Review: Daredevils of the Air: Thrilling Tales of Pioneer Aviation

I’ll start off with one of our own: Daredevils of the Air (Avisson Press, 2003). Written to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brother’s first flight at Kitty Hawk, Daredevils grew out of the research I did on several books on avation for the school and library markets. The stories I’d found of daring and often foolhardy adventures were incredible. The dedication of so many aviators to their craft and the risks they would take made for some amazing stories.Out of the dozens of stories and personalities in my files, I chose those that were real daredevils, either deliberately seeking danger, such as stunt pilot Lincoln Beachey, or those who by accident found themselves in hair-raising situations, such as the mid-air oil change performed over the Tasman Sea by Charles Kingford-Smith and P.G. Taylor. I wanted people who overcame incredible odds to make a “first,” such as Bessie Coleman, the first African-American to earn an international pilot’s licence, or Harriet Quimby, first woman to fly across the English Channel. Amelia Earhart made the book for her courageous “firsts,” including the first flight from Hawaii to California.

Here’s the whole list of fifteen amazing aviators in this book:

1. The Wright Brothers: The story of the first flight at Kitty Hawk.
2. Alberto Santos-Dumont: A Brazilian in Paris and avid dirigible pilot who was the first to build and fly a working airplane in Europe, shortly after the Wright Brothers’ flight, but before the world had heard of them.
3. Glenn Curtiss: An absolute dynamo of a man who invented the banked turn, invented float planes, and almost single-handedly developed a Naval flight program.
4. Lincoln Beachey: Stunt pilot extraordinaire, who began his flying career by landing a homemade dirigible on the White House lawn just to call on the President.
5. Louis Blériot: French pilot who was the first to fly across the English Channel, beating his rival, Hugh Latham.
6. Cal Rodgers: A crash-by-crash tale of the first person to cross the United States by air.
7. Harriet Quimby: First female stunt pilot in America, and the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
8. Eddie Rickenbacker: World War I flying ace.
9. Bessie Coleman: Queen of the barnstormers, and first licenced African-American pilot.
10. “Slats” Rodgers: A stunt pilot and bootlegger who’d do just about anything in the air for a buck.
11. Charles Lindbergh: Stories from his airmail pilot days, when survival rates were worse for airmail pilots than for pony express riders in the old west.
12. Amelia Earhart: A story of devotion to the science of aeronautics — but never forget the fun.
13. Beryl Markham: The only female bush pilot in Africa in her day, and the first to fly the Atlantic solo from east to west.
14. Charles Kingford-Smith and P.G. Taylor: How the first attempt at an airmail run from Australia to Tasmania would have ended in a crash in the sea, had Taylor not performed a mid-air oil change.
15. Douglas Corrigan: The famous “Wrong Way” Corrigan and his “accidental” Atlantic flight. That’s his story, and he’s sticking to it.