Cleared for Takeoff, a review

I cannot tell you how much the lad and I have been enjoying this book called "Cleared for Takeoff, the Ultimate book of Flight".

We've giggled, gasped, been awed, been shocked and a whole host of other emotions.   Oh but it's a delightful, thorough treatise on flight.  Call signs, hand signals, obscure airlines, interesting birds, the history, the joys, the sorrows and so much more are contained within the 320 pages of this book.

This video below bespeaks some of the things we learned in this book, but definitely not all that we learned.  

Neither one of us has read this "Cleared for TakeOff" all the way through, we've picked our way through some of the pages that have peaked out interest.

Being amazed at the size of the Hindebergh Zeppelin.

His Joy in finding the Canadian aircraft symbol.

The text is well written with scores of full colour pictures, most look like painting, a few from real life.   It was just a pleasure to go through.

Occasionally experiments are provided to assist in the understanding of a concept, from making pop rockets to hovercrafts, enough experiments to intrigue most children.  As a parent/teacher one of the things I appreciated about the experiments was the teaching component came first with the experiment coming second.   All the experiments I found were distinguishable in being all in black and white.  All use easy to find materials.

As I mentioned earlier, this book was filled with full colour pictures to delight and inform.  I was delighted that it held global appeal, interesting tidbits from around the world are found within it's pages.

Did you know that a Canadian Pilot once landed a 767 airplane successfully that had run out of fuel and therefore all it's systems were shutting down.   None of travellers lost their lives, a only a few injured when they disembarked the aircraft?   Simply amazing.    We also learned why different countries use modified Phonetic Alphabets (for instance Saudi Arabia uses Washington rather than whiskey because of the alcohol connection).

I have been ever so pleased to have had a chance to review this book.  It's a marvellous resource for anyone interested in the world of flight.   The only thing I found lacking was an index at the close of the book, to quickly find facts.

If it is something you are planning to do a unit study on, or a create a lapbook from, snatch it up.   You really won't regret it. :)

For the Canadian link to amazon Cleared for Takeoff: The Ultimate Book of Flight and for the american link Cleared for Takeoff: The Ultimate Book of Flight for your ease in finding it. :) Thanks!