Quest For Flight

The Wright brothers have long received the lion’s share of credit for inventing the airplane. But a California scientist succeeded in flying gliders twenty years before the Wright’s powered flights at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Quest for Flight reveals the amazing accomplishments of John J. Montgomery, a prolific inventor who piloted the glider he designed in 1883 in the first controlled flights of a heavier-than-air craft in the Western Hemisphere. Re-examining the history of American aviation, Craig S. Harwood and Gary B. Fogel present the story of human efforts to take to the skies. They show that history’s nearly exclusive focus on two brothers resulted from a lengthy public campaign the Wrights waged to profit from their aeroplane patent and create a monopoly in aviation. Countering the aspersions cast on Montgomery and his work, Harwood and Fogel build a solidly documented case for Montgomery’s pioneering role in aeronautical innovation. As a scientist researching the laws of flight, Montgomery invented basic methods of aircraft control and stability, refined his theories in aerodynamics over decades of research, and brought widespread attention to aviation by staging public demonstrations of his gliders. After his first flights near San Diego in the 1880s, his pursuit continued through a series of glider designs. These experiments culminated in 1905 with controlled flights in Northern California using tandem-wing Montgomery gliders launched from balloons. These flights reached the highest altitudes yet attained, demonstrated the effectiveness of Montgomery’s designs, and helped change society’s attitude toward what was considered “the impossible art” of aerial navigation. Inventors and aviators working west of the Mississippi at the turn of the twentieth century have not received the recognition they deserve. Harwood and Fogel place Montgomery’s story and his exploits in the broader context of western aviation and science, shedding new light on the reasons that California was the epicenter of the American aviation industry from the very beginning.

Between the years 1903, when man first took to the skies in a powered aeroplane, and 1982, when a scheduled airliner landed automatically in blind conditions of dense fog, the problem of all-weather, anytime flying was solved. This is the story of the evolution of instruments, radar, radio communications, fly by wire system, and much more. A fascinating read for all aviation enthusiasts.

CNN Aviation Correspondent Richard Quest offers a gripping and definitive account of the disappearance of Malaysian Airline Flight MH370 in March 2014. On March 8, 2014, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared with barely a trace, carrying 239 people on board--seemingly vanishing into the dark night. The airplane's whereabouts and fate would quickly become one of the biggest aviation mysteries of our time... Richard Quest, CNN's Aviation Correspondent, was one of the leading journalists covering the story. In a coincidence, Quest had interviewed one of the two pilots a few weeks before the disappearance. It is here that he begins his gripping account of those tense weeks in March, presenting a fascinating chronicle of an international search effort, which despite years of searching and tens of millions of dollars spent has failed to find the plane. Quest dissects what happened in the hours following the plane's disappearance and chronicles the days and weeks of searching, which led to nothing but increasing despair. He takes apart the varying responses from authorities and the discrepancies in reports, the wide range of theories, the startling fact that the plane actually turned around and flew in the opposite direction, and what solutions the aviation industry must now implement to ensure it never happens again. What emerges is a riveting chronicle of a tragedy that continues to baffle everyone from aviation experts to satellite engineers to politicians--and which to this day worries the traveling public that it could happen again. INCLUDES PHOTOS

This provides access to a NASA History Office publication, NASA SP-468, by Laurence K. Loftin, Jr, NASA Scientific and Technical Information Branch, Washington, D.C. 1985. It traces the technical development of the airplane since World War I. It describes significant aircraft that incorporated important technical innovations and served to shape the future course of aeronautical development, as well as aircraft that represented the state of the art of aeronautical technology in a particular time frame or that were very popular and produced in great numbers. Primary emphasis has been placed on aircraft originating in the United States. The discussion is related primarily to aircraft configuration evolution and associated aerodynamic characteristics and, to a lesser extent, to developments in aircraft construction and propulsion. The material is presented in a manner designed to appeal to the nontechnical reader who is interested in the evolution of the airplane, as well as to students of aeronautical engineering or others with an aeronautical background.

"Charlotte Dennett has written an excellent book summarizing the geopolitics of the Middle East historically through to current events. . . . This is an amazing piece of historical writing. . . . Students, foreign affairs ‘experts’ and officials should have this work as required reading."—Jim Miles, The Palestine Chronicle Unraveling the mystery of a master spy’s death by following pipelines and mapping wars in the Middle East In 1947, Daniel Dennett, America’s sole master spy in the Middle East, was dispatched to Saudi Arabia to study the route of the proposed Trans-Arabian Pipeline. It would be his last assignment. A plane carrying him to Ethiopia went down, killing everyone on board. Today, Dennett is recognized by the CIA as a “Fallen Star” and an important figure in US intelligence history. Yet the true cause of his death remains clouded in secrecy. In The Crash of Flight 3804, investigative journalist Charlotte Dennett digs into her father’s postwar counterintelligence work, which pitted him against America’s wartime allies—the British, French, and Russians—in a covert battle for geopolitical and economic influence in the Middle East. Through stories and maps, she reveals how feverish competition among superpower intelligence networks, military, and Big Oil interests have fueled indiscriminate attacks and targeted killings that continue to this day—from Jamal Khashoggi’s murder to drone strikes. The book delivers an irrefutable indictment of these devastating forces and how the brutal violence they incite has shaped the Middle East and birthed an era of endless wars. The Crash of Flight 3804 provides important context for understanding the region, while bringing new questions to the fore: To what lengths has the United States negotiated with the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and ISIS to secure Big Oil’s holdings in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen? Was the Pentagon’s goal of defeating ISIS a fraudulent pretext for America’s occupation of Syrian eastern provinces and a land grab for oil? What part does Ukraine play in the energy-dominance struggle between the US and Russia? Did the infamous double agent Kim Philby, who worked for the British while secretly spying for the Russians, have anything to do with Dennett’s death? Why have the US and China made North Africa the next major battleground in the Great Game for Oil? Part personal pilgrimage, part deft critique, Dennett’s insightful reportage examines what happens to international relations when oil wealth hangs in the balance and shines a glaring light on what so many have actually been dying for.

Luke Skywalker and his wife, Mara Jade, journey to the planet of Nirauan to combat an insidious enemy and salvage a part of Jedi history.