The Crowded Sky by Hank Searls (1960)

The Crowded Sky
by Hank Searls
Publisher:  Harper & Brothers, Publishers
Copyright:  1960
Book Club Edition

Air travel has become a routine part of our way of life, but mid-aier collisions continue to make tragic headlines which shock and bewilder all of us.  In this exciting new novel the author of The Big X dramatizes a situation in which human frailty and mechanical limitations combine to create such a disaster.

Hank Searls says in his prologue:  "The airway is not a highway, but an invisible alley, sometimes of infinite height.  Day or night, its traveler depends for safety not as the motorist does on keeping right or left of a center line, but on holding a promised speed and an assigned altitude.  If he speeds up, he will overtake his predecessor; if he climbs or descends inadvertently, he is suddenly in an opposite stream of traffic approaching with the speed of sound."

The Crowded Sky is richly informative about the technicalities of air travel; it is absorbing for the human problems it explores.

A broken marriage and its effect on his teen-aged daughter distract the thoughts of Commander Dale Heath as he pilots a Navy jet east to a meeting in Washington.  Mike Ruble, co-pilot of Pacific Central's westbound commercial passenger flight, is concerned about the inflexible, routine-bound attitude of his captain, veteran Dick Barnett.  A passenger aboard the flight, Dr. Ed Benedict, steels himself to make an agonizing decision and discovers that his professional code is frail comfort when the miseries of disease involve his own family.

On the ground, at Amarillo Control Center, traffic controller Norm Coster experiences one of those nights he has learned to dread, heavy air traffic and freakish storms which make for strictly instrument-flight weather.  On such a night pilots must depend completely upon the controller and follow his instructions implicitly.  But sometimes they don't, and sometimes the thread of communication snaps . . .

Hank Searls has chosen a fresh, immediately important theme, one as close to the reader's interest as his next plane trip.  He has developed it with dramatic power, sustained suspense and real insight into the small weaknesses as well as the courage of mankind.  And through his own experience as a pilot he interprets the processes and the excitement of flight so vividly that the reader's knowledge is enriched considerably.

This is a fast-moving, diverting novel, fascinating reading for anyone who has every made a flight or expects to.

Condition:  Used.  Hardcover.  Dust cover is lightly discolored and shows shelf wear, creasing and tears in the edges.  Spine of dust cover is darkened by sun exposure.  Pages are tanning by age.  Previous owner's name is blacked out and date written underneath on the front endpaper.  Pages are in tact. There's an envelope pasted to the front endpaper as a way to keep track of her books.

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