RFT 051: Airline Pilot/Author Patrick Smith

Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career

Patrick Smith is an active airline pilot, air travel blogger and author. His Ask the Pilot column, ran regularly in the online magazine Salon.com from 2002 until 2012.

He has appeared on 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. He was voted one of the “25 Best Bloggers of 2013” by TIME magazine.

Patrick took his first flying lesson at age fourteen. His first job with an airline came in 1990, when he was hired as a copilot on 15-passenger turboprops earning $850 a month. He has since flown cargo and passenger jets on both domestic and intercontinental routes.

His book Cockpit Confidential is a wry, thoughtful, and at times provocative look into the confounding world of commercial air travel, with a behind-the-scenes look at the strange and misunderstood business of commercial aviation. More than just a book about flying, its subject is everything and everything about the grand theater of air travel, from airport architecture to terrorism to the colors and cultures of the world’s airlines.

Patrick travels extensively in his spare time and has visited more than seventy countries. He lives near Boston.