Frequent Flier: One Plane, One Passenger, and the Spectacular Feat of Commercial Flight

The trip the average passenger takes from, say, New York to Detroit is only one leg of the airplane's much longer journey. Reiss ( The Last Spy ) followed an entire outing of Delta Airlines ship 714, an 18-year-old Lockheed 1011 widebody jet, from the time it left Atlanta until it returned--a trip that covered 9 stops and 15,000 miles in 72 hours. Reiss, who sat in the cockpit most of the time, covers every facet of flying a commercial jetliner: the cool competence of pilots in several spine-tingling crisis situations; the stress of air traffic controllers; complications involving the FAA. Readers will learn the importance of the checklists (which are performed several times a flight) and why altimeters have to be constantly reset to the barometric pressure (so the pilot doesn't fly the plane into the ground). Other plane lore includes sex in the L-1011's elevators; the chimpanzee who got loose in a cargo hold, grabbed a tranquilizing gun and delayed the flight; and the possibility of ghosts on L-1011s, a view made famous in The Ghost of Flight 401 by John G. Fuller, which chronicled the 1972 crash of an Eastern Airlines L-1011 and the subsequent use of salvaged parts in other 1011s--many of which were bought by Delta. Anyone who loves to fly--or anyone who has to fly--should read this comprehensive book. (Feb.)