Oakland Aviation (CA) (Images of Aviation)
Title: LaGuardia and Oakland AviationAuthor: Staff WriterPublisher: Airways MagazineDate:  March 2009LAGUARDIA AIRPORTJoshua StoffOAKLAND AVIATIONRonald T Reuther & William T LarkinsArcadia PublishingEach 128pp; 200 b&wphotos; paperbound($19.99 & $21.99, respectively)Two noteworthy additions for Airways readers to Arcadia's 'Images of Aviation' series of photographic histories are devoted to two important commercial airports: New York,LaGuardia; and Oakland, California.LaGuardia (Airways, February 2008 & October 2005), known originally as New York Municipal Airport, needs little introduction, and the photo coverage captures the Douglas DC-3 years, the romantic era of the flying boats (Airways, August 2007 & May 1999), and the postwar propliner decade, although only a handful of pages are given over to the last 40 years. As many of the photos came from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) archives, destroyed on September 11, 2001, this alone is good reason to add this title to a library.Well-known aviation historian and photographer Bill Larkins has contributed his local knowledge and immense photo archive to produce a first-rate history of Oakland (OAK), which began its association with aviation in the 1850s with hot-air balloons. While OAK has been a traditional home to US 'non-skeds', and these are well represented in the choice of photos, there is much more to the story, including trans-Pacific flights, air racing, and the Naval Air Reserve. Co-authored by the late Ron Reuther, founder of the Western Aerospace Museum (at OAK), little of the airport's glorious past has been overlooked.