Smithsonian Frontiers of Flight
by By Ethell, Jeffrey L.
Category: Technology & Engineering , General

At the beginning of this century, just before Orville and Wilbur Wright achieved their famous breakthrough, powered flight was still a dream. Who could have predicted that only 70 years later, worldwide air travel would be commonplace, wars would be fought in the air, and men and women would explore space? Few other areas of discovery have changed the world as dramatically as has aviation.The story of aviation is one of technical innovation and visionary genius, of extraordinary courage and dogged determination. Smithsonian Frontiers of Flight celebrates the milestones in the history of flight by profiling the aircraft chosen by the curators of the National Air and Space Museum as the most important in their matchless collection. It tells the story of these history-making airplanes and of the men and women who built and flew them.Among the two dozen aircraft featured are the Wright brothers' 1903 Flyer, the first powered airplane to achieve sustained, controllable flight; Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, perhaps the single most famous aircraft in history; the Winnie Mae, flown by Wiley Post on two record around-the-world flights in the 1930s; the H-1, flown by Howard Hughes to break the world speed record in 1935 and regarded by many as the most beautiful aircraft ever built; and the Bell X-1 that Chuck Yeager flew through the sound barrier.All of these, and scores of other historic aircraft, have been preserved for posterity by the Smithsonian Institution, but only a fraction of them can be displayed in the Air and Space Museum. The over 300 photographs in Smithsonian Frontiers of Flight reveal the full riches of the museum's collection and glow with the spirit of ingenuity and adventure.Author Jeffrey L. Ethell, a veteran pilot and acclaimed aviation historian, brings the images to life as he narrates the most dramatic moments in the history of powered flight.