- Knopf
- "The Nervous Fliers Book Club will now be called to order!"
A fear of flying coupled with a longstanding appreciation for travel means that I have a low-level obsession with airplanes. Some people pop Xanax before takeoff, some ritualistically touch the side of the plane before getting on, some hold hands with strangers during turbulence, and I read books like Mark Vanhoenacker's Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot.
If you're afraid of something, amassing knowledge about it can be an awful idea. But when I'm riding inside a pressurized metal tube IN THE SKY, it's the mystery of what's happening behind the cockpit door more than anything else that triggers my purest, most Sartre-y existential dread. So an easy and obvious fix is to dispel the mystery.
That's how I became obsessed with the Boeing 737 (seriously, just an excellent plane), it's how I learned how to MacGyver a crude turbulence gauge using a tray table and a cup of water, and it's why Vanhoenacker's book should be considered a public service for the jittery masses about to board the next flight out of PDX. In Skyfaring, Vanhoenacker demystifies flying without making it seem any less miraculous, delivering complex technical information in economical, considered prose. His voice is open and friendly—exactly what you want when you're delving into the facts of air travel. Some of the knowledge he imparts is goofy—as when he divulges that the five-letter names of aerial markers (known to pilots as "waypoints") around Kansas City are BARBQ, SPICY, SMOKE, RIBBS, and BRSKT—and some is as fascinating as it is reassuring (if you've ever been on a flight that had a missed approach, Vanhoenacker explains, you didn't actually almost die—in fact, the pilots were doing exactly what they were supposed to).
