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This is a thread which will focus on the history of airplanes.


North American P-51 Mustang, a World War II fighter aircraft

I am not an expert on the subject of aviation, but here are some of my favorite books on the topic in no particular order. I'll add more as I remember them.

by John Toland

Unfortunately, the dirigibles were unstable ships and they are best remembered for their disasters. This book covers the beginnings of the dirigible through the Hindenberg. I thought this book gave a good overview of a topic which was unknown to me.

Thanks G for the additions. New thread and we are always eager for contributions like this.

by Seth Shulman

When I read this I had limited knowledge of Glenn Hammond Curtis. When I finished the book, I was amazed that the general public actually had little knowledge of him. He, like the Wright brothers, worked on and raced bicycles. He then worked on and built motorcycles, and this was the start of his interest in engines, and how they could power aircraft. In the meantime, he set a world speed record on a motorcycle he built.

He went on to build seaplanes for the navy, and became the "father of Naval aviation." His contributions to the development of American aviation are astounding. The Wrights were not the only aviation pioneers.

by Fred Howard (no photo)

This is an 'old' biography from the 1980's and introduces the non-aviation reader to the pioneers of aviation, Otto Lilienthal and Octave Chanute. It is very comprehensive, I thought.

Hi G, here is how we do the above - there is a book cover and we add no photo at the end showing that there was no author's photo and that is why we did not add it:

by Fred Howard (no photo)

If you fix message 4, I will be happy to delete this post.

by Doris L. Rich (no photo)

This is an amazing story, and a social history of the era.

Thanks Bentley. I couldn't find a cover photo, but I've been having trouble with posting via my iPad. I can try to fix it when I get on my computer later.

OK G - thanks I will of course delete the post when you have a chance to fix it - we are delighted with the adds.

China Clipper.....that phrase resonates with the mystery of the Far East and the adventurous tourists who flew in her. This book provides the history of this commercial air icon.

China Clipper: The Age of the Great Flying Boats

by Robert Gandt (no photo)

Synopsis:

When China Clipper shattered aviation records on its maiden six-day flight from California to the Orient in 1935, the flying boat became an instant celebrity. This lively history by Robert Gandt traces the development of the great flying boats as both a triumph of technology and a stirring human drama. He examines the political, military, and economic forces that drove its development and explains the aeronautical advances that made the aircraft possible. To fully document the story he includes interviews with flying boat pioneers and a dynamic collection of photographs, charts, and cutaway illustrations.
____________________________________________________

Here is one of those beauties.

Beautiful photo

by Robert Daley

Book Description:

Juan Trippe, the first and last aviation tycoon in history, learned to fly in the rickety machines of World War I, when he sky appealed only to daredevils, and his life expectancy could have been counted, probably, in days. He was as star struck as any of the other young aviators of the day, but he was also a Yale educated banker’s son who believed the world was crying out for air travel but didn’t yet know it. In 1927 Pan American had only one route, 90 miles from Key West to Havana. Within eight years at great risk and against fantastic odds Pan Am had crossed the Pacific, and after that Trippe thrust his tentacles into all of Latin America, into Europe, Africa, Australia--even into China. He was a nerveless, sometimes vicious competitor who bought up or drove out of business anyone who got in his way—President Roosevelt once referred to him as a “Yale educated gangster� until he had built Pan Am into the mightiest airline in the world.

I came to this book not prepared to like it because I read it after the fall of Pan Am, but I was engrossed almost immediately. As the title says, an American Saga.

G - very good and you almost have the moderator's format down

An American Saga: Juan Trippe and His Pan Am Empire

by Robert Daley

Synopsis:

Juan Trippe, the first and last aviation tycoon in history, learned to fly in the rickety machines of World War I, when he sky appealed only to daredevils, and his life expectancy could have been counted, probably, in days. He was as star struck as any of the other young aviators of the day, but he was also a Yale educated banker’s son who believed the world was crying out for air travel but didn’t yet know it. In 1927 Pan American had only one route, 90 miles from Key West to Havana. Within eight years at great risk and against fantastic odds Pan Am had crossed the Pacific, and after that Trippe thrust his tentacles into all of Latin America, into Europe, Africa, Australia--even into China. He was a nerveless, sometimes vicious competitor who bought up or drove out of business anyone who got in his way—President Roosevelt once referred to him as a “Yale educated gangster� until he had built Pan Am into the mightiest airline in the world.

