Born Mildred Mary Petre in November 1895, the Hon. Mrs Victor Bruce made her name during the 1920s and ’30s as a record breaker on land, sea and in the air. She first came to notice by way of several motoring records. In 1929 she turned her attention to the water and gained records for […]
Mountain high
April 4, 2013, marked the 80th anniversary of the successful aerial assault on Mt. Everest undertaken by two Royal Air Force pilots, David Fowler McIntyre and Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, flying modified, open-cockpit, Westland biplanes to an altitude of 30,000 feet. It was a triumph for aviation, particularly for the skill and organization demonstrated by the British […]
Getting airborne: Early flight training
Flight training in the United States before 1914 went from a do-it-yourself — build a machine and try to learn to fly it — endeavor to a growing system of flight schools across the country. The first organized flight instruction was by the early manufacturers of aircraft, such as the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss. […]
The post-war bubble
On May 17, 1945, with the war in Europe ending and military production being cut back, the War Production Board announced the end of the prohibition on the production of civilian aircraft, providing such manufacturing didn’t interfere with war output. Aviation magazines and the mainstream press jumped on the news of the post-war aviation potential. […]
Flying high before the (stock market) crash
Production of aircraft became a huge industry during World War I. While the government sustained the aircraft manufacturers during this time, this support came to a screeching halt when the war ended. The civilian industry then depended on investors to build its factories and sales to sustain them. In the second half of the 1920s […]
Aviation spreads its wings
Among the many things taken for granted today is long-distance travel by jet airliners. So common is long-distance air travel that there have even been around-the-world races for general aviation aircraft. One forgets that regularly scheduled intercontinental commercial air travel only came into being after World War II. The roots of long-distance flight lie in […]
The streamlined decade
During the decade of the Great Depression, the streamlined form stood as an optimistic symbol of progress and efficiency. Streamlining was applied to cars, trains, ships, buildings, and even household appliances. This new idiom replaced the angular, art deco forms of the 1920s. By the mid-1920s aircraft construction was in need of a new design […]
Taking to the air
The history of aviation is a long record of man’s restless urge to emulate soaring eagles and swooping hawks, to escape the earth and reach the freedom of the skies. Even though the air had been harnessed for centuries with aerodynamic devices such as the feathers on an arrow or the shape of a boomerang […]
Flying on wings of Mercury
Though Hammondsport, N.Y., is synonymous with the name Glenn Curtiss and well known as the home of the Curtiss Aeroplane Co., after World War I Hammondsport also became the home of another aircraft manufacturer — Aerial Service Corp. Aerial Service Corp. was conceived and formed in early 1920 by former members of the Curtiss company. […]