Pioneers Of Flight Safety

Why do planes disappear or fall out of the sky? Brace for Impact traces the evolution of accident investigation and explains why flying is the safest form of travel. The history of air accidents is a harrowing one. Yet today flying is the safest mode of transportation, thanks in no small part to the work of crash detectives. Whenever a plane falls from the sky, the investigators pick through the wreckage for the clues they need to decipher what happened to that flight. Before the invention of the ‘black box’ and the evolution of forensic accident investigation, the causes often remained a mystery. Since the Wright brothers first took flight, aircraft design, pilot training, aircraft maintenance, and air traffic control have all evolved to current standards of safety. Because of lessons learned from tragedies such as what befell the Comets in the 1950s, the Douglas DC-10s in the 1970s, and ill-fated Air India, TWA, and Swissair flights, flight safety continues to improve. In many ways, the history of aviation is the history of air crash investigation.

There have been countless books written on the history of aviation, beginning in 1896, but there has not been a book that tells the story of the history of aviation safety from its origins to the present day until now. This book features the story of the United States airline system aviation safety history from its beginnings in 1926 to the present day. A common theme appears throughout this history: a technological solution is already available to solve a safety problem before it is implemented into the safety system. This book also tells the story of aviation safety in the early years of flight, including the era of the Wright brothers, the period of the barnstormers, and the development of the U.S. air mail system, which laid the foundation for the U.S. airline system. Significant episodes in the history of aviation safety are included to provide a perspective of the enormous range of safety that has occurred throughout aviation history: crossing the Atlantic Ocean from 1919 to 1934; the Cleveland air races from 1929 to 1949; the Eighth Air Force in World War II; the X-15 rocket plane; the Space Shuttle; and the history of General Aviation safety.

They were nicknamed Snow Eagle, Flying Knight, Bush Angel, Punch, Doc and Wop. They worked in open cockpits and flew through cold, snow and fog without the benefit of radios, maps or weather reports. They flew over the Barrens, frozen lakes, boreal forests and mountain ranges by dead reckoning and line of sight. They landed on makeshift runways, glaciers, muskeg, tundra and glassy lakes. Comrades of the wilderness, they were Canada's early bush pilots. L.D. Cross brings us the incredible stories of the brave and enterprising pilots who rolled back the boundaries of western and northern Canada, delivering mail, medicine, miners and all the supplies needed by frontier settlements. Flying such planes as Curtiss, Bellanca, de Havilland, Fairchild, Junkers, Norseman, Stinson and Vickers, they were the off-roaders of aviation, venturing where no others dared to go. Climb into the cockpit with these pioneering pilots for an exciting trip into Canadian aviation history.

The Aviation Pioneers of Canada 7-Book Bundle presents the high-flying insight of Peter Pigott, in a special collection chronicling the aviators, aircraft, and drama of over a century of Canadian flight. From the Avro Arrow and the Silver Dart to the adventurers and visionaries who pushed Canadian airways to new heights, Pigott covers it all with his trademark breezy style and incredible historical photographs. Includes Brace for Impact: Air Crashes and Aviation Safety Air Canada: The History Flying Canucks: Famous Canadian Aviators Flying Canucks II On Canadian Wings: A Century of Flight Taming the Skies: A Celebration of Canadian Flight Wings Across Canada: An Illustrated History of Canadian Aviation

Canton boasts a rich aviation heritage, reaching back to the earliest pioneers of flight. Local resident Frank S. Lahm founded the Aero Club of Ohio here and his son Frank P. Lahm worked with the Wright brothers on some of their earliest test flights. William Martin's monoplane, the first single-wing airplane in the world, was invented here. Other Canton firsts include Martin's wife Almina, the world's first female airplane pilot; Bernetta Miller, one of the first women to earn a pilot's license; and Louise Timken, the first woman to own and operate a private jet. The Timken Company developed a steel alloy here that allowed planes to fly at higher altitudes.