Whether drinking Red Bull, relieving chronic pain with oxycodone, or experimenting with Ecstasy, Americans participate in a culture of self-medication, using psychoactive substances to enhance or manage our moods. A "drug-free America" seems to be a fantasyland that most people don't want to inhabit. High: Drugs, Desire, and a Nation of Users asks fundamental questions about US drug policies and social norms. Why do we endorse the use of some drugs and criminalize others? Why do we accept the necessity of a doctor-prescribed opiate but not the same thing bought off the street? This divided approach shapes public policy, the justice system, research, social services, and health care. And despite the decades-old war on drugs, drug use remains relatively unchanged. Ingrid Walker speaks to the silencing effects of both criminalization and medicalization, incorporating first-person narratives to show a wide variety of user experiences with drugs. By challenging current thinking about drugs and users, Walker calls for a next wave of drug policy reform in the United States, beginning with recognizing the full spectrum of drug use practices.

If, in 2021, more than 40 years after the accident that occurred on 27 June 1980, we are still talking about a "mystery", it is because in Italy they have not followed the procedure that all the countries of the world adopt in the aftermath of an aviation disaster. A technical commission is appointed, made up of experienced aviation investigators, who will tell us why the accident happened. If, in the course of the investigation, it turns out that the disaster was caused by an unlawful act against the aircraft, i.e. a bomb, bombing, air attack, missiles, etc., a judicial investigation is also launched in parallel to find out who committed the unlawful act. In any case, the two investigations must be kept separate. Not only that, but by international practice, the technical investigation must be sent to the International Civil Aviation Organisation, ICAO, in Montreal for inclusion in that organisation's database. In the case of the Ustica accident involving an Itavia DC9, which is unique in the world, an anomalous procedure was followed whereby the judicial authority, which should have been responsible only for identifying the culprit, also had the task of determining the causes of the accident. The investigation would have been very different if it had been conducted by experienced aviation safety investigators who would certainly have been able to reach a firm conclusion on the causes of the accident.

Listen to a short interview with Jeffrey A. Engel Host: Chris Gondek ] Producer: Heron & Crane

In a gripping story of international power and deception, Jeffrey Engel reveals the "special relationship" between the United States and Great Britain in a new and far more competitive light. As allies, they fought communism. As rivals, they locked horns over which would lead the Cold War fight. In the quest for sovereignty and hegemony, one important key was airpower, which created jobs, forged ties with the developing world, and, perhaps most importantly in a nuclear world, ensured military superiority.

Only the United States and Britain were capable of supplying the post-war world's ravenous appetite for aircraft. The Americans hoped to use this dominance as a bludgeon not only against the Soviets and Chinese, but also against any ally that deviated from Washington's rigid brand of anticommunism. Eager to repair an economy shattered by war and never as committed to unflinching anticommunism as their American allies, the British hoped to sell planes even beyond the Iron Curtain, reaping profits, improving East-West relations, and garnering the strength to withstand American hegemony.

Engel traces the bitter fights between these intimate allies from Europe to Latin America to Asia as each sought control over the sale of aircraft and technology throughout the world. The Anglo-American competition for aviation supremacy affected the global balance of power and the fates of developing nations such as India, Pakistan, and China. But without aviation, Engel argues, Britain would never have had the strength to function as a brake upon American power, the way trusted allies should.