I came to this book not prepared to like it because I read it after the fall of Pan Am, but I was engrossed almost immediately. As the title says, an American Saga.

Sagittarius Rising

by Cecil Lewis (no photo)

Synopsis:
In this reminiscent epic of adventurous youth, Cecil Lewis looks back on his charmed existence during the war (WWI), and afterwards as a pilot instructor in China. No other book conveys so vividly the thrills of flight in those flimsy machines, the hazards, the courtesies and the mortal dangers of war in the air. When Sagittarius Risingwas first published in 1936, Bernard Shaw wrote:

"This is a book which everybody should read. It is the autobiography of an ace, and no common ace either. The boy had all the noble tastes and qualities, love of beauty, soaring imagination, a brilliant endowment of good looks...this prince of pilots...had a charmed life in every sense of the word."

I original read this book to learn more about the Fairey Swordish and other biplanes, but I learned less about the planes and more about what it actually took to fly them. It is really an outstanding memoir.

Very good G - we do put Synopsis: in bold and skip a line between Synopsis: and the first sentence of the review but other than that you are pretty close to the mod's way of doing it.

An upcoming book:
Release date: May 6, 2014

Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies

by Lawrence Goldstone

Synopsis:

From acclaimed historian Lawrence Goldstone comes a thrilling narrative of courage, determination, and competition: the story of the intense rivalry that fueled the rise of American aviation.

The feud between this nation’s great air pioneers, the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss, was a collision of unyielding and profoundly American personalities. On one side, a pair of tenacious siblings who together had solved the centuries-old riddle of powered, heavier-than-air flight. On the other, an audacious motorcycle racer whose innovative aircraft became synonymous in the public mind with death-defying stunts. For more than a decade, they battled each other in court, at air shows, and in the newspapers. The outcome of this contest of wills would shape the course of aviation history—and take a fearsome toll on the men involved.

Birdmen sets the engrossing story of the Wrights� war with Curtiss against the thrilling backdrop of the early years of manned flight, and is rich with period detail and larger-than-life personalities: Thomas Scott Baldwin, or “Cap’t Tom� as he styled himself, who invented the parachute and almost convinced the world that balloons were the future of aviation; John Moisant, the dapper daredevil who took to the skies after three failed attempts to overthrow the government of El Salvador, then quickly emerged as a celebrity flyer; and Harriet Quimby, the statuesque silent-film beauty who became the first woman to fly across the English Channel. And then there is Lincoln Beachey, perhaps the greatest aviator who ever lived, who dazzled crowds with an array of trademark twists and dives—and best embodied the romance with death that fueled so many of aviation’s earliest heroes.

A dramatic story of unimaginable bravery in the air and brutal competition on the ground, Birdmen is at once a thrill ride through flight’s wild early years and a surprising look at the personal clash that fueled America’s race to the skies.

Chasing Icarus: The Seventeen Days in 1910 That Forever Changed American Aviation

by Gavin Mortimer

Synopsis:

In October of 1910, only four years before the outbreak of World War I, nobody knew whether planes, dirigibles, or balloons would prevail. Within a period of seventeen days, this question was on prime display, as the dirigible America tried to cross the Atlantic; huge crowds gathered at horse-racing tracks to watch airplanes race around overhead; and ballooning teams from around the world took off from St. Louis in pursuit of the Bennett International Balloon Cup, given to the balloon that traveled the farthest. The dramatic denouement would stun the country and lay the foundation for the air force. In Chasing Icarus, Gavin Mortimer has plumbed original and primary sources to paint a vivid picture of the launching point of flight, and an indelible portrait of the late-Edwardian world about to explode into war.

