Smithy

Ian Mackersey

ISBN 10: 0751526568 / ISBN 13: 9780751526561

Published by Time Warner Paperbacks 02/09/1999, 1999

About this Item

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Seller Inventory # 7719-9780751526561

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Smithy
• Publisher: Time Warner Paperbacks 02/09/1999
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0751526568
• ISBN 13: 9780751526561
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

During his brief 38 years of life, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith was one of the most celebrated public idols in history, becoming for a few years in the early 30's a legend across the world for his brilliance as a pilot and his charismatic style among the pioneers of long-distance flying. The first person to fly an aircraft across the Pacific from America to Australia, he broke many solo flying records, and this brought him a status greater than any modern astronaut—a crowd of 300,000 greeted him in Sydney. But the price of his heroism was high, and the demands for celebrity and a messy private life ended in tragedy off the coast of Burma in 1935 in an attempt to fly from England to Australia. This biography explores his life and flying career.

Reviews

Sir Charles Kingsford Smith made the first successful trans-Pacific flight, and several other pioneering long-distance flights, too. An Australian national hero since the 1920s, he has long deserved the biography Mackersey gives him. Born to a large, exuberant, often broke Australian middle-class family, Smith served in World War I, and then obtained the financial support to become a serious contender in the long-distance-flying sweepstakes. Mackersey scrupulously avoids hagiography without sinking into sensationalism in dealing with his subject's drinking problem, phobias, womanizing, knack for alienating or cheating almost all of his partners, and final disappearance off the coast of Malaya in 1935. His seemingly indefatigable research for the book profited greatly from the fact that a great number of people who knew Smith--including both his wives--survived into their eighties and nineties to contribute to his superior work. A valuable, highly readable addition to aviation literature and a fine tribute to a genuine and genuinely flawed hero. Roland Green
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