Jablonski, Edward
First Edition, First Printing.
A book on the quest for Atlantic Flight from 1919-1939.
From the earliest days of manned flight, the Atlantic Ocean beckoned to bold aviators, the ultimate challenge to their flying skill. For two brief decades, airmen of vision, perseverance, and raw nerve blazed a trail in the sky for the millions who have followed. Filled with the glamour, romanticism, comedy, and tragedy of those years, ATLANTIC FEVER is a lavishly illustrated record of the men and machines that conquered that vast sea.
Beginning with the first successful crossing - the U.S. Navy's meticulously planned expedition of three Curtiss-designed NC's in 1919 - Edward Jablonski covers every major aerial landmark. The first nonstop fiight, Alcock and Brown's hair-raising journey; the first crossing by airship and the first East-to-West trip, by Britain's stately R-34 - all the important "firsts" are described in detail.
The competition for one "first," however, monopolized the public's Imagination. The Orteig Prize, $25,000 for the first nonstop fiight between New York and Paris, attracted the biggest names in aviation. Some of the best flyers met death: Nungesser and Coli, lost over the ocean; Davis and Wooster, drowned in a Virginia swamp. And the prize, of course, went to a gritty unknown from the Midwest, Charles A. Lindbergh. Jablonski captures all the drama of "Lucky Lindy's" historic flight, and all the pathos of those who tried too hastily to follow in his footsteps.
For this is a book about not only celebrated triumphs, but the less-well-known distinctions as well. Here, for example is the conquest of the South Atlantic, a less popular but no less hazardous route. Another chapter unravels the colorful shenanigans of Charles Levine, the press agent, entrepreneur, and subsequently flyer, whose Columbia, en route to Berlin, set a distance record but never did land in the German capital. Smaller contributions to air history receive their due: Aircraftsman William Ballentyne, for example, became the first aerial stowaway, and Princest Anne Lowenstein-Wertheim was both the first woman to attempt the Atlantic by air - and the first woman to be lost trying. A vivid report on Amelia Earhart's first transatlantic flight is included, and Douglas "Wrong-Way" Corrigan's wittily conceived exploits provide a fitting conclusion to the "Golden Age" of transatlantic adventure - ending, as it began, with the enthusiastic derring-do of a courageous flyer.
Hardcover with dust jacket
325 Seiten / pages
many photos
good condition
New York - 1972 - The MacMillian Company
Art.Nr. 9885
