Description
A selection of short stories containing the accrued wisdom of a career spent flying aeroplanes for a living. These stories express in graphic detail the challenges facing modern airline crews today, dealing with technical, environmental and human factors with explanations of the more obscure industry terminology. ‘The Flightdeck Survival Manual’ tells the story of the human side of commercial aviation and allows the reader to join the crew on the line, in the flightdeck and the cabin as they face each difficult decision or challenging scenario.
In his own words, the author has made many errors and mistakes and learned lessons from each and every one – many of those valuable lessons are now revealed here for the benefit of the current and generations of pilots.
Reviews for ‘The Flightdeck Survival Manual’
Wow, an excellent book. Having both known and flown with the Author at several UK airlines during the ‘good old days’, James wastes no time in wetting the appetite for any aspiring airline pilot. With excellent advice and critique on how all pilots ‘learn by experience’ and ‘there are no mistakes to be made that haven’t already been made’, we can all learn to hopefully not make them ourselves. If there’s one thing that I too have found, anyone can make it to be a successful commercial pilot with determination to succeed being the trait that is required (oh and maybe a friendly bank manager). A must read.
Robert Coulson
An excellent, enjoyable and inspiring read. As a commercial pilot with more than a few years’ experience under my belt, I was keen to get hold of and read this book as soon as I heard about it. Having now read it I was not disappointed. Approached with an open and honest frame of mind, I would say that most “supposedly” experienced pilots having read this book, will be able to readily identify with at least more than one of the situations described therein. To me it appears to have been written honestly with no secrets held back, from the heart and with a genuine informative and where required instructional manner. The author is evidently an experienced aviator, who has been there, seen it and done it several times over and now has a thoroughly well-deserved T-shirt for having done so. I would recommend this book to anyone who has a keen interest in flying, both inside and outside the aviation industry. Well done.
Doug Knights
