Transportation Books

I am a soldier who is looking into becoming a pilot when I get out. I do not know anything about the professional piloting industry, so I decided this book would be a good place to start, and it was a great choice. It gives very deep insight into every type of professional piloting out there, including regional, national, and international airline piloting, as well as corporate/business piloting, fractional and charter piloting, and contract piloting. The author has sections devoted to these different categories and there are many interviews with pilots in each of the categories, as well as insight into the top companies and corporations in each. There is also a chapter devoted to choosing the right flight school and a chapter on how to conduct interviews once you are qualified, and more. The only bad thing about this book is that there are some parts that get into all the technical pilot lingo that a newbie like me does not understand, but that will come with the education, and then I can read the book again, too easy. I highly recommend this book to any individual who wants to get paid to fly.

Purchased this for a young man planning to apply for a pilots job, and he told me it was very helpful.

This is a must have book for any future commercial pilots. The writing style has something to be desired, but he gets his points across.

It's a truth that most every young person's interest in aviation will lead them to consider flying as a career. Rob encapsulates for them the essence of how to get started on the path to a professional pilot career. While there are a lot of books on the subject, the Professional Pilot's Career Guide not only manages to cover just about every variation of how one can get paid to fly, but also gives them a dose of reality about the good, the bad, and the ugly (including the "Order of the Sleepless Knights" aka Freight Dogs). What really makes Rob's book interesting and readable is the sidebar slice-of-life stories about real people "living the dream". My opinion is that this book belongs on the shelf of every high school library in the country.

The Professional Pilots' Career Guide is not just for wanna-be's and newbies. There is a lot of valuable information for those who maybe considering shifting career gears by branching off into a different flying job. The book also includes a section on the do's and don'ts of interviewing for the job and on resources available on the Internet.

Anyone interested in getting started (or moving up) in their professional pilot career should consider reading this book to get the edge on their competition.

I was a fighter pilot in the USAF,USAirways captain for 28 years, and have written 5 books on airline safety. Since I have been flying for over 70 years, I thought I knew something about aviation , this book proved me wrong. First I want to congratulate Robert Mark on the fact that he was an Air Traffic Controller for 10 years, that got my attention quickly. Rob has over 6,000 hours in the air and has produced a remarkable book.

If you want a job as a pilot, don't know whether to try for a small or large carrier - Wonder about prerequisites to fly airlines, wonder about pay scales on small or large carriers --- Its In There
Wonder about how to look and act at a job interview - Important websites for pilots--Its In There.

I only wish that I had read this book before I applied for my first flying job, it would have helped me to find the proper track, and follow it.

A well written book, BUT, many of the halftone pictures (photographs) too small,light, or busy to be useful. The author could probably delete the engine and transmission overhaul information as I doubt that many home repair mechanics will attempt these procedures. It does give enough information to identify those jobs best given to a specialty shop or dealer. Worth the $30 cost but not much more.

This book came highly recommended; it was a great buy, arrived quickly and in great condition; I'm very pleased

I do a lot of DIY maintenance and repairs. I recently purchased a 2000 Mazda Miata along with the model-specific Factory Workshop Manual. While Grainger's ...1.8: Enthusiasts Workshop Manual is intended for the earlier model, pre-1999, most of the guidance can be applied to the 1999-2000 with patience and ingenuity. I found that this manual, when combined with the Mazda Factory Workshop Manual and online resources, provide complete guidance for most tasks including major service. I particularly liked that Grainger included personal insight and tips & tricks that are helpful to a non-professional mechanic. The only issues I have with the Manual's presentation is that the small text is hard to read and the photos are small and some lack clarity. The last issue, which is not totally objectionable, is that the Manual is written with the "right and left" references from the perspective of someone standing behind the car looking forward (this takes some getting used to) - I took a red marker and wrote "left & right" to clarify these references. I would recommend this manual to any Miata owner that does his/her own work.

