Unlocking the Sky: Glenn Hammond Curtiss and the Race to Invent the Airplane
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.75 (933 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0060956151 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 288 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-09-24 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Unlocking the Sky tells the extraordinary tale of the race to design, refine, and manufacture a manned flying machine, a race that took place in the air, on the ground, and in the courtrooms of America. Fiercely jealous, the Wright brothers took to the courts to keep Curtiss and his airplane out of the sky and off the market. While the Wright brothers threw a veil of secrecy over their flying machine, Glenn Hammond Curtiss -- perhaps the greatest aviator and aeronautical inventor of all time -- freely exchanged information with engineers in America and abroad, resulting in his famous airplane, the June Bug, which made the first ever public flight in America. Ultimately, however, it was Curtiss's innovations and designs, not the Wright brothers', that served as the model for the modern airplane.
Fantastic! A real page turner I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The first reviewer might be correct in saying that the author could have provided more details on the many innovations Curtiss made to flying machines, but I never thought about it until I read his review. The book is really enjoyable as it is. I agree that you don't have to be an airplane buff to enjoy this. It is just a good read. I had no idea prior . Gerald B. Keane said History Misunderstood. Seth Shulman has written an adequate book about Curtiss, who did contribute significantly to aviation development. It is readable and interesting but very weak in evaluating history. Shulman either misunderstands, or misrepresents, the relative merits of the Wright Bros. and Curtiss. Curtiss was a talented and committed enhancer of the airplane. Orville and Wilbur were geniuses who in. Terrific A Customer This is a terrific book. You'll see other reviewers trying to rationalize their way out of having their view of the Wrights altered. If I found any shortcomings in this book, they would be (1) there's an awful lot more it could have covered about Curtiss (but Shulman himself directs the reader to "Glenn Curtis, Pioneer of Flight" by Roseberry), and (2) more could be said about the goo
Yet he's virtually forgotten today, except by aficionados of aviation history. --John J. Unlocking the Sky suggests that Curtiss deserves at least near-equal billing with the brothers from Dayton. Miller. He comes across as a pioneering hero on these pages--and the Wright brothers as thuggish would-be monopolizers. He performed the first public flight in the United States, sold the first commercial airplane, and piloted the first flight from one American city to another. In the American imagination, Wilbur and Orville Wright are "earnest, young bicycle builders who attacked an age-old technological problem with fresh, ingenious thinking and dedication." There is plenty of truth to this, writes Seth Shulman, but it also obscures an important fact: The first flyers were so se