We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,749,303.16 | Books Available: 731,153 | Members Online: 250

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - The Flyers: In Search of Wilbur & Orville Wright

The Flyers In Search of Wilbur Orville Wright
Author: Noah Adams

“It takes only nineteen seconds to walk the distance of the first powered flight. But when I was there the wind was up and cold on my face, and I felt as if I’d entered the black-and-white photograph I’d been seeing all my life. The sand is light gray, there’s a spill of surf in the distance. Wilbur, running at the right ... more »of the plane, and Orville, the pilot, are in dark suits. The propellers blur against the sky as the machine rises. . . .”

So begins Noah Adams’s adventure in search of Wilbur and Orville Wright, a journey that takes him across the country as he follows in the footsteps of the famous brothers in an attempt to know them more deeply, not just as inventors and pilots but as individuals as well.

Adams, one of our most distinctive and talented storytellers, traveled thousands of miles and interviewed scores of experts and individuals to piece together his story. He finds a local boat captain to ferry him to Kitty Hawk, along the same route that Wilbur took in 1900, and spends several days talking with descendants of the families who first welcomed the Wright brothers a century ago and helped them conduct their gliding experiments. To experience first-hand the thrill of being in the air, Adams himself goes hang-gliding in the Outer Banks.

To understand the aerodynamics of lift and drag and how the famous 1903 plane was constructed, he visits Ken Hyde, a Virginia pilot and vintage aircraft builder who is creating the world’s most accurate reproduction of the 1903 Wright Flyer. Adams goes to the prop shop and handles the tools and materials that the Wrights used to build their gliders and planes, and later he visits the wind tunnel at Langley Air Force Base where Hyde’s reproduction was tested for the first time.

He also travels to France to visit the old racetrack at Le Mans where Wilbur startled the European aviation community with his demonstration flights in 1908, and he spends a few days at Wisconsin’s Oshkosh Fly-in, where builders of experimental aircraft and owners of vintage planes gather every year to dazzle the crowds. Adams himself takes to the air in a restored Ford Tri-Motor, America’s first airliner, which took its maiden flight seventy years ago.

In Adams’s book we encounter the Wright brothers in a way that no writer has introduced them before. Through the lens of his own experiences as well as original reporting, letters, diaries, and other primary source material, he helps us understand the talent and intensity of the brothers and their family, including the fascinating, deeply complex, and at times tragic bond between Orville and Katharine, his younger sister.

The Flyers is a wonderfully rich narrative that brings an unprecedented spirit of immediacy to one of history’s most dramatic stories.

ISBN-13: 9781400049127
ISBN-10: 1400049121
Publication Date: 10/7/2003
Pages: 240
Rating:

Currently 3.6/5 Stars.

3.6 stars, based on 4 ratings

Publisher: Crown
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback, Audio CD
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Read All 2 Book Reviews of "The Flyers In Search of Wilbur Orville Wright"

Please Log in to Rate these Book Reviews

Patty J. reviewed The Flyers: In Search of Wilbur & Orville Wright on 8/16/2009 + 6 more book reviews

Very interesting book. Learned things that I never knew about the Wright Brothers.

Share/Like this Review?

Read All Book Reviews of "The Flyers In Search of Wilbur Orville Wright"

Genres:

Biographies & Memoirs >> General
Biographies & Memoirs >> Professionals & Academics >> Scientists
Nonfiction >> Transportation >> Aviation >> History
Nonfiction >> Transportation >> Aviation >> General
Science & Math >> Technology >> History of Technology

Back to the Top ↑

Search - The Flyers: In Search of Wilbur & Orville Wright

Please Log in to Rate these Book Reviews

Loading...