If you have a Mazda Miata with a 1.8L motor and you plan to work on the car yourself this book is a must have and priceless. Let me tell you how this book helped me. I'm a 51-year-old parts changer. I do the basics Brakes, Exhaust, Tune Ups, Water Pumps. I needed to change the water pump in the Miata. Lucky for me I had this book. Changing the water pump involved removing the timing belt and pulleys, which I've never done before. When I got to the point where I realized that this is not a basic water pump job I took out the book. The book walked me through the job with informative step-by-step text and photos. I'm happy to say the car started right up and is running better than ever. I'm now so confident with the technical support I receive from this book that I would not hesitate to tackle any job on this car. This book covers it all.

As a management consultant doing his first project in the Airline industry I researched some books with the objective of finding one that not only could give me a good business overview but that also covered some specific topics in which I was interested (e.g., Revenue Management and Distribution Channels).
The book does a good job providing the overall picture of the business industry, always giving concrete and interesting examples of what is happening in the market. The book is well structured and covers the basic necessary topics in airline management.
The book does not however go into a deep level of detail in each of the topics, and sometimes the author doesn't follow a very clear and sharp storyline. As the book doesn't go too deep on each topic, after some months working in the industry, a person will be familiar with most of what the book talks about.
The conclusion is that the book serves well for a person initiating in this industry and that needs a broad understanding on a set of different topics without going into much unecessary detail. This is exactly its purpose.

Airline Marketing and Management is a fascinating book about modern marketing and management in airlines. It approaches this interesting subject in a practical and easy-to-follow way. The airline business has many unique features that Stephen Shaw expertly managed to blend with the basic theory and concepts of marketing. This makes the book an excellent introduction to the field of airline marketing and management.

The reader is introduced to the principles of marketing and their practical application in the current highly dynamic and competitive airline environment. Among the important areas I enjoyed the most are product strategies, pricing, distribution and promotion in the industry, regulatory developments, the implications of low cost carriers to the industry and strategic alliances.

As a player in the airline industry, I am now knowledgeable about building and managing profitable customer relationships, how to study customer needs and wants, selecting target markets, how to attract, retain and grow customers by providing superior value and satisfaction. I highly recommend this book to those wishing to gain a basic understanding of the airline industry.

I just finished reading the 5th edition. I would recommend this book ONLY to those individuals who have zero concept of the airline industry or who have never taken a basic marketing course. Otherwise this book will be a tedious and boring read, exacerbated by the endless typos and horrible writing style and sentence structure. Much of what is written is commonsense and one is often left thinking "no s**t." For those who seek a more academic analysis or more advanced treatment of the subject, I would recommend looking at stuff by Doganis or Holloway.

The Fourth Edition is an updated and important text for people with whom need basic principles in marketing and management explained as it applies to the airline industry.

Airline Marketing and Management is a gem because it carefully breaks down major marketing and promotion concepts all the way down to smaller segments with great examples.

This book is a classic. Readers will get an indepth understanding of aviation and, surprisingly, why the airline industry is still in shambles today. It covers the intricacies of product design and development, pricing and revenue management, pricing and revenue management, distribution channels, and selling and advertising policies.

Many of the "tried and proven time after time" principles are, for the most part, still ignored by airline managers today. The author is diligent in his effort to examine "time-proven principles."

This is a marketing book about the fundamentals. Can't move on until you got them down!

This book describes the principles of marketing in the airline industry from basic strategy, pricing, CRM, distribution to brands and advertisement. Shaw concentrates on the general principles of the airline industry. The author's approach is formal, he discusses each marketing task chapter by chapter, but his writing style is engaging and it is always interesting - at least for people who are not insiders. This approach has many advantages. Its formal structure makes it easy for the novice reader to navigate through the book and recall what one has learned. The writing is concise and theoretically sound. This book presents no anecdotes and irrelevant story telling, no exceptional success stories or failures that cannot be generalized. For instance, he describes Southwest Airlines as a very successful low cost strategy that has been successfully copied throughout the world by other low cost airlines. This strategy works because of the cost characteristics, the barriers to entry in the airline industry and the problems of traditional national carriers to copy a similar strategy. Other more idiosyncratic characteristics of Southwest (`relational coordination') are omitted here, because their impact on the airline's success is not theoretically clear. This is the difference between a scholarly approach and a typical business book.
This and the clear structure and writing style make this book ideal as teaching material. It can be used as an extensive case study or each chapter can be used individually as an application of the textbook marketing lessons to the airline industry. You'll find a lot of the basic textbook concepts in this book such as the Porter model, the Boston matrix and the Ansoff matrix, etc. Another advantage is that the book covers the world market and not only one part of the world. I often come across books that claim to explain "The XY industry" yet discuss exclusively the situation in the US market. On the downside: Shaw does not go beyond these simple models and it never gets quantitative. For instance there is no quantitative model for fare pricing. In general, there is little quantitative data presented, although the two tables about the cost structure of an airline included are especially interesting. A clear disadvantage is the almost total lack of literature references and further readings. Shaw expresses clearly his own ideas but he never mentions that other writers might have different views on a particular issue.
Overall, this book is a good example for an informative description of an industry. Other authors who want to write about a specific industry should use this as a kind of blueprint. Too many typos for a 5th edition though.

