Book of Flight: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum - Softcover

Rinard, Judith

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1552095991 ISBN 13: 9781552095997

Publisher: Firefly Books, 2001

Synopsis

The dream of flight is one of the oldest in human history. We read about it in ancient Greek mythology and visualize it through Leonardo da Vinci's sketches of flying machines.

The Book of Flight traces the remarkable story of the pioneers, inventors, and daring pilots who turned that dream into a reality. Based on the outstanding collections of the National Air and Space Museum, this handsome book brings to life milestones in flight history: the development of ballooning; the earliest human gliders; the Wright Brothers' first sustained flights; Charles Lindbergh's solo trip across the Atlantic; Amelia Earhart's courageous flights; Chuck Yeager's blast through the sound barrier; the Apollo astronauts' first steps onto the moon; and the building of the International Space Station.

Richly illustrated, this book takes you on an exciting journey through time. You'll watch early inventors at work, thrill to the first air races and the dogfights of World War I and II, peer inside a flying boat of the 1930s, and witness the horrific explosion of the airship Hindenburg. You'll ride in the DC-3, marvel at the technology of the stealth fighter, and experience life aboard the Space Shuttle. As you turn the pages you'll meet barnstormers and ballonists, stunt flyers and flying aces, and rocket scientists and astronauts.

More than 350 photographs and illustrations portray the development of aviation and space flight. Diagrams explain concepts such as jet propulsion and supersonic flight and depict the workings of rockets and other devices. A comprehensive glossary provides easy-to-understand explanations of technical terms.

The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, with more than eight million visitors annually, is home to the world's most famous collection of historical aircraft, rockets, and space vehicles.

About this title

About the Author

Judith E. Rinard is a freelance writer who worked for more than 20 years as staff writer for National Geographic. She has written extensively - both books and articles - on subjects as diverse as astronauts, whales and dolphins, and ancient cities.

Reviews

Grade 4-7-These large-sized, profusely illustrated surveys cover the same territory, but with very different emphases. Both are organized as sequences of topical spreads, on each of which large pictures of aircraft or spacecraft and smaller scenes or schematics mingle with detailed explanatory captions. Flight, aimed at somewhat less proficient readers, takes an overall subject approach, devoting one section to military uses of flight, four to civil or research aviation, then closing with a gallery of pioneer machines. Its art, which is mostly painted or computer generated, has a clean, uncluttered look. In contrast, The Book of Flight is a photo-documentary, with a chronological structure, more images per page on average, and relatively more space allotted to fighting machines and those designed to travel into space. It focuses largely on the United States's contributions to aviation and astronautics. Flight has but half the page count, but takes a more international view and contains information-on hang gliding, for instance, and NASA's recent cancellation of the X-33 space-plane project-which is missing from the Smithsonian title. The differences between the two books are enough to make them complementary, rather than rival, additions to library collections; consider Flight as a systematic, visually appealing update for older picture albums, and even though there is little new material in The Book of Flight, the dramatic, sharply detailed illustrations make it a viable alternative to Century of Flight (Time-Life, 1999).
John Peters, New York Public Library
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Firefly Books
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1552095991
• ISBN 13: 9781552095997
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128