Cockpit Confidential cover art

Cockpit Confidential

Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel: Questions, Answers, and Reflections

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Cockpit Confidential

By: Patrick Smith
Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
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About this listen

For millions of people, travel by air is a confounding, uncomfortable, and even fearful experience. Patrick Smith, airline pilot and author of the web's popular "Ask the Pilot" feature, separates fact from fallacy and tells you everything you need to know:

  • How planes fly, and a revealing look at the men and women who fly them
  • Straight talk on turbulence, pilot training, and safety
  • The real story on congestion, delays, and the dysfunction of the modern airport
  • The myths and misconceptions of cabin air and cockpit automation
  • Terrorism in perspective, and a provocative look at security
  • Airfares, seating woes, and the pitfalls of airline customer service

Cockpit Confidential covers not only the nuts and bolts of flying but also the grand theater of air travel, from airport architecture to inflight service to the excitement of travel abroad. It's a thoughtful, funny, at times deeply personal look into the strange and misunderstood world of commercial flying.

©2013 Patrick Smith (P)2016 Tantor Anxiety Disorders Engineering Mental Health Personal Development Psychology & Mental Health Travel Writing & Commentary Health Aviation Funny

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Critic reviews

"Smith paints an unflinching portrait of modern air travel with several fresh and unexpected insights." ( Publishers Weekly)
All stars
Most relevant  
Super duper dooo! I love airplanes and I can also tell the difference between the 727-100 and the 727-200. One problem: the A380 is not ugly.

It's good. like Really Good

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I chose this title after enjoying;

"Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot" by Mark Vanhoenacker (highly recommended!).

Cockpit Confidential has so much information packed into it.
I can't think of anything the author hasn't covered.
For anyone interested in commercial aviation, this book is for them.

Patrick Smith is clearly a Boeing fan.
This is clear when he compares the 747 with the Airbus A380.
Having flown several times on both aircraft types, I much prefer the A380!
They are both wonders of engineering however.

The narrator, Charlie Thurston does a great job too, making this a very enjoyable audio book.

Excellent, fact-packed book.

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As someone who both loves and loathes flying, (always a slightly nervous passenger) I really enjoyed Patrick Smiths explanations and stories that run the whole gamut of aviation, from a commercial pilot’s perspective. Also Charlie Thurston’s narration had me wondering was his the voice on Baz Luhrmann’s hit ‘Sunscreen? Would recommend.

Loved it.

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Overall too world weary for me. The book delves into the nuts and bolts of commercial aircraft and the airline industry and offers a lot of information and insight. But it's too negative too be an enjoyable listen on the whole and gets borderline conspiracy theorist when it comes to airport security. It is genuinely funny now and then and there is the relief of the odd anecdote but not enough to carry you through the dark clouds. The narration is a bit flat which doesn't help.

Woe is me, says the airline pilot.

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Answering most common questions I always wanted to ask. Interesting stuff and Beautifully narrated using different accents.

Witty and informative

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Great fantastic book interesting helps with fear of flying and clears up the miss understood airline industry

Great interesting book.<br />

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Loved it, excellent i would reccommend giving this a try , again brilliant book thank u

Magic!!

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I did not enjoy the narration, it felt over the top and he sounded like a smart-a** who was being sarcastic all the time. If I see this narrator in future, I won’t be purchasing. The book itself felt forced in terms of trying to be funny and also felt like topics did not flow very well. The idea of going with questions really broke the flow for me. Shame as I love all things aviation and was looking forward to this!

Disappointing...

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Not for me interesting to begin with but spent a lot of time comparing and complain about US air services that's when I switched off. For someone in the industry or even just in the USA I'd imagine it would be a good listen...

Not for me but interesting in part.

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I was learning so much helpful stuff until I got to the chapter where he lists all the plane crashes. I’m not sure what the point is of this, he certainly doesn’t follow it up with a reassuring payoff. A future chapter does cover the stats of flying but I was left with more anxiety of things I’d never considered. As if this wasn’t enough there was a chapter with “The worst plane disasters ever” which was described as “tastefully edited” But I’ll never know, because I put the book down then, never to return.
I think the early chapters have some interesting information and I’m fine with the performance, but I’ve left the book feeling anxious about new things now.

It was all going so well…

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