This Step-Into-Reading book does not have an Accelerated Reading designation. It is described by the publisher as a Level One "Ready to Read" book for the Preschool to Kindergarten crowd. My own Mom-Guess would be that it is at the Late Kindergarten/Early First Grade Level. The print is large and there are only a few sentences per page. Here's an example of text from the first page:

Gordon was big.
Gordon was tall.
Gordon liked his view from the Yard.

Harder words include: stations, people, stopped, could, next, busy, bumper, smashed, tight, breakdown, and window.


Five Stars ::: This is a nice book for Thomas the Tank Engine lovers who are beginning to read. The pictures are drawn in this book and are not still photos from the television show. Color runs from edge to edge on the pages, and generally I find children like the drawings better than the photos.

The story describes Gordon's problem with a blank wall at the new station. You see, Gordon likes to look at the world around him, just like he likes to be seen This problem is soon remedied however by an accident. Also pictured are Thomas, Percy, the breakdown train, Harold, and Bertie -although only in cameo appearances.

Pam T~

My kids love this book so much, we took them to San Francisco to ride the cable cars themselves and went to the cable car museum!

this is a great addition to your book collection. however, there is too much political history on the cable car and not enough story. my child WANTS to like it because it seems like the other. But never underestimate a child's awareness that something is not exactly right. so it's up to the reader to add a little zip to the story to get through some of the "petition/city hall/lawmaker" stuff.

One of my favorite books one I was a kid, and enjoyable for grown-ups, as well. Some wonderful art illustrating the workings of a cable car, San Francisco scenery, hilly hills with loads of cable car track, and a sweet story giving a simplified history of the train with a cable, and some contemporary settings(contemporary for when this book was originally released)chronicling the rise and popularity of the bus. But not to worry, Maybelle and her sisters win an election to stay in the city by the bay. Extremely enjoyable and under-rated.

I am five and I can read. I love transportation books. I have books by Virginia Lee Burton- Katy, Mike Mulligan and The Little House. I got Maybelle for Xmas. I like the cable car and the Golden Gate Bridge. I like the artwork. I looked up San Francisco on my map and on the internet. If you like transportation, this is a great story!

I just bought this book for my 4-year-old son (and myself!). He loves it. The book is about cable cars in San Francisco and is practically a history lesson. It's also fun!

I done a lot of mechanical work on my Saturn, Thanks to this book, Good info and a good price!
Thanks,
C.A. of St.Louis, MO

Like most manuals, this one covers several years and models and tries to hit all the bases. Most of the information is accurate and helpful for doing general repair work, but sometimes they will show pictures that don't match your model. As examples, the instructions for brake repair were excellent, but the diagrams & photos for the EGR valve looked nothing like the one on my '96 SL1. Apparently, the design was changed since '91, but it didn't make it to the book.

This manual is great. Very simple to understand "how to" fix your Saturn.
Very pleased.