An upcoming book:
Release date: June 24, 2014

The Dayton Flight Factory: The Wright Brothers & the Birth of Aviation

by Timothy R Gaffney (no photo)

Synopsis:

The Wright brothers are known around the world as the inventors of the airplane. But few people know Wilbur and Orville invented the airplane in Dayton, Ohio--their hometown--not in North Carolina, where they tested it. Efforts to preserve historic places in the Dayton region where the Wright brothers lived and worked are paying off. Today, you can stroll the Wright brothers' neighborhood, see the original 1905 Wright Flyer III and walk the prairie where they flew it. A project to restore the Wright brothers' factory--the first American factory built to produce airplanes--will complete the picture. In this book, author Timothy R. Gaffney uses historical research and today's aviation heritage sites to retell the story of the Wright brothers from a hometown perspective.

Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies

by Lawrence Goldstone

Synopsis:

From acclaimed historian Lawrence Goldstone comes a thrilling narrative of courage, determination, and competition: the story of the intense rivalry that fueled the rise of American aviation.

The feud between this nation’s great air pioneers, the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss, was a collision of unyielding and profoundly American personalities. On one side, a pair of tenacious siblings who together had solved the centuries-old riddle of powered, heavier-than-air flight. On the other, an audacious motorcycle racer whose innovative aircraft became synonymous in the public mind with death-defying stunts. For more than a decade, they battled each other in court, at air shows, and in the newspapers. The outcome of this contest of wills would shape the course of aviation history—and take a fearsome toll on the men involved.

Birdmen sets the engrossing story of the Wrights� war with Curtiss against the thrilling backdrop of the early years of manned flight, and is rich with period detail and larger-than-life personalities: Thomas Scott Baldwin, or “Cap’t Tom� as he styled himself, who invented the parachute and almost convinced the world that balloons were the future of aviation; John Moisant, the dapper daredevil who took to the skies after three failed attempts to overthrow the government of El Salvador, then quickly emerged as a celebrity flyer; and Harriet Quimby, the statuesque silent-film beauty who became the first woman to fly across the English Channel. And then there is Lincoln Beachey, perhaps the greatest aviator who ever lived, who dazzled crowds with an array of trademark twists and dives—and best embodied the romance with death that fueled so many of aviation’s earliest heroes.

A dramatic story of unimaginable bravery in the air and brutal competition on the ground, Birdmen is at once a thrill ride through flight’s wild early years and a surprising look at the personal clash that fueled America’s race to the skies.

Kathy wrote: "Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies

by [authorima..."

Jerome mentioned this book earlier on the thread but it bears repeating, Kathy. It speaks to things that are not usually mentioned when we speak of the Wright brothers. Lots of colorful characters.

Jerome wrote: "Chasing Icarus: The Seventeen Days in 1910 That Forever Changed American Aviation

by [authorim..."

Thanks! This sounds like a good read. I am adding it to my list.

Wings: A History of Aviation from Kites to the Space Age

by Tom D. Crouch (no photo)

Synopsis:

The invention of the airplane ushered in the modern age—a new era of global commerce, revolutionary technologies, and total war. Whatever the practical consequences, the sheer exhilaration of flight captured the imagination. No longer bound to the surface of the earth, humans took the first steps on a journey that would eventually carry them to other worlds. Tom Crouch weaves the people, machines, and ideas of the air age into a compelling narrative. He tells how the enthusiasm of amateurs spawned an industry that determined the rise and fall of nations. Yet this is not a tale of unalloyed progress. Moments of exaltation were tempered by bitter disappointment and stark terror. Blind alleys were the price of technical progress. In the end, there is no more fascinating cast of characters than those who wrote history in the sky. Theirs is a fascinating story of realizing an extraordinary dream and riding it.

The Airplane: How Ideas Gave Us Wings

by Jay Spenser (no photo)

Synopsis:

Who were aviation's dreamers and from where did they draw their inspiration? What lessons did inventors learn from birds, insects, marine mammals, and fish that helped us fly? How did the bicycle lead to the airplane, and hot water heaters to metal fuselages?And who figured out how to fly without seeing the ground, setting the stage for scheduled airline services in all weather conditions?

