Mark Vanhoenacker always wanted to be a pilot. After a few years working in the business world, he decided that he would fulfill his childhood dream. He went to flight school and then began piloting a British Airways Airbus before moving up to the Boeing 747. Skyfaring is his maiden effort as a writer, and if he flies as well as he writes, he's a darn good pilot.
His book is divided into nine sections, each a short essay, beginning with "Lift" and ending with "Return." Taking off is his favorite part of a flight. As the lights begin alternating to indicate the approaching end of the runway, "four rivers of power" create nearly a quarter of a million pounds of thrust as they leave land behind and enter the sky. Soon they are traveling at about one mile every seven seconds.
In "Place," he ruminates over the concept of place-lag: "our jet-age displacements over every kind of distance" result in "the inability of our deep old sense of place to keep up with our airplanes." In "Machine," he writes about regaining control of the plane after the autopilot has been shut off. To turn the control column and "watch the horizon tilt like a two-dimensional game board... lifting, banking in response to my hands, is a feeling like nothing else."
Vanhoenacker demystifies the complexities of flight and engages readers with his wit, knowledge and excitement for his profession--a modern farer of the skies. He is the perfect guide, and his book is sure to be a bestseller in airport bookstores all over the world. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher