Customer Rating:  
Summary: Inside the Dangerous Sky
Comment: With the subtitle "Meditations on Flight," this promised to be a thoughtful look at the wonder of flight, or something along those lines. As a reader of Atlantic Monthly for many years, I knew that William Langewiesche had been writing articles for them about aviation. I remembered one article especially, Slam and Jam, about air traffic control, that I read when it first appeared in the magazine in 1997. I was an air traffic controller at the time and read the entire piece with great interest, remarking to colleagues that I thought it was quite a well-balanced look at the conflict between union and management. My colleagues disagreed.Six years later, and four years after I left air traffic control, I reread the article which appears as one of the seven chapters in Inside the Sky. This time around, the article didn't seem quite as even-handed to me. While Langewiesche doesn't seem to find either management or the union admirable, he really does a number on the controllers, belittling the work they do. I could go on about Slam and Jam, but I really don't imagine that anyone outside the business of commercial flight would be interested in it in any case. If I hadn't had a professional interest in the subject, I doubt I would have read the article at all. There are two chapters devoted to air crashes. Even as someone who has more than an average interest in aviation, I do not care to dwell on air crashes and other disasters. I read them when they first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, and did not feel compelled to read them again. It seems that Langewiesche has made a second career (after a career as a pilot) of examining crashes and other disasters, which is a shame. Important as it is to understand the causes of air crashes, so that they may be avoided in the future, I wonder how necessary it is to wallow in disaster page after page for, let's face it, entertainment. One chapter that lives up to the promise of the subtitle and that I found worth rereading was The Turn, about the physics of flight from a passenger's point of view. This is the sort of article that makes me remember how much I enjoy flying (as a passenger) and how I hate it when the flight attendant asks me to lower the shade so that others may enjoy the movie. The show outside is much better.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Exploring the World Above
Comment: I enjoyed this book immensely. I read it on the plane which seemed a fitting place to be led through experiences of someone who really knew the sky. This book contains not only meditations but also technical information that will keep your interest to the end. I came away feeling I had learned something new in more ways than one about the space above and my interest in aviation has been boosted by this book. Each chapter leaves plenty of room for meditating on that certain aspect leaving at the end a panoramic view of the world above. People of all levels of interest in aviation should read this book: from the person afraid of flying as it explains in realistic terms what causes trouble in flight in a manner that neither glosses over the facts that accidents do happen or scare the dickens out of you, to pilots who inhabit the sky more than the ground by renewing or boosting their love for the world above.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Awesome Book for Anyone Who Truly Loves to Fly
Comment: This is the first thing I've read by William Langewiesche. The closer you are to aviation, I believe, the more you will like it. As a pilot for 30 years, Langewiesche writes what I would, if I had his incredible ability with words. He captures so much of what how flying changes those who pursue it as their passion. Some other reviewers suggest he rambles a bit, but I felt everything was connected and after all, the subtitle is "Meditations on Flight". I can't overstate how much I enjoyed this book. Flying is so much more that just piloting an airplane through the sky and Langewieche captures all this better than anyone else I've ever read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A really fun read and helped me with my fear of flying too
Comment: This book chagned the way I think about flying. In general it is well written and has the added value of being written by someone who is obviously intimately familiar with the subject matter. The rational and informative discussion of flight safety helped with my anxiety around flying (I read it on the plane). A friend of mine who is an airforce pilot enjoyed the book too but said that most pilots are not as passionate about flying as the author of this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Starts great but...
Comment: Langewiesche is a gifted writer. It is a daunting task to put into words the emotion and spirit involved in flying, but he does a fantastic job of adding spiritual dimension to his well renowned family craft. Then he takes a side trip to an alternate destination beginning in about chapter 2 or 3 which unfortunately never returns to his original course. Vignettes of his experiences as a professional pilot are at first entertaining, but continue to take the reader off his or her intented path throughout the book and conclude in a political ediditorial about the FAA and large airlines (retelling the details of the ValueJet 592 crash as the catalyst). I was very dissappointed by this book. Not by its quality of prose but simply by its misleading title and jacket text. This is NOT a meditation on flight. This is one chapter of meditation and 6 other random reflections from Mr. Langewiesche's memoirs of involvement in the business of flying. It does not qualify as a meditation and does not qualify on a memoir/reflection. It doesn't crash and burn - it's held aloft by Langewiesche's gift of the language - but it is a bumpy ride that lands hard in an unexpected destination.
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