San Antonio College Library

"A celebration of aviation's first 100 years. In 1903, the Wright Brothers achieved powered flight for the first time in history. Today, the wingspan length of commercial aircraft surpasses the distance of Orville Wright's first flight. Wild About Flying is the story of flight as told through the people who changed the world forever. The book tells the true-life adventures of the pioneers, inventors, aviators, designers, engineers, navigators, test-pilots...

Describes the fervor with which the age of flight was greeted in America and recounts many episodes of the first era of manned flight.

"Fourteen incredible-but-true accounts of airplanes and men whose fate was not in the flight plan"--Jacket subtitle.

The first ?air force? was founded by Napoleon Bonaparte. The American Civil, Franco-Prussian, and First World Wars saw extensive use of balloons, but it was during the Second World War that the balloon saw more new and imaginative uses. Barrage balloons helped prevent incursions by enemy aircraft and new, ingenious uses were found for balloons, including dropping bombs (as used by the Japanese against the USA), destroying enemy aircraft, espionage,...

"A fast-paced report of international corporate intrigue that explores both the early history of aviation and the ongoing, trans-oceanic battle between two massive corporations."--Jacket.

Describes and pictures forty disastrous airplane crashes which made headlines between 1930 and 1980.

"This epic history draws on combat memoirs, letters, and diaries; archival records and museum collections; and eyewitness accounts by the men who fought - and the men who developed the breakthrough inventions and concepts - to weave a vivid and dramatic account of the airplane's revolutionary transformation of modern warfare."--Jacket.