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Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, And The Battle To Control The Skies (2014)

by Lawrence Goldstone(Favorite Author)

3.75 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

034553803X (ISBN13: 9780345538031)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Ballantine Books

review 1: The Wright Bros were not quite the American heroes we thought they were. Yes, they were our first powered fliers but they spent the decade after their history-making flight in a protracted legal battle over patents. The sued pioneer pilot and aircraft maker Glenn Curtiss and virtually anyone else who wanted to build an aeroplane that could be safely controlled. The Wrights, especially Wilbur, and Curtiss could have advanced aircraft design much further than they did but instead spent too much time with attorneys. Goldstone tells us that Wilbur was a design genius, but let himself be taken over by the desire to monopolize flying. Curtiss was a successful engine designer and builder who eventually created better aircraft than the Wrights.Goldstone wanted to balance the s... moretory between the harrowing tales of early dare-devil air shows, the continued legal wrangling over the Wright's "wing warping" patent and the story of how early planes were designed and tested. People who are more interested in the details of early aircraft design and manufacture will be wanting for more. The tales of early air-show pilots is compelling, the details of the sad legal wrangling not so much.
review 2: I'm sure this is a 5 star book if you are a historian and/or deeply interested in aviation. I, however am neither and simply picked up this book because I visited Kitty Hawk a couple years ago and have been to the Air and Space Smithsonian to see the Wright's plane, etc and thought it would be interesting to learn the story in more detail of how flight came to be. But, for me, this book read more like a text book and I just had a really hard time getting into it. I made it to Chapter 10 (1/4 way through the book) and decided to move on.... less

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