Oh, the humanity!" Radio reporter Herbert Morrison's words on witnessing the destruction of the Hindenburg are etched in our collective memory. Yet, while the Hindenburg ,like the Titanic ,is a symbol of the technological hubris of a bygone era, we seem to have forgotten the lessons that can be learned from the infamous 1937 zeppelin disaster.Zeppelins were steerable balloons of highly flammable, explosive gas, but the sheer magic of seeing one of these behemoths afloat in the sky cast an irresistible spell over all those who saw them. In Monsters , Ed Regis explores the question of how a technology now so completely invalidated (and so fundamentally unsafe) ever managed to reach the high-risk level of development that it did. Through the story of the zeppelin's development, Regis examines the perils of what he calls pathological technologies",inventions whose sizeable risks are routinely minimized as a result of their almost mystical allure.Such foolishness is not limited to the industrial age: newer examples of pathological technologies include the US government's planned use of hydrogen bombs for large-scale geoengineering projects the phenomenally risky, expensive, and ultimately abandoned Superconducting Super Collider and the exotic interstellar propulsion systems proposed for DARPA's present-day 100 Year Starship project. In case after case, the romantic appeal of foolishly ambitious technologies has blinded us to their shortcomings, dangers, and costs.Both a history of technological folly and a powerful cautionary tale for future technologies and other grandiose schemes, Monsters is essential reading for experts and citizens hoping to see new technologies through clear eyes.

Whether drinking Red Bull, relieving chronic pain with oxycodone, or experimenting with Ecstasy, Americans participate in a culture of self-medication, using psychoactive substances to enhance or manage our moods. A "drug-free America" seems to be a fantasyland that most people don't want to inhabit. High: Drugs, Desire, and a Nation of Users asks fundamental questions about US drug policies and social norms. Why do we endorse the use of some drugs and criminalize others? Why do we accept the necessity of a doctor-prescribed opiate but not the same thing bought off the street? This divided approach shapes public policy, the justice system, research, social services, and health care. And despite the decades-old war on drugs, drug use remains relatively unchanged. Ingrid Walker speaks to the silencing effects of both criminalization and medicalization, incorporating first-person narratives to show a wide variety of user experiences with drugs. By challenging current thinking about drugs and users, Walker calls for a next wave of drug policy reform in the United States, beginning with recognizing the full spectrum of drug use practices.

'The astoundingly well reported and beautifully told story of the downfall of what was once a great American company. A must-read' Bethany McLean, bestselling author of The Smartest Guys in the Room 'Compelling and richly reported, Flying Blind is about so much more than the sad decline of Boeing and the tragic mistakes that led to the 737 Max disaster. It's also the urgent story of how the almighty profit motive supplanted a culture of engineering excellence in boardrooms across America' Brad Stone, bestselling author of The Everything Store The definitive exposé of how Boeing put profit before passengers, leading to the devastating loss of life in the 737 MAX crashes and the downfall of an American business giant In examining the history of the 737, Flying Blind explores how Boeing's new management degraded a highly-regarded plane with cost-focused mandates and skimped on testing in the race to match a competing plane from Airbus. How Boeing outsourced software work to poorly paid graduates in India and convinced the US Federal Aviation Authority to put the MAX into service without requiring pilots to undergo simulator training, and how ultimately these failures resulted in the deaths of 346 Boeing passengers. Framed around the 737 MAX crashes, Flying Blind is the definitive exposé that for the first time tells the larger, decades-long story of how a corrupt corporate culture paved the way for a cataclysm that cost lives. 'Vividly written and meticulously researched, Flying Blind is a story everyone - every consumer, every citizen, every worker in every industry - needs to read' Diana B. Henriques, New York Times bestselling author of The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust 'A gripping narrative and required reading for anyone who wants to understand how one of America's mightiest corporations veered so badly off course' Sheelah Kolhatkar, New Yorker staff writer and bestselling author of Black Edge

The British & Colonial Aeroplane Company was established in 1910 at Filton on a site that is now an Airbus design and engineering centre. BAE Systems also has facilities at Filton. Bristol aircraft engines were first built at the nearby Patchway site in the 1920s, part of which Rolls-Royce uses to manufacture aero engines. From Boxkite to Concorde, many famous aircraft were built at Bristol. Beginning with fighter aircraft manufactured during the First World War, Gloster Aircraft went on to produce aircraft until closure in 1964, including the RAF's last biplane and its first jet fighter. Dowty developed landing gear and fuel control systems and acquired Rotol Airscrews. Parnall constructed aircraft and gun turrets at sites in Bristol and Yate. This book covers the wider aspects of the aerospace industry, including its industrial heritage, social impacts, technological developments, and continuing significance, utilising a number of archives to create a unique and well-illustrated view of aviation around Bristol and Gloucestershire.

