Author(s): Robert Cassidy

Sport & Transport | Tasmanian Authors

This is a story written by an American who is now an Australian citizen living in the island state of Tasmania. Dancing With Clouds is a very American story ¬¬- a log cabin to president experience.It takes the reader through the journey from the dreams of a poor boy who wanted to fly to the man who excelled in one of the world's most demanding professions.The book contains a wealth of information about the culture of flying and of the people who inhabit the potentially dangerous world of the professional pilot. There are also cautionary tales about the fallibility of human beings, and the sometimes frightening stories about airline operators faced with a choice between safety and the pursuit of profit. The author provides an opportunity for the reader to look a little more closely at flying - now such a familiar part of modern life - and to see that while the airline industry now has an excellent safety record maintaining this record requires constant vigilance. And sometimes this vigilance can be less than perfect.As a weekend pilot myself, I derived much from the wealth of technical information about aircraft types, flying, navigation, emergencies, difficult landings and the sort of information one might expect from a pilot with 16,000 hours of flying without any serious 'incident'.This is a book for pilots, for people with an interest in aircraft and flying, and for the traveller who might want to examine flying a little more deeply that the information provided in a travel brochure.This is the story of one young boy's dream to fly, his escape from abject poverty to the U.S. Army, where his Aviation career began as an Army helicopter pilot, flying the Bell UH-1 Huey.