Aviation: The Pioneer Years. Researched and Edited by Ben Mackworth-Praed. With oover 850 Black-and-White Illustrations.

London: Studio Editions, (1992). Folio, blue boards (hardcover), gilt letters, 320 pp. Near-Fine, with bookplate; in a Very Good+ dust jacket with lightly rubbed edges. From dust jacket: Aviation: The Pioneer Years divides the story of flight into five main periods and dedicates a chapter to each. In the first of these periods the book briefly reviews the known, or legendary, attempts at flight before the eighteenth century, passing from Icarus, through the notebooks of leonardo da Vinci, to the ultimate success of Montgolfier and Charles, who within twelve weeks of each other had invented both the hotair and the hydrogen balloon. By the beginning of the second period it was clear that human power alone would never be sufficient either to lift a man in a heavier-than-air machine, or to steer him against the wind in a lighter. This period ends with the emergence of two separate lines of investigation: the motor-men and the glider-men. By 1901, the third chapter, the strands were beginning to come together again, and the Wrights in America solved on gliders the vital problem of directional stability by their system of warping the wings to increase and reduce lift as required. In 1903 the Wrights married a petrol engine of a suitable power and weight to their controllable glider and the thing was done. Once done however both the aeroplane and the airship went from strength to strength. In ten short years the aeroplane developed from the Wrights’ construction of wood and canvas to the three Zeppelins that between them carried a total of 19,109 people in the twenty months to November 1913 and this without a single accident. All this progress is recounted in detail, as are the first long-distance journeys to Africa and Russia. The fourth stage is concerned with the First World War. For four years, money was literally thrown at the aircraft industry, but little went on fundamental advance. The aircraft of 1918 were essentially the same as those of 1914, the only difference was in the scale of production. The effect of the vast increase in the world’s stock of both fliers and machines is charted in the fifth and final chapter as the main thrust of aviation changed from the individual efforts of fliers, solo or in small groups, to those of powerful commercial companies to open up not only the geographical world but also to extend the frontiers of performance in speed, in altitude, in duration and above all in safety. These pioneer years were rich in incident, brilliant and sometimes eccentric epople, and amazing flying machines. The combination of well over 850 extraorindary (and often rare) illustrations with a lucid, highly informative text makes this history of aviation an indispensable work for all those with a fascination in man’s overwhelming urge to fly.