Member jchiles

Includes human error, failure analysis, flying, folklore, history of technology, reference books on tradecraft like oil drilling, slang, and disaster case studies.

Author of The God Machine: From Boomerangs to Black Hawks, the Story of the Helicopter (Bantam, 2007)

Author of Inviting Disaster: Lessons from the Edge of Technology (HarperBusiness, 2001 and 2002. Website for that is www.invitingdisaster.com

I began writing in 1979 for Texas Monthly, by doing a piece on the Pantex nuclear weapons plant. My first national feature was on how three great structures would age if abandoned by civilization, for Smithsonian Magazine. Since then I have specialized in history and science.