If you want a page-turner with a lot of techno-speak about airplanes thrown in for good measure, then this one's for you. The pace of this book is fantastic, and I probably would have read it in 2-3 days had I not had other things going on. However, there are several parts in "Airframe" where I felt that the author was just showing off his verbose knowledge about aircraft.
In 1968, Alex Hailey wrote a terrific thriller called "Airport", which was all about what could go wrong on an overseas flight. This one starts off with the problem and then takes another 400 pages to get to the bottom of what happened to Flight 545. I enjoyed the book but not so much as to where I would read it again.

Bazı kitaplar var ki kimsenin okumayacağını bile bile yine de yorum yazıyorum :) Uçuş 545 de bunlardan bir tanesi. İşlerimin bu dönem aşırı yoğun olması dolayısıyla film öncesi her ne kadar Dune okumak istesem de kitaplığımda beni çok yormayacak ve fazla uzun olmayan kitaplar bulmaya çalışıyorum bir süredir.

Uçuş 545 de (abartmıyorum) tam 1999'dan beri kitaplığımda okunmayı bekliyormuş :) Demek o gün bugünmüş diyerek aldım ve karışık duygularla bugün kapağını son kez kapattım. Gereğinden fazla teknik buldum. Yani normalde bir polisiye okurken polis olmanız beklenmez ancak bu kitabı okumak ve anlamak için uçuş mühendisi olmanız beklenmiş gibi. Sağolsun yazar veya çevirmen sürekli parantezler içinde ne demek istediğini anlatmış ama olayın kurgu tarafı çok zayıf kalmış.

Yine de bu başı sonu belli olan, Pazar günü öğlenleri battaniye, çay, bisküvi eşliğinde izlenen ve fazla beklenti yaratmayan film tadındaki kitapları seviyorum.

Herkese keyifli okumalar!

Rating: 3.5 breathless stars of five

I really hate flying. I'm not scared of it, I just dislike being herded into inky-dinky seats meant for short people by ill-tempered sky-waiters who charge for pillows and booze, and then I have to pay more than I used to make a week for the privilege of being searched, patted by men I'm not attracted to in places I don't want to be patted unless I am, etc etc etc.

Fifteen years ago, all that was more or less to come, and storymonger Crichton used planes for a very different kind of tale. What happens to cause a huge section of a plane to go *flooey*, killing a few people and making the entire world nervous about flying? We're about to find out, Casey Singleton and the reader that is. We're going to go into surprisingly interesting amounts of detail about the structure, the manufacture, the sales, the service, the use of airplanes, and how a careful planner could cause huge havoc in a few, small, seemingly innocuous ways.

I miss Michael Crichton. He understood the value of detail, the urgency of tight plotting, and the uncomplicated pleasure of following a complicated and logical plot to its only possible ending. If I didn't have Steve Berry, I'd be visiting Crichton's grave once a year with 200 roses to mourn his passing.

LitSnobs take note...turn up your noses and all that happens is us groundlings who like books that are fun get an unobstructed view of your boogers.

After reading MC's Sphere, I was excited to read another book by him as well.
As I started reading Airframe, the first few pages were super action packed, and I almost couldn't and wouldn't put the book down. This unfortunately (for me) didn't last much longer than 5-10 pages in the book..
After this I felt more like I was reading a book about technical terms for airplane parts.
I tried to stay at it, but started loosing interest. After re-convincing my self to finish it, I started reading again. About halfway through it began picking up again, whereafter it did get very much exciting all to the end once again.

My overall opinion:
It's a good story, however too much bad language. It has a heavy sprinkle of technical terms that at some points just confused me and took focus off the storyline, but sorta makes up for it in the end.

I'm glad I finnised it, but because of bad language, I probably wouldn't recommend it further.

The ending got pretty exciting but the HEAVY technical language was just a little too much for me. At least I now know a considerable amount about how airplanes are made and tested

Micahel Crichton has yet to disappoint me but this is definitely one of my favorites so far. Everything about this was amazing. The characters, the dynamics, the setting... it all came together and created an amazing story. If you were to ask me what genre to put this in... I really don't know. It's a mystery but it's not that thrilling. It's... like a normal life, almost, yet it's so fascinating. I will forever hold this as one of my favorites.

