• Cockpit Confidential

  • Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel: Questions, Answers, and Reflections
  • By: Patrick Smith
  • Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
  • Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (214 ratings)

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Cockpit Confidential  By  cover art

Cockpit Confidential

By: Patrick Smith
Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
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Publisher's summary

For millions of people, travel by air is a confounding, uncomfortable, and even fearful experience. Patrick Smith, airline pilot and author of the web's popular "Ask the Pilot" feature, separates fact from fallacy and tells you everything you need to know:

  • How planes fly, and a revealing look at the men and women who fly them
  • Straight talk on turbulence, pilot training, and safety
  • The real story on congestion, delays, and the dysfunction of the modern airport
  • The myths and misconceptions of cabin air and cockpit automation
  • Terrorism in perspective, and a provocative look at security
  • Airfares, seating woes, and the pitfalls of airline customer service

Cockpit Confidential covers not only the nuts and bolts of flying but also the grand theater of air travel, from airport architecture to inflight service to the excitement of travel abroad. It's a thoughtful, funny, at times deeply personal look into the strange and misunderstood world of commercial flying.

©2013 Patrick Smith (P)2016 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Smith paints an unflinching portrait of modern air travel with several fresh and unexpected insights." ( Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about Cockpit Confidential

Average customer ratings
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  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

A good premise

Like rubbing a cheese grater across a sunburn, in which you gradually extract a few flakes of gold. And resembling more a collection of notes for a book, than an actual polished final product.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

A lot more opinion than information.

More one man's thoughts and perspectives on air travel, rather than lots of juicy and revealing facts and information as the title and blurb suggest.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Kudos From one Aviation Professional to Another

I have been in aviation in one capacity or another for over 30 years. While not a pilot, rather I fly a desk, I know quite a bit about this wonderful industry. I purchased this book as I enjoy anything and everything there is to know about airlines and airplanes. The author and narrator truly made this a great read/listen.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Very Interesting

What made the experience of listening to Cockpit Confidential the most enjoyable?

Great insight from a seasoned pro

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

It gets a little tedious at times, like when he lists historic events. But many readers will appreciate this.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Bored within an hour

I love to travel and hoped to learn some interesting information. The book put me to sleep every time.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

My new favorite book

This book was really impressive. As an aviation professional, student and fan I can say this book occupies my no.1 favorite aviation book. This book goes into explaining every detail from a need to know basis for a regular person who is probably not as familiar with aviation. If you know nothing of aviation this book will end having feel smarter about the subject. It’s interesting how the author takes the time to explain briefly aviation history and mention accidents have long been forgotten by the general public. The book ends with a vocabulary to get familiar with common words heard at the airport/plane. I will definitely be coming back to listen to it. I have not heard an aviation book as chronologically complete as this one.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
  • PL
  • 01-25-23

Yikes

Yikes, this is boring, and the person reading the book is awful. I will look elsewhere.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Informational

This book is full of information if you are curious about the air industry. Not extremely technical but technical enough to get the point across. I learned a lot by listening to it and can't wait to fly the friendly skies again!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

aviation for non aviation people

brilliant balance between interesting, technical and entertaining content in the form of easy to follow question and answers as it would've been asked (and probably have been) to the author over his career as an airline pilot.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

great listen very informative

after flying back and forth from Iraq several times I became quite educated on long distance flying. this gave me some good background information on flying.

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