Review by Booklist Review
This is the latest book marking the hundredth anniversary of the Wright brothers' epic flight at Kitty Hawk. Crouch and Jakab, curators at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, trace the brothers' lives from their early years in Dayton, Ohio, and the events leading up to the invention of the airplane. The authors describe how the two men spent five years of work on a flying machine before the first flight; their relationship to Octave Chanute, "the grand old man of aeronautics"; their problems in obtaining an engine that met their weight limitation; and the flight itself. "At every critical juncture in the Wrights' journey to practical flight, these innate skills and approaches to invention are readily apparent," the authors write. "As we follow the brothers' remaining steps toward final success, it will become clear that Wilbur and Orville were far more than fine mechanics who managed to coax a flying machine into the air." With 100 archival photographs, this work offers the most comprehensive portrait of these ingenious brothers yet written. --George Cohen
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
To honor the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' history-making flight at Kitty Hawk, National Geographic Books and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (SNASM) present this official companion volume to this October's SNASM exhibition of the same name. The authors (senior and deputy curators, respectively, at SNASM) succeed in showing how the brothers' Calvinist upbringing served them well during the difficult years of technical problem solving while, conversely, ill equipping them to deal effectively with other challenges connected with business and as public figures. Although this work does not offer the detail found in T.A. Heppenheimer's First Flight, readers can still appreciate the Wrights' extraordinary ability to turn abstract conceptual models of a complex problem into practical, concrete technology. Over 200 familiar and unusual photographs complement the work. A superb, if somewhat poignant, concluding chapter on Orville's later life caps this outstanding effort. Recommended for aeronautical collections and all libraries.-John Carver Edwards, Univ. of Georgia Libs., Athens (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
