Author(s): Jay P. Spenser

Technology and Transport

This accessible history of aviation is full of great technological triumphs and interesting characters, not least the critically important Wright brothers. Spenser shows that for centuries people across the world have wrestled with similar fantasies and speculations about flight, and how in the 20th century with the spur of two world wars we moved from open cockpit bi-planes to supersonic jets. Spenser has spent a lifetime in aviation, as a museum curator and then as an aerospace industry writer. In a sense, "Airplane" is the culmination of a career spent explaining flight and airplanes.