These days, flying commercial is like living in Los Angeles.

You know the risks.  Sort of.  You know that L.A. is ground zero for every catastrophe known to man, natural or otherwise:  heretofore unknown faults rupturing while we all await the really Big One; wildfires laying waste entire mountaintops; ensuing mudslides entombing entire communities; 8-lane freeway gridlock; Hollywood; gangs; Antonio Villaragosa; and the odd F1 tornado.  If nothing actually gets you, you acquire a kind of fatalistic pride—I Survived L.A. And All I Got Was This Lousy… whatever.

You also know that, once the doors swing closed, you’ve committed to your next adventure in the pressurized convenience known as air travel.  And like L.A. on its best days, flying is actually a wonderful experience—yes, despite September 11, TSA (which, thanks to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson, I now call Soylent Green) and the total absence of perquisites for anyone flying coach.

Little M, ready for takeoff on the shoulders of United Airlines captain Uncle Mev.

Admittedly, I have a lifelong passion for big air.  Hilltop homes, long views, window seats, views from top floors, roofs and glass elevators.  Being a designer, for me it’s also about beautiful design which all planes are—from the inside out.    Friendly airheaded types have attributed my intuitive ease with altitude to being an Aquarian with Libra moon (two air signs).  Maybe it’s just that I grew up with the DNA advantage of having a glamorous United Airlines captain in the family—my beloved Uncle Mev.
Regardless, all of that is mitigated by my intellectual need to justify woo-woo with hard science.

As a frequent-flying grownup parsing the same scary stories as everyone else I discovered that flying, like living in a disaster zone, is all about inner—as in inside our head—space.  And the most useful tool I’ve discovered to attain the kind of cool fellow passengers pray they’ll sit next to is a remarkable book called  Ask The Pilot: Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel by Patrick Smith (Penguin Books, 2004).

Along with your guardian-angel pendant, emergency Xanax and Bose noise-reducing earphones, Ask the Pilot is a must-have carry-on.  Your curiosity about everything air travel is explained by author Smith—an airline pilot with an “Ask the Pilot” weekly column for Salon, Smith takes us into the cockpit in the same chatty, relaxed voice adopted by every pilot since Chuck Yeager.

With author/pilot Patrick Smith, we don't need Xanax.

From what all those bells mean at certain points in the flight, how pilots are trained, and what goes on in the cockpit to “The Exploding Toilet and Other Embarrassments” and “Turbulence for Tyros: Windshear, Weather and Elements of Unease,” thanks to Ask the Pilot, takeoffs and landings are my favorite parts of the flight, and turbulence are only air bumps that mean, “Cool—we know we’re really flying.”

And I don’t give any more energy to risk than I do the chances of an F1 tornado hitting Hollywood Boulevard.  Okay, maybe it’s just me, but I’ve come to appreciate, and love, flying so much I honestly hate to land.

Spend about 10 bucks, Ask the Pilot—and unfasten your seat belt.