Hard Air: Extreme Flying Adventures - Thrilling Stories from the Edge of Aviation | Perfect for Pilots, Aviation Enthusiasts & Adventure Seekers
Delivery & Return:Free shipping on all orders over $50
Estimated Delivery:7-15 days international
People:26 people viewing this product right now!
Easy Returns:Enjoy hassle-free returns within 30 days!
Payment:Secure checkout
SKU:85374270
Product Description
Hard Air is a book about extraordinary flying—flying under conditions that keep fighters on the carrier deck and rockets on the launch pad—a book about rescue missions and long, lonely flights to gather urgently needed information, about flights to places where no one should be flying: into hurricanes, firestorms, and deep, engine-killing cold. As a pilot himself, W. Scott Olsen brings to these tales a sense of wonder and adventure as well as a genuine, firsthand understanding of the dangers and rigors of such flying. In prose that deftly conveys the grit and grace of his subjects, Olsen transports us into the air with hurricane hunters who fly into the planet’s fiercest storms, with helicopter pilots racing emergency patients to clinics, with Canadian pilots who fly supplies to the Arctic, and with heavy air tanker pilots who drop water and slurry on remote wildfires. Their stories afford a rare look into the working lives of pilots whose methods are extreme and missions are simple: get there, do the job, and get out alive.
Customer Reviews
I love flying. I love reading about flying. So I was excited to start this book. Great concept, great title, great cover. Unfortunately, I have to report I was not so excited by the time I got to the end of the book. It's OK I guess, a worthy attempt by a professor of English (and student pilot) to take a look at adventuresome flying by specialized pilots in extreme conditions. The bulk of the book covers visits to the far Canadian North, the center of a hurricane, a local medical evac unit and a fire-fighting outfit. Great premise. Sadly, for me, it never ignites into anything new or exciting.There is little useful technical detail or interesting background research. (For example in explaining helicopter approaches Olsen states normal angle is 8% and shallow is 3 to 5%. I'll bet the right figures are in degrees not percent.) But that is OK if the human experiences are vivid or real. But they are not. I still don't know what it is really like to fly 'at the edge.' For all the smooth prose, all his wanting to write something powerful, nothing much touched me. I felt that many of the full-time writers at 'Flying' or 'AOPA Pilot' would have done a better job covering this in four seperate workman-like articles. Olsen wastes a lot of words describing his questions rather than exploring the pilot's answers. After several pages of medical evac pilots sitting around a table talking about flying, the beepers go off and a real mission is about to begin. But Olsen writes:Rod hurries through the room and looks at me. Are you coming with us? he asks.Where?Fixed-wing flight. Grand Forks to Rochester, he says.I look at my watch, and think of the obligations at home.I can't I say. And then he's gone.This is what I paid for? Adventures from the Edge of Flying? Or notes about an interview experience that didn't happen? If you are looking for flying adventures let me suggest you search for books by Ernest Gann, or Richard Bach, or Antoine De Saint-Exupéry. You'll get closer to the flying, and closer to a person. Or try Langewiesche or Shul. Sorry to disappoint you if you thought this would be a great book. Maybe for you it will be. But for me the great promise never gelled to anything I'd really recommend.
