The Flying Book: Everything You've Ever Wondered about Flying on Airplanes

Fearful flyers take heart: Blatner's information-packed book will definitely educate and will probably soothe. Even though most anxious passengers dislike the""emotions and sensations"" they experience while in the air rather than flying itself--which is why safety statistics don't always make them feel better--it can't help to read things like:""If air travel were as safe as driving in a car, a jet aircraft carrying 120 people would crash without any survivors every day of the year."" Those whom flying fascinates will learn plenty too: why the Bernoulli effect is only part of the reason planes can fly (there's also the counterintuitive Coanda effect, with a neat little experiment to demonstrate it); what those chimes can mean (say, the pilot wants a cup of coffee); and how airplane toilets work, just to name a few. With lots of illustrations and sidebars, this book makes for good browsing, but it can be read straight through from""How Do Airplanes Work?"" to""Behind Cockpit Doors"" to""Flying Through History."" For plane buffs and scaredy-cats alike, this is recommended reading.