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Racing and Record-setting Aircraft: The Risk Takers: A Unique Pictorial Record (Aviation Pioneers) | 
 enlarge | Author: Hugh W. Cowin
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: £10.99
Buy Used: £1.93
You Save: £9.06 (82%)
New (4) Used (11) from £1.93
Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 2046739
Media: Paperback
Pages: 96
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 9.7 x 7.1 x 0.4
ISBN: 1855329042
Dewey Decimal Number: 629
EAN: 9781855329041
ASIN: 1855329042
Publication Date: October 29, 1999
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Orders ship next business day from the USA. Orders ship next business day from the USA.
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| Customer Reviews:
Interesting, entertaining review of air racing record settin December 22, 1999
Hugh Cowin, in his second book devoted to Aviation Pioneers, has made the pilots (and occasionally designers) the focus rather than the aircraft - as he did in the first of the series. It is a book of careful record coupled with diverting observation as befits an aviation historian of some experience. There are great pictures of wonderful aircraft, most of which, sadly, are long gone. The early sections could be subtitled 'Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines' but we move into serious 'Right Stuff' territory towards the end. Roland Garros appears not, as one might think, associated with the eponymous home of the French Open Tennis championship, but as an intrepid experimental aviator and concert pianist. Sixty years on and the pilots are professional through and through with career progression from air force warrior to company test pilot. Your reviewer was largely ignorant of the scale of the aircraft racing which took place in the USA between the wars. This book enlightened him. Basically it featured scores of rotund aircraft with spats. American designers believed in "the theory that given enough power, anything could be made to fly". Hence the lack of aerodynamic shape and the unsurprising result that they "went on to specialise in pilot killing". Some guidance would have been useful on the proliferation of air races at this period. What distinguished the Bendix, the Thompson, the US Nationals to say nothing of the European contests? This caveat aside, a delightful book for the air-minded reader.
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