Key Features:
1903 saw men flying amongst the birds - 100 years on men have broken the sound barrier
- The compelling story of humanity's obsession with flight told by an award-winning author
- Makes use of extracts from journals, diaries, and memoirs of the pioneers themselves
- Includes a wide range of rare photographs and drawings
- Certain to be the standard reference for years to come on how humanity came to take to the sky, and what the Aerial Age has meant to the world since da Vinci's first fantastical designs
Description:
The invention of flight represents the culmination of centuries of thought and desire. Kites and rockets sparked our collective imagination. Then the balloon gave humanity its first experience aloft, though at the mercy of the winds. The steerable airship that followed had more practicality, but a number of insurmountable limitations. But the aeroplane truly launched the Aerial Age, and its subsequent impact-from the vantage of a century after the Wright Brother's historic flight on December 17, 1903-has been extraordinary.
Richard Hallion, a distinguished international authority on aviation, offers a bold new examination of aircraft history, stressing its global roots. The result is an interpretive history of uncommon sweep, complexity, and warmth. Taking care to place each technological advance in the context of its own period as well as that of the evolving era of air travel, this ground-breaking work follows the pre-history of flight, the work of balloon and airship advocates, fruitless early attempts to invent the airplane, the Wright brothers and other pioneers, the impact of air power on the outcome of World War I, and finally the transfer of prophecy into practice as flight came to play an ever-more important role in world affairs, both military and civil.
Competition:
Flight: 100 Years of Aviation, 440 pp, £30, 2002, Published by Dorling Kindersley - Our book contains rare photos and drawings, it also incorporates extracts from journals, diaries, and memoirs
1903 saw men flying amongst the birds - 100 years on men have broken the sound barrier
- The compelling story of humanity's obsession with flight told by an award-winning author
- Makes use of extracts from journals, diaries, and memoirs of the pioneers themselves
- Includes a wide range of rare photographs and drawings
- Certain to be the standard reference for years to come on how humanity came to take to the sky, and what the Aerial Age has meant to the world since da Vinci's first fantastical designs
Description:
The invention of flight represents the culmination of centuries of thought and desire. Kites and rockets sparked our collective imagination. Then the balloon gave humanity its first experience aloft, though at the mercy of the winds. The steerable airship that followed had more practicality, but a number of insurmountable limitations. But the aeroplane truly launched the Aerial Age, and its subsequent impact-from the vantage of a century after the Wright Brother's historic flight on December 17, 1903-has been extraordinary.
Richard Hallion, a distinguished international authority on aviation, offers a bold new examination of aircraft history, stressing its global roots. The result is an interpretive history of uncommon sweep, complexity, and warmth. Taking care to place each technological advance in the context of its own period as well as that of the evolving era of air travel, this ground-breaking work follows the pre-history of flight, the work of balloon and airship advocates, fruitless early attempts to invent the airplane, the Wright brothers and other pioneers, the impact of air power on the outcome of World War I, and finally the transfer of prophecy into practice as flight came to play an ever-more important role in world affairs, both military and civil.
Competition:
Flight: 100 Years of Aviation, 440 pp, £30, 2002, Published by Dorling Kindersley - Our book contains rare photos and drawings, it also incorporates extracts from journals, diaries, and memoirs