Fuselage, Auto pilot, Slat deployment, Stall alarm, JAA, FAA, Autopilot, Avionics,
Nose up & down,Cycle electrical test, whatelse??

A very good investigative thriller pack. But climax is childish.

I love good disaster novels and movies. Airframe is a great read but not what I had in mind. This is not your typical action air disaster thriller but one that focuses on the investigation and is filled with aerodynamics and plane lingo. Yet, Michael Crichton can deliver this science-heavy novel and make it enjoyable for this casual reader.

One of the rare Crichton books that I feel hasn't gotten the respect ( or a movie based off it) that it deserves. Yes it was a longer book for him and there were a lot of charts and acronyms. But it also had what made MC great. Research, research and more research.

You take a crash course on planes; types of planes, parts or planes, maintenance, safety, human resources, security , sales, politics of etc etc etc. That's why his sci fi thrillers seem to be more sci than fi. He immerses himself and the reader in the science and the facts and the research and the reader is always left thinking, dinos can be made, a lost city in Africa full of diamonds is real, time travel is possible, aliens ships are on bottom of ocean etc etc.. great MC book.

RE-READ 8.26.24-
Just as good as a remember. A corporate thriller that is dealing with a flight investigation. The Investigation has huge implication on a pending airplane order and jobs and lives are on the line. A flight investigation that usually can take months is now needed in a manner of days. Was it faulty parts, the N-22 history of slat issues that were thought to be fixed, pilot error, auto pilot malfunction, sabotage? Crazy to think this near accident ( which included 56 injured and 3 dead ) was all caused by a fathers love for his son lol. Unreal.

------4 stats-------

I am really interested in Airlines incidence investigations , that was a good story , well written and simple language so any can understand what happened in the story ( no complicated terms) .

Give it a shot if you are into airline investigation and mysteries .

I will be putting up my review of Stoner tomorrow, I promise; I need to fine tune it some.

But more to the point, Airframe was a book that I enjoyed quite some time back. My mother is a huge fan of Crichton, and as a result, we have his whole collection at home. I was about 15 when she (mother dearest) first read Airframe, and I very vividly remember her raving about it. Being an engineer herself, it was quite obvious that she would enjoy it. And being as far from being an engineer as can be, I wasn't too sure about the book when I picked it up. But amazing, it was.

Crichton seamlessly blends the science fiction element into his thrillers, and I think that;s why his books are as good as they are. The technicalities, the jargon; they never feel like info dump; rather like necessary elements to the story, without which it would be woefully incomplete. His characters in this book, much like the characters in most of his books are forgettable to say the least, but his story, on the other hand is among memorable ones I've read. At the risk of sounding like I'm answering an exam paper, I also feel that Crichton somehow delivers his story with a kind of completeness, or well-rounded-ness to it. In this story, for instance, a story about a plane that uncharacteristically crashed, Crichton not only expertly explores the technical aspect of the investigation, but also such things as media interference and common office politics. Despite all these elements though, Airframe doesn't stray far from what it really is, a thriller at its heart. With a twist ending, of course.

Casey Somethingortheother is the single mother of a teenager, as well as the VP of Quality assurance at Norton, the creator of the titular airframe that crashed. She is entrusted with the task of investigating the crash, and of proving that the airframe itself wasn't responsible for the crash. With a little help from her friends, including Doug (the engineer), Ted (the test pilot and booty call), Ken and someone else from the Incident Review Team, as well as enemies like former musician turned FAA employee Baker, Casey investigates the shit out of this case, while at the same time dealing with her asshole assistant (Ben or Bob or something), who is a part of the Norton family tree.

Even though Crichton died before I got my hands on this book, I must say I do miss him. He used to write some good stuff, some really good stuff.

Not at all what I expected. The premise revolved around an inflight incident where passengers and crew on an over seas flight were injured along with some deaths occurring. The investigation team have one week to find the cause. I won’t tell you any more than that about the storyline. It was interesting how the author split the book into sections (days of the week) and within those days into hours (the chapters). In this way, the story moved quickly and you wanted to find out what happens “tomorrow”. However, I didn’t find the topic or the characters compelling, so for me - 3 Stars.