The loss of the U.S. Mail Steamship CENTRAL AMERICA in a hurricane off the Carolina coast in 1857 still ranks as the nation's greatest peacetime disaster at sea -- 425 lives were lost (most of them passengers from the California gold fields) as well as an unbelievable amount of gold in the form of newly minted coins from the San Francisco Mint, assay ingots of many types, raw nuggets, and dust. Thompson, a multi-disciplinary "research engineer," spent years searching methodically for the deep-water wreck and finally located it and began recovering materials from it in 1989. Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea told that story in technical detail; this is the pictorial version, and a gorgeous volume it is. In addition to all that gold in all its many forms, the researchers used a robot to bring up passengers' trunks, discovering books and newspapers that were still readable and clothing that had faded but still maintained its structural integrity. A fascinating work in marine archaeology.

Category: treasure hunting

Boats: SS Central America and a big, capable ROV

Heroes: Tommy Thompson

Location: USA, Midwest and East Coast

Synopsis: Coffee table companion book to Gary Kinder's excellent Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea. Thompson has put together a very good set of photos and descriptive text that doesn't overlap the Ship of Gold story. It's great to see the systems and treasure recovered that you read about in detail in the earlier book.

Tommy Thompson is one of those unusual individuals with the fantastic mind of an inventor/engineer, yet with the ability to work with people to bring out their best. Our government should take note of this man, or hopefully they have, and give him the freedom to let his mind find solutions to many of our problems, as he has shown he can do in this book. It was an adventure, filled with suspense and I would recommend the picture book to go along with the text so you can see the magnificent photos of his find.

Tommy Thompson is one methodical scientist. He found a ship that sank in the Atlantic Ocean in 1857 that had eluded searchers for 130 years. He has taken the same methodical approach in creating this book "America's Lost Treasure".

Gary Kinder wrote a 1998 bestseller on Thompson's search entitled "Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea". It is one of the best pageturners I have ever read! More amazing is that it actually happened! The ship was the United States Mail Steamship "Central America" which was making rounds between the Atlantic coast of Panama and New York City during the California Gold Rush era. She was a side paddlewheeler steamship and was hauling a huge cargo of gold ingots, freshly minted gold coins, gold nuggets, and gold dust along with 38,000 pieces of mail and 578 passengers. Much of the gold was being brought to New York to shore up the bullion holdings of banks that had been putting out too much paper money without the available gold reserves to back it. Most of the passengers were returning from the Gold Rush; many were women and children. The ship sank after a heroic battle with a hurricane in 1857 off the Carolinas taking about 425 lives with her and all the gold. Both books chronicle Thompson's epic adventure finding the ship and recovering the gold down 8000 feet underwater where even the US Navy couldn't effectively recover items. Kinder's book clocks in at over 500 riveting pages but, is largely without pictures of all the incredible finds. "America's Lost Treasure" fills in that photographic void quite admirably in it's 186 pages.

"America's Lost Treasure" is broken down into a background history of America at the time leading up to the Central America's sinking, a detailed account of the CA's fateful last voyage, a background of the equipment and people involved in the search and rediscovery of the CA, the discovery of the ship and the 'Garden of Gold', a review of the personal items found at the bottom other than the gold, and a section on the other scientific discoveries made at the site such as decay processes and new species of life found. There are hordes of very appropriate photographs that perfectly illustrate the topic discussed in the very readable and concise narration. The page layout is very well done and makes full use of the book's ten inches by ten inches size. Particularly interesting is the discovery and opening of several intact passenger's trunks revealing intact clothing and still visible photographs! The gold, however, is the expected showstopper.

Overall, I can't recommend this book enough when read in companion with "Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea". Some people will bristle with disfavor on the efforts in general to recover items from this wreck feeling it is a desecration of history and wrong. I couldn't help but be astounded by the disciplined and rigorous scientific and engineering skills put on display in the efforts. This is an absolutely fascinating pictorial account of a remarkable period in the history of America. It will rivet your attention from beginning to end and have you looking back at sections again and again. It is one of the best coffee table books in existence. The lost treasure found is truly breathtaking and this book is an absolutely worthy account of it! VERY highly recommended!

Tommy Thompson is one of those unusual individuals with the fantastic mind of an inventor/engineer, yet with the ability to work with people to bring out their best. Our government should take note of this man, or hopefully they have, and give him the freedom to let his mind find solutions to many of our problems, as he has shown he can do in this book. It was an adventure, filled with suspense and I would recommend the picture book to go along with the text so you can see the magnificent photos of his find.

