Enduring Courage: Ace Pilot Eddie Rickenbacker and the Dawn of the Age of Speed
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Published: 2014
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: ebook
ISBN-13: 9781250033789
Description: From the Introduction...

Rickenbacker lived at a time when the latest machines of the industrial revolutions were ripping apart the ages-old rhythms of plow and steam. When he was seven, the first car race reported average times of a little over 7 miles an hour; by his teenaged years, he would routinely clock speeds of 100 mph in competitions. When he was twelve, no one had flown in a heavier-than-air, powered machine or was expected to anytime soon; by his twenties, he was dogfighting at Mount Olympus heights. The motorcar and airplane each enabled its operator to experience dimensions of speed and time that no human being had ever encountered before. Again and again, Americans would watch as Eddie Rickenbacker climbed into these machines and pushed them faster and harder, escaping death by a heartbeat, only to flash a broad aw-shucks grin and go out and do it again.
Rickenbacker and the handful of fellow pioneers who straddled the early automotive and aviation worlds, often tempering the ingenious machines of Ford and Wright with their blood, exhibited the first truly modern “right stuff,” working without manuals or more than rudimentary instruction and pushing themselves and their machines to places where they didn’t know what would happen next. The pure creativity and imagination deployed by these young men who flew by the seat of their pants, innovated on the fly, and cheated death at technology’s outer edges were breathtaking.
Table of contents: label: Dedication; label: Acknowledgments; label: Map of the Western Front; label: Map of the Château-Thierry Sector; label: Map of the Saint-Mihiel Salient; label: Map of the Meuse-Argonne Sector; label: Introduction
title: When a Man Faces Death; label: Book I
title: Racing; label: Photo 1; label: Chapter 1
title: Love at First Sight; label: Chapter 2
title: A Most Dangerous Job; label: Chapter 3
title: Death on the Track; label: Chapter 4
title: Aeroplane vs. Automobile; label: Chapter 5
title: New Order of Terrors; label: Book II
title: Flying; label: Photo 2; label: Chapter 6
title: Storm Clouds Overhead; label: Chapter 7
title: Flying Lessons; label: Chapter 8
title: A Steep Learning Curve; label: Chapter 9
title: Aircraft Morph into Deadly Weapons; label: Book III
title: Fighting; label: Photo 3; label: Chapter 10
title: First Blood; label: Chapter 11
title: When Giants Fall; label: Chapter 12
title: Race to Ace; label: Chapter 13
title: The Germans Strike Back; label: Chapter 14
title: A Secret Counteroffensive; label: Chapter 15
title: Squadron Command; label: Book IV
title: Immortality; label: Photo 4; label: Chapter 16
title: Plane Crash; label: Chapter 17
title: Triumph of Will; label: Epilogue; label: Notes; label: A Note to the Reader; label: Index; label: Photographs; label: Also by John F. Ross; label: About the Author; label: Copyright