L.A. Birdmen

L.A. Birdmen PDF Author: Richard J. Goodrich
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493084402
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Although most credit Wilbur and Orville Wright with America’s first powered flight, two months before the brothers lifted off the sands of Kitty Hawk, a French immigrant named August Greth flew the California Eagle, an airship of his own design, across the skies of San Francisco. While the Wrights claimed they had invented a flying machine, Greth and the California aviators proved it in front of thousands of spectators at state fairs and festivals across the country. L.A. Birdmen is the fascinating and forgotten story of America’s first aviators—Californians like August Greth, Tom Baldwin, Roy Knabenshue, John Montgomery, and James Zerbe. Possessing a rare blend of ingenuity, creativity, and bravery, these pilots captured the world’s attention in 1910 when Los Angeles hosted America’s first international airshow. Inspired by a flying exhibition held in Reims, France, Los Angeles promoter Dick Ferris convinced the city to host a competing event—a show that featured the world’s best pilots and machines and would firmly establish Los Angeles as the center of American aviation. Featuring a fierce competition between French pilot Louis Paulhan and American Glenn Curtiss, the Los Angeles International Aviation Meet was a revelation: the pilots shattered existing aviation records, refuted those who doubted the viability of heavier-than-air flying machines, and performed death-defying stunts. The ten days of flying received national newspaper coverage and attracted more than 100,000 visitors, including future industry leaders like Glenn Martin and William Boeing. L.A. Birdmen offers a high-flying account of the West Coast contribution to aviation, a little-recognized chapter in the story of American flight. In the first decade of the twentieth century, these dashing aviators—not the Wrights—were the public face of American aviation.

L.A. Birdmen

L.A. Birdmen PDF Author: Richard J. Goodrich
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493084402
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Although most credit Wilbur and Orville Wright with America’s first powered flight, two months before the brothers lifted off the sands of Kitty Hawk, a French immigrant named August Greth flew the California Eagle, an airship of his own design, across the skies of San Francisco. While the Wrights claimed they had invented a flying machine, Greth and the California aviators proved it in front of thousands of spectators at state fairs and festivals across the country. L.A. Birdmen is the fascinating and forgotten story of America’s first aviators—Californians like August Greth, Tom Baldwin, Roy Knabenshue, John Montgomery, and James Zerbe. Possessing a rare blend of ingenuity, creativity, and bravery, these pilots captured the world’s attention in 1910 when Los Angeles hosted America’s first international airshow. Inspired by a flying exhibition held in Reims, France, Los Angeles promoter Dick Ferris convinced the city to host a competing event—a show that featured the world’s best pilots and machines and would firmly establish Los Angeles as the center of American aviation. Featuring a fierce competition between French pilot Louis Paulhan and American Glenn Curtiss, the Los Angeles International Aviation Meet was a revelation: the pilots shattered existing aviation records, refuted those who doubted the viability of heavier-than-air flying machines, and performed death-defying stunts. The ten days of flying received national newspaper coverage and attracted more than 100,000 visitors, including future industry leaders like Glenn Martin and William Boeing. L.A. Birdmen offers a high-flying account of the West Coast contribution to aviation, a little-recognized chapter in the story of American flight. In the first decade of the twentieth century, these dashing aviators—not the Wrights—were the public face of American aviation.

Birdmen

Birdmen PDF Author: Lawrence Goldstone
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345538056
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
From acclaimed historian Lawrence Goldstone comes a thrilling narrative of courage, determination, and competition: the story of the intense rivalry that fueled the rise of American aviation. The feud between this nation’s great air pioneers, the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss, was a collision of unyielding and profoundly American personalities. On one side, a pair of tenacious siblings who together had solved the centuries-old riddle of powered, heavier-than-air flight. On the other, an audacious motorcycle racer whose innovative aircraft became synonymous in the public mind with death-defying stunts. For more than a decade, they battled each other in court, at air shows, and in the newspapers. The outcome of this contest of wills would shape the course of aviation history—and take a fearsome toll on the men involved. Birdmen sets the engrossing story of the Wrights’ war with Curtiss against the thrilling backdrop of the early years of manned flight, and is rich with period detail and larger-than-life personalities: Thomas Scott Baldwin, or “Cap’t Tom” as he styled himself, who invented the parachute and almost convinced the world that balloons were the future of aviation; John Moisant, the dapper daredevil who took to the skies after three failed attempts to overthrow the government of El Salvador, then quickly emerged as a celebrity flyer; and Harriet Quimby, the statuesque silent-film beauty who became the first woman to fly across the English Channel. And then there is Lincoln Beachey, perhaps the greatest aviator who ever lived, who dazzled crowds with an array of trademark twists and dives—and best embodied the romance with death that fueled so many of aviation’s earliest heroes. A dramatic story of unimaginable bravery in the air and brutal competition on the ground, Birdmen is at once a thrill ride through flight’s wild early years and a surprising look at the personal clash that fueled America’s race to the skies. Praise for Birdmen “A meticulously researched account of the first few hectic, tangled years of aviation and the curious characters who pursued it . . . a worthy companion to Richard Holmes’s marvelous history of ballooning, Falling Upwards.”—Time “The daredevil scientists and engineers who forged the field of aeronautics spring vividly to life in Lawrence Goldstone’s history.”—Nature “The history of the development of an integral part of the modern world and a fascinating portrayal of how a group of men and women achieved a dream that had captivated humanity for centuries.”—The Christian Science Monitor “Captivating and wonderfully presented . . . a fine book about these rival pioneers.”—The Wall Street Journal “[A] vivid story of invention, vendettas, derring-do, media hype and patent fights [with] modern resonance.”—Financial Times “A powerful story that contrasts soaring hopes with the anchors of ego and courtroom.”—Kirkus Reviews “A riveting narrative about the pioneering era of aeronautics in America and beyond . . . Goldstone raises questions of enduring importance regarding innovation and the indefinite exertion of control over ideas that go public.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The Wild-fowler