In this entertaining history of the jetliner, Jay Spenser follows the flow of simple yet powerful ideas to trace aviation's challenges. He introduces us to pioneers across continents and centuries, sheds new insights on their contributions, and evokes those key moments in history when, piece by piece, such innovators as Otto Lilienthal, Igor Sikorsky, Louis Blériot, Hugo Junkers, and Jack Northrop collectively solved the puzzle of flight.

Along the way, Spenser demystifies the modern jetliner. From wings to flight controls to fuselages to landing gear, he examines the parts of the airplane to show how they came into being and have evolved over time. The Airplane culminates in a discussion of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner and explores the possibilities for aviation's future.

A Dream of Wings: Americans and the Airplane, 1875-1905

by Tom D. Crouch (no photo)

Synopsis:

When Orville and Wilbur Wright soared over Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina's outer banks and solved the problem of aerial navigation, they wrote the last chapter in a long story. For decades prior, a small community of engineers, scientists, and dreamers—men named Chanute and Langley and Herring—had tried to make the ascent in every conceivable craft, from kites and gliders to an assortment of powered flying models. This fascinating assortment of characters and contraptions comes to life in Tom Crouch's classic A Dream of Wings. In the quest for flight, aeronautical societies were formed and broke apart, successes were celebrated, hopes rose and fell, and lessons were learned and built upon. The dreamers who blazed the path to a flying machine are bravely realized in these delightful pages.

To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight

by James Tobin (no photo)

Synopsis:

James Tobin, award-winning author of Ernie Pyle's War and The Man He Became, has penned the definitive account of the inspiring and impassioned race between the Wright brothers and their primary rival Samuel Langley across ten years and two continents to conquer the air.

For years, Wilbur Wright and his younger brother, Orville, experimented in obscurity, supported only by their exceptional family. Meanwhile, the world watched as Samuel Langley, armed with a contract from the US War Department and all the resources of the Smithsonian Institution, sought to create the first manned flying machine. But while Langley saw flight as a problem of power, the Wrights saw a problem of balance. Thus their machines took two very different paths:Langley's toward oblivion, the Wrights' toward the heavens;though not before facing countless other obstacles. With a historian's accuracy and a novelist's eye, Tobin has captured an extraordinary moment in history. To Conquer the Air is itself a heroic achievement.

Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight

by Paul Hoffman

Synopsis:

On the eve of the centennial of the Wright brothers' historic flights at Kitty Hawk, a new generation will learn about the other man who was once hailed worldwide as the conqueror of the air--Alberto Santos-Dumont. Because the Wright brothers worked in secrecy, word of their first flights had not reached Europe when Santos-Dumont took to the skies in 1906. The dashing, impeccably dressed inventor entertained Paris with his airborne antics--barhopping in a little dirigible that he tied to lampposts, circling above crowds around the Eiffel Tower, and crashing into rooftops. A man celebrated, even pursued by the press in Paris, London, and New York, Santos-Dumont dined regularly with the Cartiers, the Rothschilds, and the Roosevelts. But beneath his lively public exterior, Santos-Dumont was a frenzied genius tortured by the weight of his own creation. Wings of Madness chronicles the science and history of early aviation and offers a fascinating glimpse into the mind of an extraordinary and tormented man, vividly depicting the sights and sounds of turn-of-the-century Paris. It is a book that will do for aviation what The Man Who Loved Only Numbers did for mathematics.

Atlantic Fever: Lindbergh, His Competitors, and the Race to Cross the Atlantic

by Joe Jackson (no photo)

Synopsis
For five weeks—from April 14 to May 21, 1927—the world held its breath while fourteen aviators took to the air to capture the $25,000 prize that Raymond Orteig offered to the first man to cross the Atlantic Ocean without stopping.

