Travel Inspiring Reads – Conquering the Fear of Flying with “Ask the Pilot”

I admit it.  No, I confess it.  I am a nervous flyer.  The more I fly, the nervouser I get.  Is it that the odds are infinitesimally less in my favor?  Is it that I can better recognize abnormal sounds?  Or is it just the fault of that off-duty flight attendant gripping our shared armrest during turbulence over northern Florida?  Surely, it is non-sense to worry about being propelled at 35,000 ft of altitude in a metal cylinder loaded with fuel, right??

It is probably a little bit of everything and, maybe, some superstition mixed in for good measure…  I totally get the concept of aerodynamics. It is a basic concept and one does not have to be half a rocket scientist to grasp the physics involved.  You know, roll down the window of a moving car and put your hand out.  As you tilt your hand in different ways, you can find that one position where all of a sudden your arm is about to fly up and back.  That’s how a plane flies (OK, maybe grossly over-simplified). It is all so elementary that technically a plane can glide down on no engines (this actually happened to an A330 in 2001 and it ended up landing at an island in the Azores).  Clearly, this is not the recommended way to fly but it illustrates the point.

Enter, stage left, Patrick Smith’s “Ask the Pilot,” a no non-sense look through the many bad thoughts a nervous flyer can have.  With the authority lent to him by his experience as a passenger and cargo pilot, he walks the reader through all these mis-conceptions or fears.

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My favorite section of the book is the one that deals with turbulence.  Of all the things to worry about when flying, turbulence is about the most normal thing, to the point many pilots don’t even feel turbulence we passengers fret about.  As Smith points out, “A pilot worries about turbulence the way a sailor might worry about the waves.”  Turbulence is simply crossing wind currents.  For me, the problem begins because that first shaking startles me.  And then, if it continues, it is almost like I don’t have a chance to recover from being startled.  Let it go long enough (and not too violently enough) and I can come back down from the “scare.”  As Smith puts is somewhat comically (except I wasn’t smiling when I read it!):  “In the mind’ eye of a rider in coach, the plane is plummeting… In reality vertical displacement is infrequently more than fifty feet. and the plane will not be snatched away and stomped into the ground.”  Oh, OK.

He doesn’t completely soft pedal the matter and does share than serious turbulence is possible and can be damaging but stresses it is infrequent.  He also covers items like wake turbulence, hitting a bird during takeoff or landing, and other important topics like why is the pilot walking around the plane doing that when it barely seems he is inspecting anything (it is not the only check that is happening and that quick visual is like you looking at your car’s tires before a road trip).

Not everything he cover is about fear.  He covers topics like how JFK‘s (formerly Idlewood) design came about.  The briefing babble.  Pilots’ pay.  Unions.  Flight numbers.  He explains why it sounds like engines rev up immediately after landing (he explains how it is not a 180 degree reversal of engine power).  He uses great humor as he shares anecdotes such as the time a cargo plane crew member dumped, not thinking straight, a bag of dry ice into the toilet…  A volcano-like fountain of blue toilet liquid filling the restroom and beginning to flow all over the floor of the main level.  (They survived.)

The book appealed to me as I had heard it did a great job calming this nervous flyer.  What I discovered was a fun read that I highly recommend to any flyer out there (frequent or not!).

Are you a nervous flyer??  Am I the only one?? 🙂

Travel Inspiring Reads – “Dark Star Safari”

Dark Star Safari – Overland from Cairo to Cape Town”  presents the story of Paul Theroux’ overland crossing of Africa, quite the safari!  (“Safari” means journey in Swahili.)travel book, journal, Africa, Cairo, Ethiopia, adventure, reading, inspiration

I enjoyed this book because it presented interesting topics:

  • Thought-provoking questions
  • Rich descriptions of places
  • Horror stories
  • Good history nuggets
  • Ideas for off-the-beaten-path places to visit.

Let’s go through these briefly…

Thought-provoking questions

While a book about travel, certainly part of travel is gaining an understanding of the local situation (at least for me).  The author helps the reader gain an understanding of the current state and what makes it difficult for Africa to break bad cycles.  For example, he points out how education in some of the countries suffers because those that have education and could be teachers are pulled by foreign NGOs for other activities (though I think he misses the point that often what those people go do is to try to help while also further developing capacity in these would-be teachers).  He also discusses with people he meets the issues introduced by corruption and mis-management without writing a dissertation about it.

