Speed in the Air
Speed in the Air
Frederick Fell Publishers, Inc. | 1974 | ISBN: 0811902463 | English | 200 pages | PDF | 22.2 MB
For airplanes speed is still the most important, perhaps the onlv, advantage that aircraft has over other methods of travel, and the well-known aviation writer David Wragg tells this fascinating story in all its picturesque aspects — aviation meetings, the Federation Auronautique Internationale, the Wright Brothers and Louis Bleriot, the rise of the monoplane, the 'unofficial' speeds of the two World Wars, the Schneider Trophy races and the dominance of the seaplane, the first airliners, the Messerschmitt and the Spitfire, pistons giving way to turbojets and then to rockets, the sound barrier, the supersonic era and the air-launched aircraft, Mach 6 and over. It has gone way beyond a sport, now, and it is a serious tale David Wragg has to tell, but by no means a solemn one. He yearns for the days when it was still fun, and delights in recounting tales of the great individualists such as Lord Brabazon who took a pig for a flight to prove that pigs could fly, and the Hon. Charles Rolls, of the Rolls-Royce partnership, who had the frugal habit of dining each dav on the free rolls, butter and water at the tables of the Royal Aero Club.