| The Legacy of Flight (Bunker Hill Publishing; May 2010; $25; Hardcover; 288 pages; 132 photographs; ISBN 9781593730833) highlights the achievements of both the famous and the everyday people involved in the great endeavor of flight as well as every major type of aircraft, military and civilian, commercial and civil, and all the professions that make it work: pilot, mechanic, designer, builder, ground and air crew, astronaut and cosmonaut, controller and scientist. Every image tells a story and is accompanied by short, delightful essays. The camera is some sixty years older than the airplane, but both came of age together, the one there to witness the other. The Legacy of Flight pays tribute to both, capturing instants, ordinary and momentous, that illuminate the history of flight. Witness men struggling to hold down John Steiner’s balloon as he prepares for a wild and stormy flight over (and into) Lake Erie. Watch the Wright brothers testing their glider at Kitty Hawk, then turning skeptics into believers as they demonstrate their new invention. Meet a young air mail pilot named Charles Lindbergh, wing-walk with barnstormers, and marvel at the streamlined beauty of Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra airplane and her Cord Phaeton automobile. Observe Robert Goddard experimenting with the world’s first liquid-fuel rocket. Fly into the wilderness with bush pilots, board a Constellation airliner, go supersonic on the Concorde. Cheer on racer Betty Skelton and break speed and altitude records with the X-men. Accompany astronauts and cosmonauts in their space capsules and space shuttles. Applaud the modern-day record breakers, the latter-day Wrights and Lindberghs and Earharts who now inspire us. David Romanowski and Melissa Keiser guide us through the history of flight in this amazing selection of photographs expertly culled from one of the world’s greatest collections. The Legacy of Flight, is a treasure house of aerial adventure. David Romanowski is the writer-editor in the Exhibits Design Division at the National Air and Space Museum. He has also written the Official Guide to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and contributed to several other books and countless exhibitions since joining the museum in 1987. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland. Melissa A. N. Keiser joined the National Air and Space Museum Archives Division in 1985; today as Photo Archivist she cares for over 2 million images—one of the Smithsonian’s largest collections of photography. She has used her image research talents in support of numerous museum publications and projects, and recently served as photo editor for the book The Best of the National Air and Space Museum. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia. www.bunkerhillpublishing.com |
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