About The Author
ALL CONTENTS ON THIS SITE WERE CONCEIVED
AND WRITTEN BY PATRICK SMITH
Patrick Smith is an airline pilot, air travel columnist and author. In his spare time he has visited more than 70 countries and always asks for a window seat. He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.
His Ask the Pilot column, from which portions of this website have been compiled, runs regularly on Salon.com.
Patrick has on appeared over 200 radio and television outlets, including PBS, Discovery Channel, CNN, the BBC and National Public Radio. His work is regularly cited in print publications worldwide, from People, Time, and Men’s Health magazines to the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today and Le Monde.
Born Patrick Santosuosso, a third-generation descendant of Neapolitan olive growers, he took his first flying lesson at age fourteen. In 1990 he earned his first cockpit position, as a copilot on regional turboprops earning $800 a month. He has since flown cargo and passenger jets on both domestic and intercontinental routes.
The author’s self-published punk rock fanzines and poetry journals of the 1980s and 1990s are considered among the more curious works of literature ever produced by a resident of Revere, Massachusetts.
A Note from the Author:
“Ask the Pilot is meant to be thoughtful, provocative, and even a bit eccentric. It is more than a collection of facts, stats, and gee-whiz about planes; it touches on everything from aerodynamics and safety issues to airport architecture to the cultures of the world’s airlines. In addition to addressing the boilerplate concerns of passengers, from turbulence to terrorism, the point of my writing is to urge people to reevaluate the link between flight and travel. My love of commercial aviation nurtured a passion for seeing the world, and I encourage that passion in others. I’d never have traipsed off to seventy countries if I hadn’t been infatuated with the airplane first, and what underpins my writing is a desire that readers, too, will come to see the airplane as more than just an inconvenient means to an end. Readers should come away feeling not only safer and better informed, but rejuvenated about the idea of flying and traveling.”
Special thanks to Sam Antar and the Online Media Legal Network / Citizen Media Law Project
Visit Patrick Smith’s photo page on Flickr to view photographs from trips around the world…
HTTP://WWW.FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/GLOBETRODDEN/SETS
stewardess wings with American Airlines in 1965
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author’s featured photo
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