Joe Jackson’s Atlantic Fever is about this race, a milestone in American history whose story has never been fully told. Delving into the lives of the big-name competitors—the polar explorer Richard Byrd, the French war hero René Fonck, the millionaire Charles Levine, and the race’s eventual winner, the enigmatic Charles Lindbergh—as well as those whose names have been forgotten by history (such as Bernt Balchen, Stanton Wooster, and Clarence Chamberlin), Jackson brings a completely fresh and original perspective to the race to conquer the Atlantic.

Atlantic Fever opens for us one of those magical windows onto a moment when the nexus of technology, innovation, character, and spirit led so many contenders from different parts of the world to be on the cusp of the exact same achievement at the exact same time.

Thanks Sarah, perfect citations.

We can't mention airplanes without a reference to one of the great mysteries of the 20th century.....the disappearance of aviatrix Amelia Earhart. The book below offers one explanation which may well be the answer to something that has puzzled people for years.

Amelia Earhart

by Elgen Long(no photo)

Synopsis

When Amelia Earhart disappeared on July 2, 1937, she was flying the longest leg of her around-the-world flight and was only days away from completing her journey. Her plane was never found, and for more than sixty years rumors have persisted about what happened to her.

Now, with the recent discovery of long-lost radio messages from Earhart's final flight, we can say with confidence that she ran out of gas just short of her destination of Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. From the beginning of her flight, a series of tragic circumstances all but doomed her and her navigator, Fred Noonan.

Authors Elgen M. and Marie K. Long spent more than twenty-five years researching the mystery surrounding Earhart's final flight before finally determining what happened. They traveled over one hundred thousand miles to interview more than one hundred people who knew some part of the Earhart story. They draw on authoritative sources to take us inside the cockpit of the Electra plane that Earhart flew and recreate the final flight itself. Because Elgen Long began his own flying career not long after Earhart's disappearance, he can describe the equipment and conditions of the time with a vivid first-hand accuracy. As a result, this book brings to life the primitive conditions under which Earhart flew, in an era before radar, with unreliable communications, grass landing strips, and poorly mapped islands.

Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved does more than just answer the question, What happened to Amelia Earhart? It reminds us how daring early aviators such as Earhart were as they risked their lives to push the technology of the day to its limits and beyond.

An upcoming book:
Release date: May 5, 2015

The Wright Brothers

by David McCullough

Synopsis:

On December 17, 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Wilbur and Orville Wright’s Wright Flyer became the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard. The Age of Flight had begun. How did they do it? And why? David McCullough tells the extraordinary and truly American story of the two brothers who changed the world.

Sons of an itinerant preacher and a mother who died young, Wilbur and Orville Wright grew up in a small side street in Dayton, Ohio, in a house that lacked indoor plumbing and electricity but was filled with books and a love of learning. The brothers ran a bicycle shop that allowed them to earn enough money to pursue their mission in life: flight. In the 1890s flying was beginning to advance beyond the glider stage, but there were major technical challenges that the Wrights were determined to solve. They traveled to North Carolina’s remote Outer Banks to test their plane because there they found three indispensable conditions: constant winds, soft surfaces for landings, and privacy.

Flying was exceedingly dangerous; the Wrights risked their lives every time they flew in the years that followed. Orville nearly died in a crash in 1908, before he was nursed back to health by his sister, Katharine, an unsung and important part of the brothers� success and of McCullough’s book. Despite their achievement, the Wrights could not convince the US government to take an interest in their plane until after they demonstrated its success in France, where the government instantly understood the importance of their achievement. Now, in this revelatory book, master historian David McCullough draws on nearly 1,000 letters of family correspondence—plus diaries, notebooks, and family scrapbooks in the Library of Congress—to tell the full story of the Wright brothers and their heroic achievement.

Wow, this is what he was working on next. Very nice.

That should be an exciting book.

Oh thanks, Jerome. This one goes on my list for sure.

Get the real scoop on the great faux pas of aviation history.