The NEW edition of Aviation and the Role of Government, by Harry Lawrence of the Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, features revisions of almost all chapters, several completely rewritten chapters, as well as new statutes and cases added throughout. Aviation and the Role of Government includes: updates to cover all significant aviation related government actions and transportation events including NextGen, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Treaties, Alliances, Space Developments and others an expanded history of Pratt & Whitney and its contribution to American world air superiority by the development of the radial engine the ongoing contest over slot allocations and ownership between the government and the airlines patent litigation history and resolution during WWI by the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss Aviation and the Role of Government chronicles the involvement of government in the evolution of air transportation, including passing mention of early governmental involvement in prior modes of transport, such as the maritime and railroad industries, which formed the foundation of aviation.

In "Selling Air Power," Steve Call provides the first comprehensive study of the efforts of post-war air power advocates to harness popular culture in support of their agenda. In the 1940s and much of the 1950s, hardly a month went by without at least one blatantly pro-air power article appearing in general interest magazines. Public fascination with flight helped create and sustain exaggerated expectations for air power in the minds of both its official proponents and the American public. Articles in the "Saturday Evening Post," "Reader's Digest," and "Life" trumpeted the secure future assured by American air superiority. Military figures like Henry H. "Hap" Arnold and Curtis E. LeMay, radio-television personalities such as Arthur Godfrey, cartoon figures like "Steve Canyon," and actors like Jimmy Stewart played key roles in the unfolding campaign. Movies like "Twelve O'Clock High ," "The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell," and "A Gathering of Eagles" projected onto the public imagination vivid images confirming what was coming to be the accepted wisdom: that America's safety against the Soviet threat could best be guaranteed by air power, coupled with nuclear capability. But as the Cold War continued and the specter of the mushroom cloud grew more prominent in American minds, another, more sinister interpretation began to take hold. Call chronicles the shift away from the heroic, patriotic posture of the years just after World War II, toward the threatening, even bizarre imagery of books and movies like "Catch-22," "On the Beach," and "Dr. Strangelove." Call's careful analysis goes beyond the public relations campaigns to probe the intellectual climate that shaped them and gave them power. "Selling Air Power" adds a critical layer of understanding to studies in military and aviation history, as well as American popular culture.

First published in 1956, but still relevant and thought-provoking today, this book is an absolute revelation on test flying with the British aircraft organisations and manufacturers in the 1950s. Written from the pilots viewpoint, with refreshing candour and honesty which allegedly cost him his job at the Daily Express this account details what really went on behind the scenes in the defence world. Waterton pulls no punches in recounting the non co-operation of civil servants and designers in improving/altering recognised faults (often minor) when developing aircraft to the cost of lives lost. Mainly centring on his work with the mighty Gloster Meteor and the Javelin interceptors, this is an astonishing insight into the workings of the aircraft industry. Uncomfortable reading for many, it was seen by his supporters as a wake-up call at a time when British ingenuity and prowess were being overtaken by the Americans and Russians.

Clarence "Cap" Cornish was an Indiana pilot whose life spanned all but five years of the Century of Flight. Born in Canada in 1898, Cornish grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He began flying at the age of nineteen, piloting a "Jenny" aircraft during World War I, and continued to fly for the next seventy-eight years. In 1995, at the age of ninety-seven, he was recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest actively flying pilot.The mid-1920s to the mid-1950s were Cornish's most active years in aviation. During that period, sod runways gave way to asphalt and concrete; navigation evolved from the iron rail compass to radar; runways that once had been outlined at night with cans of oil topped off with flaming gasoline now shimmered with multicolored electric lights; instead of being crammed next to mailbags in open-air cockpits, passengers sat comfortably in streamlined, pressurized cabins. In the early phase of that era, Cornish performed aerobatics and won air races. He went on to run a full-service flying business, served as chief pilot for the Fort Wayne "News-Sentinel," managed the city's municipal airport, helped monitor and maintain safe skies above the continental United States during World War II, and directed Indiana's first Aeronautics Commission.Dedicating his life to flight and its many ramifications, Cornish helped guide the sensible development of aviation as it grew from infancy to maturity. Through his many personal experiences, the story of flight nationally is played out.