The Wild-fowler PDF Author: Henry Coleman Folkard
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fowling
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description


Birdmen, Batmen, and Skyflyers

Birdmen, Batmen, and Skyflyers PDF Author: Michael Abrams
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307419908
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
The Wright Brothers were wimps. Or so you might think after reading this account of their unsung but even more daring rivals—the men and women who strapped wings to their backs and took to the sky. If only for a few seconds. People have been dying to fly, quite literally, since the dawn of history. They’ve made wings of feather and bone, leather and wood, canvas and taffeta, and thrown themselves off the highest places they could find. Theirs is the world’s first and still most dangerous extreme sport, and its full history has never been told. Birdmen, Batmen, and Skyflyers is a thrilling, hilarious, and often touching chronicle of these obsessive inventors and eccentric daredevils. It traces the story of winged flight from its doomed early pioneers to their glorious high-tech descendants, who’ve at last conquered gravity (sometimes, anyway). Michael Abrams gives us a brilliant bird’s-eye view of what it’s like to fly with wings. And then, inevitably, to fall. In the Immortal Words of Great Birdmen... “Someday I think that everyone will have wings and be able to soar from the housetops. But there must be a lot more experimenting before that can happen.” —Clem Sohn, the world’s first batman, who plummeted to his death at the Paris Air Show in 1937 “The trouble was that he went only halfway up the radio tower. If he had gone clear to the top it would have been different.” —Amadeo Catao Lopes in 1946, explaining the broken legs of the man who tried his wings “One day, a jump will be the last. The jump of death. But that idea does not hold me back.” —Rudolf Richard Boehlen, who died of jump-related injuries in 1953 “It turned out that almost everyone from the thirties and forties had died. That just made me want to do it more.” —Garth Taggart, stunt jumper for The Gypsy Moths, filmed in 1968 “You have to be the first one. The second one is the first loser.” —Felix Baumgartner, who in 2003 became the first birdman to cross the English Channel

The Wild-fowler: a Treatise on Ancient and Modern Wild-fowling, Historical and Practical

The Wild-fowler: a Treatise on Ancient and Modern Wild-fowling, Historical and Practical PDF Author: Henry Coleman Folkard
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fowling
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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Book Description


Thrilling of "Bird Men" with Flying Machines

Thrilling of Author: Jay Henry Mowbray,Ph.D
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description


The Condor

The Condor PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Birds
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description


Senior Birdman

Senior Birdman PDF Author: Eldon N. Price
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 9780595808540
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Senior Birdman: The Guy Who Just Had to Fly is the autobiography of one man's improbable rise from a humble farming community to the glamour and glitz of southern California, the epicenter of aviation development. Starting with an awe-inspiring moment in a desolate field in western Nebraska, the book will wing you-in Forrest Gump-like fashion-through a series of vignettes that bump into the lives of prominent historical figures like General Omar Bradley, Howard Hughes, even Hugh Heffner. Unedited and as raw as a diary, Senior Birdman jumps like a crop duster from naval pre-flight training to McDonnell Douglas to the launch of the DC-8 Jetliner to numerous fly-by commentaries about people, places, big government and life. If you loved the movie The Aviator, you'll want to climb into the cockpit with Eldon Price-pilot, aeronautical engineer, aerospace executive, and family man-and take this short, literary flight through some of aviation history's defining moments.

Focus On: 100 Most Popular Actresses from New York City

Focus On: 100 Most Popular Actresses from New York City PDF Author: Wikipedia contributors
Publisher: e-artnow sro
ISBN: 4057664173
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 1155

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Book Description


Lost Cities of North & Central America

Lost Cities of North & Central America PDF Author: David Hatcher Childress
Publisher: Adventures Unlimited Press
ISBN: 9780932813091
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 596

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Book Description
"Search for lost Mayan cities and books of gold, discover an ancient canal system in Arizona, climb gigantic pyramids in the Midwest, explore megalithic monuments in New England, and join the astonishing quest for the lost cities throughout North [and Central] America"--Amazon.com.