Flight: 100 Years of Aviation

Rating:
Summary: Impressive Aviation Exploration
Review: As an aviation aficionado, this book satisfies my aircraft cravings. What a wonderful book. Makes a charming gift for lovers of airliners and paper airplanes alike!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Aviation History Resource
Review: I first opened this book in a local bookstore and was glued to the stories and beautifully formatted sections. The sections are really well illustrated, with interesting facts, characters, and informative overviews of the key aircraft of the last hundred years. It is so complete, and full of information that it is a resource to come back to again and again. I've never owned any book about airplanes, but now I see why! This puts all aircraft history at your fingertips.

Rating:
Summary: The Best HISTORICAL Book on Aviation....
Review: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's "Flight: 100 Years of Aviation," by R.G. Grant and John R. Dailey LOOKS like a "coffee table book." It is SO much more than that - although at over 400 pages and approximately 1000 magnificent photographs, it certainly would fit the bill. It is worth every penny of it's cost.

As the female Vice-President of two small aviation restoration companies, I collect a lot of aviation books. This is absolutely the BEST historical view on aviation. The information and photographs that it provides on early aviation are the best that I have seen. It features memorabilla as well as photos of aviation's many pilots/inventors. Almost all of the photographs were new to me and not simply the same photos shown in all the other books.

Later models are glossed over a little more, but I imagine that the book would have been over 1000 pages if they had gone into much more detail. This book is meant to serve as an overview of aviation's history. Most aviation history books simply feature the planes. This book details so MUCH more. It discusses black boxes, ejection seats, posters, newspaper clippings and much more; truly giving a well-rounded view of aviation.

If you are a pilot or simply interested in aviation - or if you know a young person who is interested in aviation....THIS is the book to buy them. The photographs ALONE are worth purchasing this book!

Rating:
Summary: The Best HISTORICAL Book on Aviation....
Review: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's "Flight: 100 Years of Aviation," by R.G. Grant and John R. Dailey LOOKS like a "coffee table book." It is SO much more than that - although at over 400 pages and approximately 1000 magnificent photographs, it certainly would fit the bill. It is worth every penny of it's cost.

As the female Vice-President of two small aviation restoration companies, I collect a lot of aviation books. This is absolutely the BEST historical view on aviation. The information and photographs that it provides on early aviation are the best that I have seen. It features memorabilla as well as photos of aviation's many pilots/inventors. Almost all of the photographs were new to me and not simply the same photos shown in all the other books.

Later models are glossed over a little more, but I imagine that the book would have been over 1000 pages if they had gone into much more detail. This book is meant to serve as an overview of aviation's history. Most aviation history books simply feature the planes. This book details so MUCH more. It discusses black boxes, ejection seats, posters, newspaper clippings and much more; truly giving a well-rounded view of aviation.

If you are a pilot or simply interested in aviation - or if you know a young person who is interested in aviation....THIS is the book to buy them. The photographs ALONE are worth purchasing this book!

Rating:
Summary: The Best HISTORICAL Book on Aviation....
Review: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's "Flight: 100 Years of Aviation," by R.G. Grant and John R. Dailey LOOKS like a "coffee table book." It is SO much more than that - although at over 400 pages and approximately 1000 magnificent photographs, it certainly would fit the bill. It is worth every penny of it's cost.

As the female Vice-President of two small aviation restoration companies, I collect a lot of aviation books. This is absolutely the BEST historical view on aviation. The information and photographs that it provides on early aviation are the best that I have seen. It features memorabilla as well as photos of aviation's many pilots/inventors. Almost all of the photographs were new to me and not simply the same photos shown in all the other books.

Later models are glossed over a little more, but I imagine that the book would have been over 1000 pages if they had gone into much more detail. This book is meant to serve as an overview of aviation's history. Most aviation history books simply feature the planes. This book details so MUCH more. It discusses black boxes, ejection seats, posters, newspaper clippings and much more; truly giving a well-rounded view of aviation.

If you are a pilot or simply interested in aviation - or if you know a young person who is interested in aviation....THIS is the book to buy them. The photographs ALONE are worth purchasing this book!

