WHO'S WHO IN AVIATION HISTORY

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This small volume brings to the reader a host of names that were important in the development of modern aeronautics. The earliest is that of Architus, born in 428 B.C. in Magna Graecia. He is alleged to have invented a wooden bird capable of flight. Other early names are mostly of balloonists, the Montgolfiers among them, but for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the names are those of inventors, pilots, navigators, battle heroes, explorers, and others who could all be classed as aviators. Black-and-white photographs add interest to the biographies.

Most well-known names are here. Taking a letter of the alphabet at random, (the letter G), a count showed that about 25 percent of the biographees also have full-length entries in the Encyclopedia Americana. The work is disappointing in some repects. There is no bibliography, nor are articles supported by specific documentation. It is therefore difficult to verify statements or to pursue further information. There is also a problem of omission. Alcock, of Alcock and Brown, the first men to fly across the Atlantic, is included, but his navigator, Arthur Brown, is passed off with a mere mention in the Alcock entry. Still more serious is the omission of John J. Montgomery, "father of California aviation," who designed and flew heavier-than-air (though motorless) aircraft in 1883 and in 1905 designed a controlled-flight glider. A state park and an airfield have been named for him.

Even so, the compiler has done aviation buffs a favor in resurrecting names of early aviators, as well as of many who were headlined in newspapers, such as helicopter developers Sikorsky and Piasecki, but who are now forgotten. The book is recommended for any library with an aviation-oriented clientele.