An autobiography of a young impertinent FAA controller in the seventies culminating in the PATCO strike of 1981, and his subsequent adventures and exploits in aviation through the years. An entrepreneur, educator, author, radio talk show host, motivational speaker, master of ceremonies, aircraft builder, risk-taker and air race pilot, world record holder, corporate pilot, and airline instructor are just some of his unique accomplishments. With his involvement with Bill Phelps’ Airline Ground Schools as an instructor and later as president, Dan lead a premier cadre of retired airline captains responsible for the worldwide training of more than 59,000 pilots and aircraft dispatchers. His innovations in aviation education and training materials are admired by many. Danny earned the moniker Mr. Lucky after walking away from a 200 mph crash at the National Championship Air Races in Reno, Nevada, in 1983. His miraculous survival is attributed to the structural integrity of his Burt Rutan-designed AMSOIL Racer and the stronger-than-steel composite materials used in its construction. In 1990, he won the Gold at Reno and retired from pylon air racing after fifteen years of competition. Two of his race planes now hang in museums. Now retired, Danny reflects on his challenges, accomplishments, and some funny stories along the way.

With his Vietnam draft notice arriving any day, Jess Harper joins the US Navy, only to see the peace talks signed soon thereafter. Air traffic control becomes the anchor that holds him true to course throughout a twenty-year career and thereafter. The harrowing air traffic control situations and life beyond ATC create his story. Both an east and west coast sailor, exploits begin in Orlando boot camp to Glynco, Georgia, for training. Life for this sailor travels on to Lemoore, California, Cubi Point, Philippines, New Orleans, USS Forrestal, Corpus Christi, Texas, Iraq-Kuwait border, and Troutdale, Oregon. Rule 1: Never let them take your independence.

From a former commercial airline pilot and British Airways captain, a memoir about life in the cockpit, offering insider information about flight safety. How do you know if the airline you are planning to fly with is safe? What should you be worried about? Is it, Turbulence, lightning or that the pilots might be asleep while the aircraft flies on, on autopilot? Does a pilot’s life conform to the cliché; a life of foreign adventure with off duty hours spent by the pool in some tropical paradise surrounded by attractive members of the opposite sex? Or is it a life of commercial pressure to cut corners to keep the show on the road irrespective of the rules? Is it true that pilots have to jack up a seventy-ton aircraft themselves and change a wheel when they get a puncture? Ever wonder what really happened during the Concorde’s only crash? This and other mysteries of flight travel are analyzed by a twenty-year airline industry veteran and presented in a highly readable form. Terry Tozer gives readers cockpit view of a series of real flights. Some result in accidents and incidents that demonstrate what the priorities for good safety are. Others are experiences from the author’s own flying career in both passenger airline flying to long haul cargo, with its hidden world of global commerce, military operations and more. Finally, Tozer offers a suggestion that helps passengers easily choose safe airlines. Confessions of an Airline Pilot is an engrossing read from an industry insider, perfect for aviation buffs and anyone hoping to understand the real calculations that contribute to aviation safety.

Ever wonder what it takes to become an air traffi c controller? Or how controllers make the whole complex system work? Life With a View is a memoir written by a former controller who uncovers all the secrets. Follow the author and get a look through the tower windows and behind the radar room doors. Robin Smith offers his unique translation of the second language learned and perfected by air traffic controllers and pilotsand no one else. He expounds on the humor controllers use to check emotions and conflicts and prevent the wheels from coming off. The author gives his readers an insiders look into a very small community comprised of dedicated professionals who chose a career field that is challenging in many ways. The complexity of this job is compounded exponentially when a controller is scheduled to work weekends, mid-watches, and holidayssometimes all in the same week.

A powerful, rare and original look into the important world of a Chicago O'Hare air traffic controller. Secrets from the Tower is a terrific, thrilling, well-written, funny read, for its fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of an air traffic control tower, and will be enjoyable for anyone who's ever traveled by air. It's entertaining for its anecdotes, informative about air traffic, and also poignant, in terms of the life lessons the book delivers, and its tales of love and loss. Author Bob Richards gives the reader an inside look at the life of an air traffic controller at one of the world's busiest airports.