Rating:
Summary: One Hundre Years and Counting
Review: This handsome record of a century of flight is a large-format heavyweight that has all the pleasures--and all the flaws--we've come to expect from a Dorling Kindersley ("DK") production. It's big, sprawling, richly illustrated and full of detail--you can lose yourself in it for hours at a time, and go back to it often. The whole of flight's crowded century is covered from the Wright Brothers to space vehicles, with two world wars (plus Korea, Vietnam and Desert Storm), barnstorming, the growth of civil aviation and everything else in-between, plus a chapter on the "pre-flight" pioneers who dreamed or experimented before the Wrights. The page layouts are handsome, the illustrations big, plentiful and colorful, and the text is well-organized. Individual chapters cover specific periods; within them, fascinating developments and people are covered in sidebars. That approach gives full coverage without getting the general text bogged down, and it allows tight focus on some of the many personalities who have gone with the wings. (Yes, Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart are still familiar names--but most people will need to be reminded of the purple-jumpsuited Harriet Quimby, and Bessie Coleman, and the Red Eagles, among others.)

I give this five stars, but just barely. DK books are heavily design-oriented--page layouts must blend innumerable design items (text, illustrations large and small, captions, schematics and sidebars) into harmonious compositions. DK usually succeeds, but often at the reader's expense by sacrificing legibility. For example, captions in small italics are always hard to read, and especially so when laid over colored backgrounds or photos. The schematic indicators identifying specific airplane features are occasionally misplaced. The editing is a bit sloppy: "blooded" and "bloodied" are not synonyms, and there are many dangling modifiers--elementary grammatical lapses that should have been corrected. The proof-reading isn't up to snuff either. In one case a display quote contains a typo (inexcusable in large type); moreover, the quote seems distorted from its text version. One sidebar simply ends in mid-sentence: The text was too long for the space, and someone forget to cut it to fit. And the South African RAF ace "Sailor" Malan spelled his given name Adolph, not Adolf. DK owes readers rather more attention to detail.

Rating:
Summary: If you buy just one big airplane book, buy this one
Review: This is an amazing great big book. There are hundreds of big glossy books of planes and aviation history in bookstores, and with the 100 years of powered controlled flight anniversary, there will no doubt be a few more bowing the shelves. But if you want to buy just one, say for a present, then this is the one to buy. It is balanced, it is complete, it has pictures and text in harmony -- and it is not slapped together like some other slightly embarrassing flying tomes.

Over 400 pages perfect for a youngster, yet written well enough for any adult. Is it perfect? No. But 400 pages of perfection would be hard. I would have put in RJ's rather than the F-28 in the current small airliner section, but complaining about a couple of details should not hide the fact that this is one big cool book. Whatever more detailed specialized books about flying you get later, you will not need to get a great big glossy exciting celebration of flight book again. You'll already have one of the best.

Rating:
Summary: A feast for the eyes
Review: This is an impressive book which takes you through the history of manned flight, the Pioneers, 1st World War, Flying Boats & Airships, 2nd World War, Jet Age, Cold War, Space Travel, finishing up with light aircraft & hobby craft.

The material has been prepared in conjunction with both the US Smithsonian Institution's National Air & Space Museum, and the UK Imperial War Museum, Duxford; consequently the contents have strong credentials.

There are relatively few drawings, because what you get on every page are excellent photographs, mostly in colour, on high quality paper : aircraft, inventors, pilots and events - a feast for the eyes, accompanied by solid informative text. Nothing is overlooked. A lovely book to keep.

Rating:
Summary: A feast for the eyes
Review: This is an impressive book which takes you through the history of manned flight, the Pioneers, 1st World War, Flying Boats & Airships, 2nd World War, Jet Age, Cold War, Space Travel, finishing up with light aircraft & hobby craft.

The material has been prepared in conjunction with both the US Smithsonian Institution's National Air & Space Museum, and the UK Imperial War Museum, Duxford; consequently the contents have strong credentials.

There are relatively few drawings, because what you get on every page are excellent photographs, mostly in colour, on high quality paper : aircraft, inventors, pilots and events - a feast for the eyes, accompanied by solid informative text. Nothing is overlooked. A lovely book to keep.