Uses contemporary accounts to trace the history of aviation and describe records, events, and technical developments

In 1935 Donald W. Douglas set out to build a fast, comfortable airliner to ply coast-to-coast routes in the USA. Little did he and his team realize it would become the standard transport of the world's airlines. With some 1000 DC-3s still flying, this volume pays tribute to six decades of service.

Bringing together elements of geology, natural history, geography, and human history, a collection of captioned aerial photographs tour the United States, identifying the features that airline passengers will see from the air, with essays interpreting these visible features along a flight corridor with photographs sequenced to follow a trip from takeoff to landing. Original.

"The day after which nothing would be the same for him was Friday, May 20, 1927. That morning, alone in a little plane powered by a single engine, Charles A. Lindbergh took off from a muddy runway on the outskirts of New York. His destination was Paris." So begins Brendan Gill's book about the most extraordinary feat of one of our country's most extraordinary men. With clarity of vision and characteristic elegance, Gill gives us in Lindbergh Alone a meditation on one man's unprecedented accomplishment, and the world's overwhelming response to it. Originally published for the fiftieth anniversary of the flight, Gill did not intend to write a standard biography of Lindbergh; rather, Gill attempted to describe an unknown young man at one moment in history, and to examine the forces that led him to act as he did. The 1920s were a period that sought out heroes and worshipped them extravagantly; few heroes were so unlike the age that fostered them as this "unheralded boy" of twenty-five. A shy man, bold hearted and firm of purpose, the Lindbergh we come to know in Gill's book is one whose intelligence and strength of will enabled him, through a single, superb act, to become perhaps the most celebrated figure of his time. Lindbergh Alone persuades us that Lindbergh's valorous flight and subsequent renown were the natural consequences of his upbringing and his own nature. It also demonstrates that, on rare occasions, a man is capable of making history by his own choice.

This book explains aircraft structures so as to provide a basic understanding of the subject and the terminology used, as well as illustrating some of the problems. It provides a brief historical background, and covers parts of the aeroplane, loads, structural form, materials, processes, detail design, quality control, stressing, and the documentation associated with modification and repairs. The Fourth Edition takes account of new materials and the new European regulatory system.

A biography of the Englishwoman known for her 1936 transatlantic solo flight describes her sexual adventures, three marriages, and pursuit of Denys Finch Hatton, whose relationship with Isak Dinesen was captured in Out of Africa.

Tells the stories of the first aviators and aircraft designers, recounts important contests, and air shows, and discusses important developments in early aviation