Airplane, The - Hardcover

Spenser, Jay

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061259195 ISBN 13: 9780061259197

Publisher: Smithsonia, 2008

Synopsis

The Airplane by aerospace industry writer Jay Spencer, former assistant curator of the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum and the Museum of Flight in Seattle, is the definitive history of how we invented and refined the amazing flying machines that enabled humankind to defy gravity. A fascinating true account certain to enthrall and delight aviation and technology buffs, The Airplane is lavishly illustrated with more than 100 photographs and is the first book ever to explore the development of the jetliner through a fascinating piece-by-piece analysis of the machinery of flight.

About this title

About the Author

Jay Spenser has spent a lifetime studying aviation as a museum curator at the National Air and Space Museum and the Museum of Flight, and as an aerospace industry writer. He is the co-author of 747 and lives in Seattle, Washington.

From the Back Cover

The inside story of how people invented and refined the airplane.

Who were aviation's dreamers and from where did they draw their inspiration? What lessons did inventors learn from birds, insects, marine mammals, and fish that helped us fly? How did the bicycle lead to the airplane, and hot water heaters to metal fuselages?And who figured out how to fly without seeing the ground, setting the stage for scheduled airline services in all weather conditions?

In this entertaining history of the jetliner, Jay Spenser follows the flow of simple yet powerful ideas to trace aviation's challenges. He introduces us to pioneers across continents and centuries, sheds new insights on their contributions, and evokes those key moments in history when, piece by piece, such innovators as Otto Lilienthal, Igor Sikorsky, Louis Blériot, Hugo Junkers, and Jack Northrop collectively solved the puzzle of flight.

Along the way, Spenser demystifies the modern jetliner. From wings to flight controls to fuselages to landing gear, he examines the parts of the airplane to show how they came into being and have evolved over time. The Airplane culminates in a discussion of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner and explores the possibilities for aviation's future.

Reviews

This history of the development of the airplane by Spenser, a former curator of the National Air and Space Museum and author of 747, recasts the Wright brothers' contribution as he widens the scope to aviation history in France, Germany and beyond. Spenser starts with the pioneering work of Yorkshire gentleman Sir George Cayley in the late 18th century, delineates the competitive race between inventors in the early 1900s and culminates (somewhat abruptly) in the world of modern jet airliner travel. Spenser's history reads like a textbook for young, aspiring engineers. Instead of a general chronological approach, Spenser divides the book into sections that each track the development of a different part of the airplane, from the fuselage to landing gear. While this allows him to show how the modern airplane is not a singular invention but rather the cumulative result of thousands of different inventors, trials and errors, it does diffuse the narrative. Still, Spenser's book stands as a smart, and occasionally wonkish, history of a thrilling machine all too often taken for granted. (Nov.)
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Spenser organizes his history of the airplane according to the modern machine’s major components––fuselage, wings, tail, landing gear, engine, and so forth. The ungainly look of early contraptions, on view in the included historical illustrations, underscores technical evolution as airplane designers mastered the physical forces of flight. The Wright brothers are important not only for being first aloft but also for conducting the most systematic research into the problem of flight control. Without a fuselage, however, their design was a dead end. The advantage of giving an airplane such a backbone becomes apparent in Spenser’s account of innovations in fuselage construction and of airplane types that embodied them, such as the DC-3. Spencer then explains wings’ transition from wire-trussed support to stronger cantilevered support, the development of piston engines, their replacement by jet engines, and improvements in on-board navigational and engineering instrumentation. A work better suited to readers interested in engineering than to those seeking a purely pictorial history of aviation, this well conveys Spenser’s knowledge of and  enthusiasm for his subject. --Gilbert Taylor

Edition details

• Publisher: Smithsonia
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061259195
• ISBN 13: 9780061259197
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 340