Paragliding has been designed specifically to take a novice glider and turn him or her into a competent and confident cross-country performer. It is a unique text, providing for the first time comprehensive information on thermalling, instrumentation, and tandem flying. Other topics include theory of gliding; practical instruction of basic, intermediate and advanced techniques; instruction on flying cross-country in the UK; and advice on equipment and air law.

The Parachute and Its Pilot is the singular resource for canopy flight information. Whether you’re a new jumper looking to further your education or an expert canopy pilot seeking tips on advancing your techniques, this book has something for you. The book is jam-packed with information compiled over twenty years of skydiving experience and offers technical, straightforward explanations of ram air parachute flight. Written by one of the industry's leading parachute designers, The Parachute and Its Pilot is a must-have handbook for every skydiver.

Paragliding is the essential guide to this fast-growing, thrilling sport, taking the reader from an introduction to the basic techniques, through the rules of the sport and the equipment necessary for the ultimate experience of 'flying.'

When Amelia Earhart disappeared on July 2, 1937, she was flying the longest leg of her around-the-world flight and was only days away from completing her journey. Her plane was never found, and for more than sixty years rumors have persisted about what happened to her. Now, with the recent discovery of long-lost radio messages from Earhart's final flight, we can say with confidence that she ran out of gas just short of her destination of Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. From the beginning of her flight, a series of tragic circumstances all but doomed her and her navigator, Fred Noonan. Authors Elgen M. and Marie K. Long spent more than twenty-five years researching the mystery surrounding Earhart's final flight before finally determining what happened. They traveled over one hundred thousand miles to interview more than one hundred people who knew some part of the Earhart story. They draw on authoritative sources to take us inside the cockpit of the Electra plane that Earhart flew and recreate the final flight itself. Because Elgen Long began his own flying career not long after Earhart's disappearance, he can describe the equipment and conditions of the time with a vivid first-hand accuracy. As a result, this book brings to life the primitive conditions under which Earhart flew, in an era before radar, with unreliable communications, grass landing strips, and poorly mapped islands. Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved does more than just answer the question, What happened to Amelia Earhart? It reminds us how daring early aviators such as Earhart were as they risked their lives to push the technology of the day to its limits -- and beyond.

A quantitative introduction to atmospheric science for students and professionals who want to understand and apply basic meteorological concepts but who are not ready for calculus.

Thoroughly revised and up-dated edition of a highly successful textbook.

Building on the tradition of Little Bee, Chris Cleave again writes with elegance, humor, and passion about friendship, marriage, parenthood, tragedy, and redemption. What would you sacrifice for the people you love? KATE AND ZOE met at nineteen when they both made the cut for the national training program in track cycling—a sport that demands intense focus, blinding exertion, and unwavering commitment. They are built to exploit the barest physical and psychological edge over equally skilled rivals, all of whom are fighting for the last one tenth of a second that separates triumph from despair. Now at thirty-two, the women are facing their last and biggest race: the 2012 Olympics. Each wants desperately to win gold, and each has more than a medal to lose. Kate is the more naturally gifted, but the demands of her life have a tendency to slow her down. Her eight-year-old daughter Sophie dreams of the Death Star and of battling alongside the Rebels as evil white blood cells ravage her personal galaxy—she is fighting a recurrence of the leukemia that nearly killed her three years ago. Sophie doesn’t want to stand in the way of her mum’s Olympic dreams, but each day the dark forces of the universe seem to be massing against her. Devoted and self-sacrificing Kate knows her daughter is fragile, but at the height of her last frenzied months of training, might she be blind to the most terrible prognosis? Intense, aloof Zoe has always hovered on the periphery of real human companionship, and her compulsive need to win at any cost has more than once threatened her friendship with Kate—and her own sanity. Will she allow her obsession, and the advantage she has over a harried, anguished mother, to sever the bond they have shared for more than a decade? Echoing the adrenaline-fueled rush of a race around the Velodrome track, Gold is a triumph of superbly paced, heart-in-throat storytelling. With great humanity and glorious prose, Chris Cleave examines the values that lie at the heart of our most intimate relationships, and the choices we make when lives are at stake and everything is on the line.

Kerry McCauley has the job most pilots only dream of; delivering small used aircraft to locations around the world. In his 30 years an international ferry pilot, Kerry has delivered almost every kind of airplane you can name to almost every location you can think of. In his long career Kerry battled fuel system malfunctions over the Atlantic, a total electrical failure at night over the Sahara, getting lost over Africa and being struck by lightning off the coast of Portugal. Kerry's almost insatiable, reckless quest for danger and adventure also led to putting international smuggler and bank robber on his resume. Kerry found the answer to the question "what could possibly go wrong?" time and time again. But his skill, ingenuity and luck were what allowed him to survive the countless mishaps, catastrophes and close calls including a nearly fatal plane crash. While "Ferry Pilot" is an account of one man's crazy thirst for thrills and adventure, his coming to grips with the dangerous nature of his career and just how much he wants to test the depth of his luck bag. It's also a portrait of the perseverance and bravery of a devoted family man who lost many close friends and his first wife to the dangerous skies.