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Title: First Flight: The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Airplane by T. A. Heppenheimer ISBN: 0-471-40124-2 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 31 January, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A bit too technical
Comment: This was a very interesting book concerning the early history of man's efforts to conquor the sky. Unfortunately for the lay reader, of which I am one, there was a lot of technical writing involved, and it lost me a lot of the time, particularly when the author was speaking about dihedrals and things of that ilk. When it came to the straight history of the flight efforts, and the Wright brothers, the story really moved along, but it did bog down for me in the scientific aspects. I don't want to take anything away from the expertise of the author, which is extensive, so I do encourage folks to read this book. Just be warned about the technical aspects of it. Gloss over them, and there is still a good read.
Rating: 5
Summary: This One Takes Off
Comment: By Bill Marsano. The centennial of flight has given us a spate of Wrighteous books this year, but few can match this one for expert knowledge and for pleasurable reading. Heppenheimer is an aviation expert and writer who has covered the ground exceedingly well. Most important, he avoids the folkloric view of the Wrights as a couple of plucky, red-cheeked mechanics who somehow kicked an airplane into being for a lark. They were, in fact, a pair of solid and serious young Midwestern businessmen who looked the part: Even in the workshop they customarily wore jacket and tie. They flew with their hats on. Generally they resembled a couple of bankers who are about to turn down a loan application. Beyond that, they were not merely mechanics but natural-born engineers and self-taught scientists who observed, studied, tested--and learned from their mistakes as well as their successes. Most of us have heard the 'story' of the Wright Brothers--this book helps us comprehend the astonishing magnitude of their achievement, which took them less than five years, working part-time and paying their own way.
Heppenheimer brings a lot of color into his story--the Wrights and others are revealed to us as human beings rather than icons--and he goes far afield, too, bringing us the stories of those others who preceded and competed with the Wrights. The result is a nicely rounded saga of man's long struggle to progress from wishes to wings. He also answers a question people often forget to ask: The Wrights produced the first man-carrying powered airplane in 1903; they set the world on its heels when, in 1908, they went to France for their first large-scale public demonstrations (before an extremely skeptical audience)--so how was it that they faded so quickly from the scene? I won't reveal the answer here (though I will suggest that the facts seem to pre-figure the later struggle between the Apple and the PC). And I will strongly urge you to read this book.
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Title: To Conquer the Air : The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight by James Tobin ISBN: 0684856883 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 14 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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Title: How We Invented the Airplane : An Illustrated History by Orville Wright ISBN: 0486256626 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 June, 1988 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age by Peter L Jakab, Tom D Crouch ISBN: 0792269853 Publisher: National Geographic Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title:Kitty Hawk - The Wright Brothers' Journey of Invention (Collector's Edition DVD) ASIN: B0000DC13P Publisher: David Garrigus Productions Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.98 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $24.98 |
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Title: The Wright Brothers Legacy: Orville and Wilbur Wright and Their Aeroplanes in Pictures by Walt Burton, Owen Findsen ISBN: 0810942674 Publisher: Harry N. Abrams Pub. Date: 01 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $37.50 |
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