Ever since Rose became an air traffic controller in 1983 people meeting her immediately comment about how stressful her job is. But is it the job? Is it being a woman in a mostly male profession? Rose's memoir STRESS is Relative follows her career in ATC from the time she first heard about this challenging and lucrative job to the day she retired. Along the way readers get insights into the mysterious world of Air Traffic Control, and how attitudes towards women evolved over time. So how did she come to work in this challenging profession? In 1981 President Ronald Reagan fired 11,359 striking Air Traffic Controllers. It took 10 years to rebuild the workforce. The strike affected all levels of aviation and offered employment opportunities to many who had never before considered this as a profession. A struggling young single mother of two little girls, Rose Marie heard a report on the late night news about the strike and the government's ongoing efforts to rebuild. With no background in aviation she took a chance and entered a whole new world. Now one of the best known aviation authors in the U.S., Rose's experiences as she faced challenges both in the job and in the attitudes of an entrenched mostly male workforce in the 1980's makes for a story that is inspiring and amusing. In his review of the book, the editor of Fly-Low Magazine noted the book "shows the other side of ATC like no other person has." He goes on to say "This book would make a great movie!". Rose Marie Kern has worked in all three divisions of Air Traffic Control. She has won three national awards for her work with pilots and aviation computer engineers. She writes monthly columns for seven aviation publications. A member of the FAA Safety team, Rose Marie is a popular speaker for aviation groups nationwide. www.rosemariekern.com

This book is about aviation history, the pilot, and behind the scenes of the air traffic controller. It starts with the Wright brothers and covers the early days of the airplane manufacturers, airplanes, the beginning of airmail and air traffic control, pilot hero's during war, test pilots, the jet age, X (experimental) airplanes, the century series jets, and the first jet airlines, and into outer space. I write about my air force service, 1955-1959, working in the control tower at Edwards AFB, then with the FAA, working in the towers at Indianapolis, Lansing, Kansas City International, Dallas/ Fort Worth (DFW), the FAA Headquarters in DC and returned to DFW. After retirement, I was a contractor supporting the FAA needs. I worked at the FAA headquarters and I supported the air traffic control Futuristic Branch.

P.A.T.C.O. AND REAGAN: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY - The Air Traffic Controllers' Strike of 1981 - documents those ominous days leading up to, including, and after the fateful strike and consequent firing of over 11,000 federal employees by the President of the United States in August, 1981. Relying on primary White House research materials available in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library archives, the book concludes that both the strike and the dismissal were not only predictable, but inescapable scenarios, given the resolute and tenacious personalities of the leaders involved. It discusses in length, the compounding effects that the strike had on its members, society at large, and the White House. P.A.T.C.O. AND REAGAN explores the motivations behind the strikers' controversial actions and the corresponding rationales of their opponents, which included just about everybody else. It highlights the heightened emotions that fueled the union's expectations before the strike and drove its fervent quest for redemption after the strike. The union's inability to comprehend how the strike would be perceived ultimately doomed its efforts and condemned it to a collision course with the Reagan Administration, the general public, and even its own membership . As a consequence, organized labor in the United States would never be the same.

*THIS IS THE REPUBLISHED VERSION. THE ORIGINAL VERSION WAS PUBLISHED IN 1980. THIS VERSION DOES NOT CONTAIN NEW OR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. When was the last time you heard the name Air Traffic Controller? Most likely it was to berate him because his job action caused you to miss an important meeting. You may have been caught in a "by the book" slow down. Perhaps you spent an extra hour flying in endless circles awaiting clearance to land. There are far more to these delays than meets the eye. When negotiations between controller and government grind to a halt there is little that a controller can do. He is forbidden by law to strike. His only recourse is to slow the traffic. This they occasionally do in order to get better equipment, working conditions, and pay. This book, written by an active airline captain, will take you behind the scenes in the life of an air traffic controller. A person who guides the destiny of more people in one hour than an airline pilot does in a month, a person who controls all the departures and arrivals out of the three busiest airports in New York and does it with radar that isn't half as reliable as the radar used in a small country airport, a person who must think in three dimensions and be ready when their scope goes blank to remember name, position, heading and altitude of 18 aircrafts, a person who can never be allowed the luxury of a single mistake, a person who would rather control traffic than do anything else, in spite of the fears and anxieties that it entails. Hopefully after reading this book you will agree that all the glory and skill should not be confined to the cockpit, but shared equally by the men and women whose skill make a faulty system work. ********** "Captain Brian Power-Waters is intimately knowledgeable concerning the air traffic control system. As an airline captain, he brings the knowledge associated with his twenty-six years as a line pilot. Coupled with his close relationship with air traffic controllers for over twenty years, he is acutely aware of and acquainted with the problems of both professions. Captain Power-Waters provides us with a first time insight into the workings of the air traffic controller profession. The challenges and the many problems encountered in the current air traffic control system." John F.Leyden, President, Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization ********** "A fascinating--and sometimes hair raising--account of how the air traffic control system really works and what can be done to improve the situation. As an experienced airline pilot, Captain Power-Waters knows what he is talking about and lays the facts before the public. Anyone who travels by air should read this book." Con Hitchcock, Director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project and Aide to Ralph Nader Margin for Error was originally published in 1980, there are no new updates in this version.