Skyfaring: A Journey With a Pilot (42 page)

While I am grateful for the assistance of friends, colleagues, and experts, any remaining errors are, of course, my own.

In addition to the pilot colleagues and trainers I consulted and the manuals, training materials, and charts to which I am grateful I had access, I relied on several other written sources.
The Airplane in American Culture
(edited by Dominick A. Pisano) and Joseph Sutter’s
747: Creating the World’s First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures from a Life in Aviation
were both fascinating and useful. Two textbooks of the American Meteorological Society,
Ocean Studies: Introduction to Oceanography
(3rd edition) and
Weather Studies: Introduction to Atmospheric Science
(5th edition), were helpful in writing the “Water” and “Air” chapters. The well-named
An Ocean of Air
by Gabrielle Walker was both captivating and instructive.
Introduction to Avionics Systems
(3rd edition) by R. P. G. Collinson was a resource for various sections. John Huth’s
The Lost Art of Finding Our Way
was an excellent and helpful survey of the history and future of navigation.

It has been a great pleasure over the last eighteen months to walk into offices filled with books and those who love them. I am grateful to my agent, Caroline Michel, for reaching out to me and for all her subsequent support and encouragement, and that of her kind colleagues. My editors, Clara Farmer and Susannah Otter at Chatto & Windus, and Dan Frank and Betsy Sallee at Knopf, and their colleagues on both sides of the ocean, particularly Maggie Southard, Sara Eagle, Gabrielle Brooks, Lisa Gooding, and Vicki Watson offered clear-eyed, patient, and warm-hearted guidance and support throughout this project.

Finally, I’d like to express my thanks to my family and friends for their love and support throughout this project and for getting me away from it from time to time. Thanks to Kirun for understanding about music and the window seats of all sorts of vehicles; to Nancy, for her love and support throughout the years and for always encouraging my interest in flying; and to Mark, for everything. Silas, Anjali (who reminded me about the one ocean), and Lola—I hope that someday you can visit the cockpit during a flight, as kids could in the old days.

Permissions Acknowledgments

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency, Inc.: Excerpt from
The Artist’s Voice: Talks with Seventeen Modern Artists
by Katharine Kuh, copyright © 1960, 1961, 1962 by Katharine Kuh, copyright renewed 1988, 1990 by Katharine Kuh. Reprinted by permission of the Ann Rittenberg Literary Agency, Inc., on behalf of Avis Berman, Literary Executor of the Estate of Katherine Kuh.

Curtis Brown, Ltd.: Excerpt from “Folklore of the Air” by William Faulkner (
The American Mercury,
November 1935). Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC: Excerpt from
Gilead: A Novel
by Marilynne Robinson, copyright © 2004 by Marilynne Robinson; excerpt from “Part I” from “Midsummer” from
The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948-2014
by Derek Walcott, selected by Glyn Maxwell, copyright © 2014 by Derek Walcott. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd: Excerpt from
Congo: The Epic History of a People
by David van Reybrouck, translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett, copyright © 2014 by David Van Reybrouck, translation copyright © 2013 by Sam Garrett; excerpt from
Stuart Little
by E. B. White, copyright © 1945 by E. B. White, copyright renewed 1973 by E. B. White. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

Henry Holt and Company, LLC: Excerpt from “Kitty Hawk” from
The Poetry of Robert Frost
edited by Edward Connery Lathem, copyright © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, copyright © 1956, 1962 by Robert Frost. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company LLC.

Janklow & Nesbit Associates: Excerpt from
The Year of Magical Thinking
by Joan Didion. Reprinted by permission of Joan Didion c/o Janklow & Nesbit Associates.

Mark Whyles Management Ltd: Excerpt from “Salters Road” by Karine Polwart. Reprinted by permission of Karine Polwart c/o Mark Whyles Management Ltd.

Penguin Random House: Excerpt from “The Poem of Flight” from
New Selected Poems
by Philip Levine, copyright © 1991 by Philip Levine; excerpt from
Travels With Charley
by John Steinbeck (Penguin Books, 1992), copyright © 1961, 1962 by The Curtis Publishing Company Inc., copyright © 1962 by John Steinbeck, copyright renewed 1989, 1990 by Elaine Steinbeck, Thom Steinbeck and John Steinbeck IV. Reprinted by permission of Penguin Random House LLC.

Rungstedlund Foundation: Excerpts from
Out of Africa
by Isak Dinesen. Reprinted by permission of the Rungstedlund Foundation.

A Note About the Author

Mark Vanhoenacker is a pilot and writer. A regular contributor to
The New York Times
and a columnist for
Slate,
he has also written for
Wired,
the
Financial Times,
the
Los Angeles Times,
and
The Independent.
Born in Massachusetts, he trained as a historian and worked as a management consultant before starting his flight training in Britain in 2001. His airline career began in 2003. He now flies the Boeing 747 from London to major cities around the world.