It's Pretty Enough, But It's Not Just a 'Coffee-Table Book'

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics commissioned The Airplane: A History of Its Technology, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of powered flight. Unlike the other centennial books recently published, it explores the technology that made flight possible. Non-technical and technical readers will find this book fascinating reading.

The Wright brothers' famous flight could have taken place inside the Space Shuttle's giant fuel tank. Anyone who wonders how we got from there to here, in just one century, should read this book. It's better than science fiction ... it is science reality. -- Norman R. Augustine, Retired Chairman and CEO, Lockheed Martin Corporation

The Airplane is written by one the most respected authors in the aerospace world. John D. Anderson Jr. is curator for aerodynamics at the National Air and Space Museum, Professor Emeritus, Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Maryland, and the author of several world-renowned textbooks.

Contrary to popular belief, the Wright brothers did not invent the airplane; rather they invented the first successful airplane. The concept of the airplane was invented a hundred years earlier, and the Wrights inherited a century's worth of prior aeronautical research and development. The Wrights did not work in a vacuum; they admitted that they "worked on the shoulders of giants." Indeed, if Orville and Wilbur had not entered the field of aeronautics, and their momentous flight on December 17, 1903 had not taken place, the first successful airplane would have been invented by someone else within the decade. The time was right. The Wrights were the right people at the right time.

Just what aeronautical technology did the Wrights inherit from their predecessors? How much was right? How much was wrong? Who were the major players in the development of this technology and why?

This book will answer those questions. It is a history of the technology of the airplane, written with the non-technical reader in mind, but telling a story that the technical reader can also enjoy. This history begins centuries before the Wright brothers and takes us to the present day.

After you finish this book, I hope that the next time you get on an airplane, you will feel the history of its technology. If you do, then I will have accomplished my goal. -- John D. Anderson Jr.

Info:

The Airplane: A History of Its Technology, John D. Anderson Jr., published by the American Institute of Aeronautics, December 2002, 369 pages, Hardcover, ISBN 1-56347-525-1, $75. Order from AIAA, Publications Customer Service, P.O. Box 960, Herndon, VA 20172-0960, Phone 800/682-2422, FAX 703/661-1501

FMI: www.aiaa.org