Howard Hughes and the Spruce Goose: The Sotry of the H-K1 Hercules

by Graham M Simons (no photo)

Synopsis:

Howard Hughes' life ambition was to make a significant contribution to the field of aviation development. But the monumental folly of his endeavors on the H-KI Hercules meant that he came to be known and remembered to a great extent for all the wrong reasons. The 'Spruce Goose' (a name Hughes detested) became a product of his wild fixation on perfection and scale. Once completed, it was the largest flying machine ever built. Its wingspan of 320 feet remains the largest in history. Yet it only completed one flight; flying for a mile on its maiden voyage above Long Beach Harbor, before being consigned to the history books as a failure.Experienced author Graham M. Simons turns his attention to the production process that saw this colossus take shape. In words and images, all aspects of this process are illustrated. We have shots taken during the initial design period, images of the craft under construction, and photographs taken at the test flights. In addition, Simons has been gifted access to the highly prized and rarely seen aircraft manual produced for the aircraft, content from which has been extracted and used to supplement the narrative.The book goes on to explore the political issues that sprung up as a result of Hughes' endeavors, looking into the Senate War Investigations Committee's findings which explored the extent to which government funds had been utilized in the development and construction of the airship, adding a whole new layer of controversy to the proceedings.

These were the days when bombs were thrown by hand over the side of the plane......how effective could it be?

Biplanes and Bombsights: British Bombing in World War I

by George K. Williams (no photo)

Synopsis:

Colonel Williams presents a comprehensive study of British bombing efforts in the Great War. He contends that the official version of costs and results underplays the costs while overplaying the results. Supported by postwar findings of both US and British evaluation teams, he argues that British bombing efforts were significantly less effective than heretofore believed.

Colonel Williams also presents a strong argument that German air defenses caused considerably less damage to British forces than pilot error, malfunctioning aircraft, and bad weather. That we believed otherwise supports the notion that British bombing raids had forced Germany to transfer significant air assets to defend against them. Williams, however, found no evidence that any such transfer occurred. Actual results, Colonel Williams argues, stand in strong contrast to claimed results.

An upcoming book:
Release date: July 31, 2018

The Grand Designers: The Evolution of the Airplane in the 20th Century

by John David Anderson Jr. (no photo)

Synopsis:

The airplane has experienced phenomenal advancement in the twentieth century, changing at an exponential rate from the Wright brothers to the present day. In this ground-breaking work based on new research, Dr. John D. Anderson Jr., a curator at the National Air and Space Museum, analyzes the historical development of the conceptual design process of the airplane. He aims to answer the question of whether airplane advancement has been driven by a parallel advancement in the intellectual methodology of conceptual airplane design. In doing so, Anderson identifies and examines six case histories of "Grand Designers" in this field, and challenges some of the preconceived notions of how the intellectual methodology of conceptual airplane design advanced. Filled with over one hundred illustrations which bring his words to life, Anderson unfolds the lives and thoughts of these Grand Designers.

Thank you Jerome

Lindbergh

by A. Scott Berg (no photo)

Synopsis:

Few American icons provoke more enduring fascination than Charles Lindbergh—renowned for his one-man transatlantic flight in 1927, remembered for the sorrow surrounding the kidnapping and death of his firstborn son in 1932, and reviled by many for his opposition to America's entry into World War II. Lindbergh's is "a dramatic and disturbing American story," says the Los Angeles Times Book Review, and this biography—the first to be written with unrestricted access to the Lindbergh archives and extensive interviews of his friends, colleagues, and close family members—is "the definitive account."

An upcoming book:
Release date: December 4, 2018

Wright Brothers, Wrong Story: How Wilbur Wright Solved the Problem of Manned Flight

by William Hazelgrove (no photo)

Synopsis:

How could two misanthropic brothers who never left home, were high-school dropouts, and made a living as bicycle mechanics have figured out the secret of manned flight? This new history of the Wright Brothers' monumental accomplishment focuses on their early years of trial and error at Kitty Hawk (1900-1903) and Orville Wright's epic fight with the Smithsonian Institute and Glenn Curtis. William Hazelgrove makes a convincing case that it was Wilbur Wright who designed the first successful airplane, not Orville. He shows that, while Orville's role was important, he generally followed his brother's lead and assisted with the mechanical details to make Wilbur's vision a reality.