Works related to identification of harmful exhaust components from aviation engines have continued since the second half of the last century. These works focus on high-thrust turbine engines. For this, group testing and standardization procedures have been developed containing the admissible limits of exhaust components. Since 2007 works have been underway related to the identification of harmful exhaust components from engines of low power output that have not yet been included in the emissions legislation. These actions are particularly related to the measurements of the exhaust emissions from piston aviation engines and they are focused on the fuel applied for these engines. This book presents the results of the author's own research work related to the issues of exhaust emissions from powertrains of aircraft and helicopters fitted with piston or turbine engines not yet included in the emission legislation. Research has been presented for turbocharged piston and jet engines aircraft. Test procedures have been presented related to the measurement of the exhaust emission under actual conditions of operation. The study presents analyses of the operating conditions of aviation engines, for which data from the on-board recording devices (flight parameters) have been used. Tests have been developed related to the engines operating under actual operating (in-flight) conditions. The methodology of the developed test has been validated based on a test dedicated for an aircraft fitted with a jet engine. The test results have been subject to a comparison with the results of tests applicable in the homologation procedures. Eventually, the authors proposed exhaust emissions tests dedicated to individual aircraft groups.

In this extraordinary tale of union democracy, Dana L. Cloud engages union reformers at Boeing in Wichita and Seattle to reveal how ordinary workers attempted to take command of their futures by chipping away at the cozy partnership between union leadership and corporate management. Taking readers into the central dilemma of having to fight an institution while simultaneously using it as a bastion of basic self-defense, We Are the Union offers a sophisticated exploration of the structural opportunities and balance of forces at play in modern unions told through a highly relevant case study. Focusing on the 1995 strike at Boeing, Cloud renders a multi-layered account of the battles between company and the union and within the union led by Unionists for Democratic Change and two other dissident groups. She gives voice to the company's claims of the hardships of competitiveness and the entrenched union leaders' calls for concessions in the name of job security, alongside the democratic union reformers' fight for a rank-and-file upsurge against both the company and the union leaders. We Are the Union is grounded in on-site research and interviews and focuses on the efforts by Unionists for Democratic Change to reform unions from within. Incorporating theory and methods from the fields of organizational communication as well as labor studies, Cloud methodically uncovers and analyzes the goals, strategies, and dilemmas of the dissidents who, while wanting to uphold the ideas and ideals of the union, took up the gauntlet to make it more responsive to workers and less conciliatory toward management, especially in times of economic stress or crisis. Cloud calls for a revival of militant unionism as a response to union leaders' embracing of management and training programs that put workers in the same camp as management, arguing that reform groups should look to the emergence of powerful industrial unions in the United States for guidance on revolutionizing existing institutions and building new ones that truly accommodate workers' needs. Drawing from communication studies, labor history, and oral history and including a chapter co-written with Boeing worker Keith Thomas, We Are the Union contextualizes what happened at Boeing as an exemplar of agency that speaks both to the past and the future.

This book is about change, about its challenges and the talent necessary to drive it through. Specifically, it is about transforming the world's most important and event-shaping industry - aviation. Giovanni Bisignani became Director General of IATA (International Air Transport Association) in June 2002, just after 9/11, which created one of the greatest threats ever to the aviation industry. IATA is the central body of the world's airlines, responsible for its financial ($300 billion/year) clearing system, ticketing, government lobbying, passenger safety policies, landing rights and the future of commercial flying. During his 10 years as Director General, Bisignani implemented and oversaw enormous and controversial changes in aviation. This book is the inside story of the struggle for survival in one of the world's most dynamic industries.