One thing that was unfortunate is that the author seemed interested in putting down NGOs (“the agents of virtue in white Land-Rovers”) wherever he could which is unfortunate since many do very good work on behalf of those in need (even if not all are perfect; many have learned and evolved their approaches).  It is unfortunate in my opinion since it gives the impression that he has a chip on his shoulder and, as a reader, that diminishes my appreciation for his critical thinking (though it does not impact my appreciation of his writing effort).  Also, I would worry that readers unfamiliar with the questions and topics involved may just take his word for it.

Rich descriptions of places

The rich descriptions he captures of what he sees make you want to explore the places he visits.  For example, this is his description of Bayna l-Qasrayn, a street in Cairo:

“Perhaps the oldest inhabited street in the high-density city of Cairo, one thousand years of donkey droppings, hawkers’ wagons, barrow boys, veiled women, jostling camels, hand-holding men, and hubble-bubble smoker, among mosques and princes’ palaces, and a bazaar with shops selling trinket, brass pots and sack of beans…”

I also enjoyed relating to some of his observations, not dissimilar to my own.  For example, in many hotels in Egypt there are metal detectors.  I often wondered what were they really good for should someone just decide to park a truck full of explosives in front of a hotel.  He is much more eloquent than me as he shares his observations on security while in Aswan:

“There were metal detectors at the entrances to most buildings though they were seldom used and seemed more symbolic than practical… Certainly the electricity supply was unreliable and there seemed to be a labor shortage.  The armed men, with assault rifles slung at their sides, meant to reassure the tourists simply looked sinister and added to the atmosphere of menace.”

Horror stories

His description of travel through southern Ethiopia and Kenya to Nairobi is filled with frustrating anecdotes and mis-adventures.  Unhelpful government people, bad roads, vehicle breakdowns, touts and thieves, etc. all color this part of trip.  You suffer with him and then remember to be happy you are not him.  Good reading though!

Good history nuggets

The book also included great nuggets of history which certainly pleased this fan of history.  It informed me about Italy’s horrible choices when it came to Ethiopia since the late 19th century – a story I had never heard about.  In 1896, the Ethiopians trounced 20,000 invaders from the Italian army at Adwa (a place I had never heard of).  Those poor young men, sent there by crazy leadership ill-equipped, for no good reason, to die or otherwise suffer.  Unfortunately, all these created resentment that the Fascists in the 1930s wanted to act on.  So off they went (with poison gas and all) to invade Ethiopia whose fighters were still using the same weapons from the 1896 era…  (Don’t mean to pick on Italy, by the way… History is loaded with ugly decisions by many!)

Ideas for off-the-beaten places to visit

The book introduces a reader like me to places I had never ever heard of but that I may enjoy visiting.  For example, his inclusion of Lalibela in Ethiopia where there are twelfth century Coptic churches carved into the mountains adds to my already-existing desire to explore Ethiopia!

Favorite quote

One of the pieces of wisdom he heard in north Sudan during this safari struck me as universally true and is my favorite quote of the book:

“The criterion is how you treat the weak. The measure of civilized behavior is compassion.” – Sadig el Mahdi

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While the author can come across a little self-absorbed or sanctimonious, the story of his crossing Africa overland is gripping and well-written, sharing a lot more than just a narrative of adventures and mis-adventures.  I wish I could do that trip…  Maybe.

 

Travel-Inspiring Reads – The Alluring Target

We all find travel inspiration from different places.  It could be TV shows (Rick Steves, Samantha Brown, Anthony Bourdain, etc.), Eyewitness, Lonely Planet or other travel guides, friends, or our favorite blogs and websites.

Those are all great sources but some call to each one of us more than others,  some grab our imagination more intensely than others. For me, some of those sources are books other than the standard travel guides, usually books that talk about a journey, an experience.  I’d thought I’d share over time books that have inspired me in one way or another to travel and explore.  So, for the inaugural travel-inspiring read, I present:

“The Alluring Target – In Search of the Secrets of Central Asia”

(Kenneth Wimmel)

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This book, which I read in early 1999, made me hunger not only to see Central Asia but to have been one of the early companions of the early explorers the book presents (one of which is supposed to be the inspiration for Indiana Jones).  This books tells the stories of these early travelers, way before TripAdvisor, electronic boarding passes, and, heck, even BEFORE flying.   I wonder if I would have had it in me to do what these men and women did back then!

While it is a book about these explorers, it does present Central Asia in a different way than a travel book may.  It helped me learn more about the importance of the region which, at the time these explorers went, must have seen an even bigger mystery than it is today.  For helping me imagine travel to those parts so long ago, Mr. Wimmel, I thank you!

Whether here or in future post, please share with us what has inspired YOU to travel!

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