Combing through original archives and family letters, Hazelgrove reveals the differences in the brothers' personalities and abilities. He examines how the Wright Brothers' myth was born when Wilbur Wright died early and left his brother to write their history with personal friend John Kelly. The author notes the peculiar inwardness of their family life, business and family problems, bouts of depression, serious illnesses, and yet, rising above it all, was Wilbur's obsessive zeal to test out his flying ideas. When he found Kitty Hawk, this desolate location on North Carolina's Outer Banks became his laboratory. By carefully studying bird flight and the Rubik's Cube of control, Wilbur cracked the secret of aerodynamics and achieved liftoff on December 17, 1903.

Hazelgrove's richly researched and well-told tale of the Wright Brothers' landmark achievement captures the excitement of the times at the start of the "American century."

Thank you for the add Jerome

The Flight of the Century

by Thomas Kessner (no photo)

Synopsis:

In late May 1927 an inexperienced and unassuming 25-year-old Air Mail pilot from rural Minnesota stunned the world by making the first non-stop transatlantic flight. A spectacular feat of individual daring and collective technological accomplishment, Charles Lindbergh's flight from New York to Paris ushered in America's age of commercial aviation.

In The Flight of the Century, Thomas Kessner takes a fresh look at one of America's greatest moments, explaining how what was essentially a publicity stunt became a turning point in history.

He vividly recreates the flight itself and the euphoric reaction to it on both sides of the Atlantic, and argues that Lindbergh's amazing feat occurred just when the world--still struggling with the disillusionment of WWI--desperately needed a hero to restore a sense of optimism and innocence.

Kessner also shows how new forms of mass media made Lindbergh into the most famous international celebrity of his time, casting him in the role of a humble yet dashing American hero of rural origins and traditional values. Much has been made of Lindbergh's personal integrity and his refusal to cash in on his fame.

But Kessner reveals that Lindbergh was closely allied with, and managed by, a group of powerful businessmen--Harry Guggenheim, Dwight Morrow, and Henry Breckenridge chief among them--who sought to exploit aviation for mass transport and massive profits. Their efforts paid off as commercial air traffic soared from 6,000 passengers in 1926 to 173,000 passengers in 1929.

Kessner's book is the first to fully explore Lindbergh's central role in promoting the airline industry--the rise of which has influenced everything from where we live to how we wage war and do business.

The Flight of the Century sheds new light on one of America's fascinatingly enigmatic heroes and most transformative moments.

Here is an interview segment that Five Books had with Joseph Corn - an historian and author:

"Since Lindbergh’s flight there have been probably hundreds of accounts of it. He himself wrote two. We was a light biography with a 10-page account of the flight that he released within two months of landing.

In We Lindbergh referred to himself and also his airplane, which he saw as his partner in that achievement. Then in 1953 he published a book called The Spirit of St Louis, which won the Pulitzer prize. He devoted most of the book to an hour-by-hour chronicle of the flight balanced by his meditations while in flight.

In that way he interweaves the story of his life with the story of his historic flight. It was a brilliant literary achievement, very straightforward but often a bit scary, particularly when he’s falling asleep mid-Atlantic. That was his second book about the flight.

Historians and journalists wrote many more. A Scott Berg wrote a magisterial biography using Lindbergh’s papers with the permission of his wife. But then Kessner comes along. He’s a historian at CUNY. Kessner focused on not just the flight itself but how the flight was promoted and its impact on American aviation and culture. He tells that story wonderfully.

During the tour Lindbergh made of America after his record-breaking flight he visited every state in the nation. How did his journey over the Atlantic, and his promotional odyssey afterwards, affect the future of aviation?

Thanks to movie newsreels, which had been developed in years before 1927, not only did people know about Lindbergh but they had a visual image of him. And thanks to radio they knew his voice too. I don’t think any world leader was as widely recognised, until you get to Stalin maybe and Roosevelt and Churchill.

As to the impact on aviation � one dramatic thing was that aviation stocks all of a sudden were worth money. That’s a mark of the market’s belief that the future of commercial aviation seemed much brighter after Lindbergh flew. The Air Mail Act, which gave subsidies to passenger airlines for carrying the mail, was enacted in 1930. The publicity that Lindbergh generated facilitated the passage of that act".

