These days it is not uncommon to see a woman at the controls of an airliner, but what many people do not realize is that it took some 59 years for an American woman to become an airline pilot. Leading the way was Emily Howell Warner, who on Feb. 6, 1973, entered the cockpit of […]
Books
A new look at aviation’s first century
“Reconsidering a Century of Flight” is a compilation of a dozen long articles, by an interesting variety of aerospace writers, that takes a new look at aviation’s first century and its effects on society. Drawing on existing scholarship as well as new research, editors Roger B. Launius and Janet Daly Bednarek have divided the essays […]
Need to know info
“Things My Flight Instructor Never Told Me” is filled with excellent advice, delivered with humor. “Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.” Author Michael Leighton says that summarizes his personal experience with general aviation. This rather slim volume is filled with excellent advice, developed from just such “experience” during a […]
Flying High (Book Review)
Can a hyperactive, teetotalling, non-flying entrepreneur, whose first business went bankrupt and who was fired by a top company, do anything significant in the airline business? If your name is David Neeleman, the answer is a high-flying “yes,” as told in the new book “Flying High, How JetBlue Founder and CEO David Neeleman Beats the […]
To Conquer the Air (Book Review)
“To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and The Great Race for Flight” by James Tobin. Tobin, who holds a Ph.D. in history, is a writer whose work has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in journalism. He traces the work of the Wrights and interweaves it with the efforts of others who were […]