control, windshear, and crashes The history, color, and controversy of the world's airlines The awe and oddity of being a pilot The poetry and drama of airplanes, airports, and traveling abroad In a series of frank, often funny explanations and essays, Smith speaks eloquently to our fears and curiosities, incorporating anecdotes, memoir, and a life's passion for flight. He tackles our toughest concerns, debunks conspiracy theories and myths, and in a rarely heard voice dares to return a dash of romance and glamour to air travel.

A poetic and nuanced exploration of the human experience of flight that reminds us of the full imaginative weight of our most ordinary journeys—and reawakens our capacity to be amazed. The twenty-first century has relegated airplane flight—a once remarkable feat of human ingenuity—to the realm of the mundane. Mark Vanhoenacker, a 747 pilot who left academia and a career in the business world to pursue his childhood dream of flight, asks us to reimagine what we—both as pilots and as passengers—are actually doing when we enter the world between departure and discovery. In a seamless fusion of history, politics, geography, meteorology, ecology, family, and physics, Vanhoenacker vaults across geographical and cultural boundaries; above mountains, oceans, and deserts; through snow, wind, and rain, renewing a simultaneously humbling and almost superhuman activity that affords us unparalleled perspectives on the planet we inhabit and the communities we form.

In My Pilot Sarajane Giere offers a rare glimpse into the life of a military wife. She tells the story of her fighter pilot husband, Bernie, who flew 214 combat missions in Vietnam and served twenty-five years in the Air National Guard's world-class 106thRescue Wing. With explicit honesty, she recounts the terror of the Vietnam years. With searing love, she unfolds the lifelong sacrifices that affected her pilot's life and death. In the telling she honors her family, including the military community she holds dear.

Peter Sís's remarkable biography The Pilot and the Little Prince celebrates the author of The Little Prince, one of the most beloved books in the world. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in France in 1900, when airplanes were just being invented. Antoine dreamed of flying and grew up to be a pilot—and that was when his adventures began. He found a job delivering mail by plane, which had never been done before. He and his fellow pilots traveled to faraway places and discovered new ways of getting from one place to the next. Antoine flew over mountains and deserts. He battled winds and storms. He tried to break aviation records, and sometimes he even crashed. From his plane, Antoine looked down on the earth and was inspired to write about his life and his pilot-hero friends in memoirs and in fiction. A Frances Foster Book This title has Common Core connections.

An account of the defection of a Soviet pilot who escaped to the West in Russia's most advanced secret fighter plane.

Violet is a science-loving girl inventor with a flair for the air! Fans of Ada Twist, Scientist and Rosie Revere, Engineer will love this classic underdog story by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Steve Breen. By the time she's two years old, Violet Van Winkle can engineer nearly any appliance in the house. And by eight she's building elaborate flying machines from scratch—mind-boggling contraptions such as the Tubbubbler, the Bicycopter, and the Wing-a-ma-jig. The kids at school tease her, but they have no idea what she's capable of. Maybe she could earn their respect by winning the blue ribbon in the upcoming Air Show. Or maybe something even better will happen—something involving her best-ever invention, a Boy Scout troop in peril, and even the mayor himself! "An engaging story of a spunky girl who follows her dreams . . . Violet is a terrific role model."--School Library Journal