More:


Source: Five Books

We

by Charles A. Lindbergh

Synopsis:

Very good copy in the original gilt-blocked cloth. Spine bands and panel edges slightly dust-toned and rubbed as with age. Front cover of original dw loosely inserted. Previous owner's bookplate to front pastedown. Remains particularly well-preserved overall; tight, bright, clean and strong.; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 235 pages; 235p., frontis. (port.), plates; 19cm. Subjects: Charles A. Lindbergh -- Biography

The Spirit of St. Louis

by Charles A. Lindbergh (no photo)

Synopsis:

The classic, bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning account of Charles A. Lindbergh's historic transatlantic flight

Along with most of my fellow fliers, I believed that aviation had a brilliant future. Now we live, today, in our dreams of yesterday; and, living in those dreams, we dream again�

Charles A. Lindbergh captured the world's attention—and changed the course of history—when he completed his famous nonstop flight from New York to Paris in 1927. In The Spirit of St. Louis, Lindbergh takes the reader on an extraordinary journey, bringing to life the thrill and peril of trans-Atlantic travel in a single-engine plane. Eloquently told and sweeping in its scope, Lindbergh's Pulitzer Prize-winning account is an epic adventure tale for all time

Literary Award:

Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography (1954)

An upcoming book:
Release date: September 24, 2024

Into Unknown Skies: An Unlikely Team, a Daring Race, and the First Flight Around the World

by David Randall (no photo)

Synopsis:

In the early 1920s, America’s faith in aviation was in shambles. Twenty years after the Wright Brothers� first flight, most Americans believed airplanes were for delivering the mail or performing daredevil stunts in front of crowds. The dream of commercial air travel remained just that. Even the American military was a skeptic—rather than pay to bring its planes back from Europe following World War I, the War Department chose to burn most of them instead.

All that changed with a single race in 1924. It was not just any race, though—it was a race to become the first to circle the globe in an airplane, pitting a team of four underdog American pilots against the best aviators in the world from England, Italy, Portugal, France, and Argentina. Rooted in the same daring spirit that pushed early twentieth-century explorers to attempt crossings of the Antarctic ice or locate the source of the Nile, this race was an adventure unlike anything the world had seen before. The obstacles were daunting—from experimental planes, to dangerous landings in uncharted territory, to the simple navigational gauges that could lead pilots hundreds of miles off course. Failure seemed all but guaranteed—the suspense less about who would win than how many would perish for the honor of being the first.

Now on the race’s centennial, award-winning author David K. Randall tells the story of this riveting, long-forgotten race. Through larger-than-life characters, treacherous landings, disease, and ultimately triumph, Into Unknown Skies demonstrates how one race returned America to aviation greatness. A story of underdog teammates, bold exploration, and American ingenuity, Into Unknown Skies is an untold adventure tale showing the power of flight to bring the world together.

Fantastic review, Jerome!. How can I bear to wait til September???
Regards,
Andrea

Another:
Release date: June 3, 2025

The Big Hop: The First Non-stop Flight Across the Atlantic Ocean and Into the Future

by David Rooney (no photo)

Synopsis:

In 1919, in Newfoundland, four teams of aviators came from Britain to compete in "the Big Hop" an audacious race to be the first to fly, nonstop, across the Atlantic Ocean. Only one team, after a death-defying sixteen-hour journey, made it to Ireland. The Atlantic flights of Charles Lindbergh in 1927 and Amelia Earhart in 1932 pushed this earlier contest into the shadows, but The Big Hop grants the pioneering airmen of 1919 the spotlight they deserve.

Mining evocative first-person accounts, David Rooney traces the pilots' lives and journeys, transporting readers to the world in which the great contest took place. The transatlantic race offered a welcome distraction--and a surge of inspiration--to a public reeling from the Great War and influenza pandemic. The Big Hop recounts this deeply moving adventure, helping to answer the question of why we took to the skies, and why flights like this one mattered.