There are some great titles in this series, but if you're avoiding weapons or warfare at this age level, you'll want to skip this book.

For a recent trip we bought a large number of sticker and activity books for our toddler. These in the Sticker Stories series were very popular and helped make the trip a pleasant one.

There are seven colorful two-page spreads and one one-page picture on which to place stickers. These show various scenes, including a rural area, an airport, an air show, city air space, a forest fire, an aircraft carrier, outer space and a night scene. There are over 70 reusable stickers to place within these scenes, including jets, space shuttles, satellites, and helicopters.

We will definitely buy more activity books from this series.

This sticker book (along w/ the train one) have been hours of fun. The book has so many stickers. It really sparks the imagination. I'm going to get the truck one for a xmas stocking stuffer.

The Sticker Stories series are the best sticker books around because the stickers are placed in settings (airport, air show, downtown) that allow kids (and parents) to make up stories to go along with the book. Most sticker books simply have text next to an empty "shape" where the sticker should be placed. Also terrific is that the stickers can be re-used over and over again. The "Trains" book is great, too.

Our 3 1/2 year old son loves sticker books, and this one is no exception. The stickers may be re-used (if applied and removed carefully), and our child makes up stories to accompany each page of the book as he applies the stickers. These books provide great training in detail work (removing and applying stickers), and imaginative play (making up your own stories to accompany the pictures). I highly recommend these sticker books for kids from 2 1/2 years of age and up. Kids younger than 3 may need some parental help getting the stickers off the pages without tearing them.

Overall good description as well as technique of how to tune a sb engine, but i think the pictures could be a lot better, instead of of black and white, use color and clearer pictures to illustrate a particular topic.

Before you read up further,this book doesnt cover the 351 Cleveland engine.

If you are about to rebuild and add performance to your small block Ford engine this book is ideal.Takes you through a history of fords small block V8's: 302/5.0L,351W/5.8L and EFI manifolds and performance upgrades.Note:It doesnt cover the 351C.This book is divided into sections with plenty of information and photos throughout.Even tells you about EFI engines and fitting into earlier model Fords.Also includes performance build ups and superchargers,turbocharging and nitrous.Definitely a comprehensive book thats easy to understand and good value too.

I give this book 4 stars as they are ALMOST as good as the "Cartech/S-A Design-workbench" books.

I am a fan of fords and this is a very helpfull book. Explains alot of things that other books do not.

i bought this book to learn the basics of the windsor engines and it has a lot of information....now i am ready for more and it is time to move on to more specifics...i do recommend this book highly if you are going to build a windsor and want some basic info on what the different components are.

matt

I've purchased almost all Ford SB Windsor literature.. this particular book is absolutely the Best I got. I'm not saying it's perfect, but still is unique in a way that it illustrates how to carry out performance assemblies step by step.. such as building a 347 cid stroker, porting a head, installing force induction stuff, timing a cam or tuning a carb (I use EFI but it's good to know how). This book is not another performance parts catalog in the shape of a "book"! This one is very similar to what you can find on the tech pages of websites such as FordMuscle.com, CarCraft.com, MustangandFords.com

Says it all, the title. I've returned it to Amazon. Didn't comply with my expectations, full text, no pictures, seemed to be print in a xerox, it was bad! - is a simple as that!

This book has all the information I was looking for in anticipation of a Motorcycle trip I will be taking over the entire RT#66 Road.

This was good read which will leave most people with a lot to think about.

Full of goodies as far as info goes, but really needs to be updated. Can not be realistically used on a bike, to big and not easily read as you travel. the info will have to be looked at often to get the real use out of it.

This is a good resource. It points out many good sights to see. I used it for a trip between Bloomington, IL to Edmond, OK. The directions going West are much easier to understand that the ones going East, but not written in a way you can easily follow them backwards. It was deffinately a help in finding the road, although we did get off track a few times. We copied the pages we needed and put it in a plastic ziplock bag with a map. That helped a lot.

I saw a map set for each state that highlights the route; I would recommend those in addition to this book.