A readable and comprehensive guide to flying high as an airline pilot.
Swindell, Witvliet, and Ross present a guide to working as a pilot in the airline industry.
In this illustrated manual, the authors (all airline pilots “from both military and civilian backgrounds…with extensive experience in airline recruiting, training and union representation”) provide an overview of every aspect of the industry for readers who are thinking about joining their profession. They describe the various commercial airlines, airline alliances, regional carriers, cargo carriers, and private services, and they break down all the components of those entities under the Federal Aviation Regulations. They discuss workplace realities such as seniority, stating simply that “everything in your airline career is a function of seniority” while warning that this status is strictly service-specific: Starting over in a new part of the industry wipes the slate clean. The authors share tips on aspects of the business such as the relationship between pilots and flight attendants (FAs): “Should [FAs] call up [the cabin] during the flight with an issue, actively listen and help them solve the problem,” they write. “FAs do not typically call the pilots lightly.” The authors cover every element of getting hired and advancing in a pilot’s career, from researching different airlines to crafting a resume and cover letter to navigating interviews, and they elaborate on personal aspects of the job, including methods for getting enough sleep or the various ways in which pilots can fly as passengers cheaply or for free. At every heading, the authors use a variety of visual aids—charts, graphs, insets, bullet points, and illustrations—very effectively to clarify the details of the world a would-be pilot might enter. Their tone throughout is brisk and accessible—the entire book feels like an extended version of the polite-but-professional flight briefing pilots give to their crews before every takeoff. Prospective pilots will find this detailed career advice from three seasoned pros invaluable.
A readable and comprehensive guide to flying high as an airline pilot.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2021
ISBN: 9798985684506
Page Count: 342
Publisher: VATH Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.
Helbig and Norman present a game plan for making leadership more responsively human.
In this expanded update to The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human (2023), the authors provide “practical strategies for responding to resistance, sparking change, embodying the change we want to see, and moving forward deliberately,” specifically in a business setting. They suggest ways to encourage what they call “changemakers” through the use of five key “plays” from their playbook: Communicate Courageously, Master the Art of Listening, Manage Your Reactions (“shift from automatic reaction to conscious response to stay better connected to yourself and others”), Embrace Risk and Failure, and Design Inclusive Rituals. The goal is to ensure that organizational cultures promote psychological safety, guided by leaders who “walk the talk” by emphasizing their own humanity at every turn. (“We must be the first to share our own failures with our teams, which will start to make it possible for others to do the same.”) This call for example-setting is sounded throughout the book as Helbig and Norman urge their target audience (leaders and would-be leaders) to go beyond mere instruction and instead embody the qualities they want to see in their subordinates, such as continuous learning, active curiosity, and self-reflection. Each chapter includes a detailed “Recommended Reading” section and text with extensive numbered and bulleted points formatted to make the core concepts more immediately digestible. The authors effectively employ clear and empathetic prose to assure readers that psychological safety is slow to build and quick to break, observing that such safety requires steady attention and delivers outsize payoffs as a result. They refreshingly ground a great deal of the material in psychology and neuroscience, pointing out, for instance, that research has demonstrated that the parasympathetic nervous system responds to honest appreciation, which improves creative thinking. Some wistful readers might consider some of the authors’ suggestions beyond the reach of their own organizations, as when group facilitators are advised to “gently intervene when someone dominates the conversation,” but hope springs eternal.
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9798993550503
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Crazy Idea Press
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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