Rating: 
Summary: A Revisionist Read, A Foolishly Weird Book of errors, fun
Review: Best part of this book is the insight into Prof. Langley's preparation of the Aerodrome & it's failure to fly. this for those uninitiated with Samuel Langley. Also good the Curtiss flight from Albany to NYC in May 1910. But reader Beware!STICKLING FOR ACCURACY p.46 Shulman writes Katharine Wright being Orville's older sister.
-Orville was older than Katharine by 3 years. They both had the same birthday August 19. p.97 Shulman makes claim that a wing's 'camber' & the effect of 'pitch' are one in the same.
-They are not. They are two totally different things. p.100 The text here says Curtiss & both Wright Bros. didn't school past 8th grade.
-Not True! Both Wrights graduated High School. p.102 It's noted here that the Dirigible enjoyed a brief era at the turn or the Century, early 1900s.
-Dirigibles were popular, especially the Zeppelins, up to the late 1930s. p.106 Shulman correctly states the Wrights sent the crankshaft & flywheel from their 1903 Flyer's engine to the Aero Club of America for a 1906 exhibition.
-He doesn't mention that the Aero Club never sent the crankshaft & flywheel back to the Wrights & they remain lost! p.110 Thomas Selfridge is stated to be a US Army Aviation Expert in 1907.
-Selfridge, in 1907, was a 1903 graduate of West Point, had never flown any aerial vehicle(until 1908) and perhaps not an 'expert' in aviation since there was basically no aviation to be expert in...(fixed wing flight was just being born). However Douglas MacArthur was A West Point classmate of Selfridge's. p.134 The credit at the bottom of this page detailing how the AEA learned of aileron usage.
-Gibbs-Smith also stated(elsewhere)that info. about the Wrights' glider activities had been divulged by Octave Chanute himself perhaps to his good friend Dr Bell & certainly to the European aviation community from 1903 onwards. (Chanute had been a visitor to Kitty Hawk in 1901 & 1902). p.160 The text says the Wrights wing warping & rudder method worked only when inter-connected.
-Not True! The Wrights successfully separated wing warping & rudder control in 1905. p.161 the author makes a stupid analogy comparing the turbulence Curtiss's Rheims Flyer was encountering to an automoble hitting a boulder.
-If one hits a boulder at high speed in an auto one would be very dead. You don't repeatedly hit a boulder with a car at high speed & stay alive. pgs.
174-176 These three pages about comparison to an early automobile patent.
-The author is mixing apples & oranges. This has nothing to do with the Wrights' 'FLYING MACHINE' patent. pg.176 Henry Ford ....Big Deal!
-In 1909 Ford was just another up & coming auto maker. One of many. The Model T was only a year old & not mass produced until 1913. p.177 Wing Warping & Rudder connections
-The Wrights' patent is explicit about the coordinated effect of rudder & wing warping. No matter the controls are connected or not. p.189 Text mentions an 'airtight metal pontoon'
-Pontoons should always be 'watertight' one would think. p.191 author states no airplane of the time(May 1910)could carry enough fuel to cover the 150 miles nonstop from Albany to NYC.
-Henri Farman in 1909 kept his prototype Farman III in the air for 113 miles circling a flying field in France. With bigger gas tanks this mileage could be increased. p.192 A Dr Taylor responding to Curtiss's request for a landing spot at his Insane Asylum Grounds. -This bit is funny & amusing. You'll have to read it.
Rating:
Summary: Who is Curtiss? I'm still not sure!
Review: Glenn Hammond Curtiss appears to be a fascinating and underrated participant in the development of human flight. Unfortunately, I don't feel I know much more about him after reading "Unlocking The Sky" than I did before. For whatever reason, Seth Shulman seems more interested in attacking the Wright Brothers (apparrently for what could be considered simply protecting their ideas and inventions) than in describing Curtiss's acccomplishments. I've seen many errors and unfair comments pointed out in other reviews by folks with much more knowledge of aeronautics and flight history than I have. To this list I'll add (or point out again, if its already been covered) Shulman's constant mocking of the Wrights for some of their ideas that became "obsolete" some time later. Should we also mock Alexander Graham Bell because we moved on to dial telephones, touch tone phones, cordless phones, and then cell phones? Or more to the point, should we mock Curtiss for his courageous and historic flight over New York because such a flight became routine in a relatively short time? 2 stars for what information one can gleam about Curtiss from this book. No more because of the bizarre Wright bashing. This being said, I recommend this book along with James Tobin's "To Conquer the Air" (instead of using the "instead of" option), for two differing views of the Wright Brothers.
Rating:
Summary: Who is Curtiss? I'm still not sure!
Review: Glenn Hammond Curtiss appears to be a fascinating and underrated participant in the development of human flight. Unfortunately, I don't feel I know much more about him after reading "Unlocking The Sky" than I did before. For whatever reason, Seth Shulman seems more interested in attacking the Wright Brothers (apparrently for what could be considered simply protecting their ideas and inventions) than in describing Curtiss's acccomplishments. I've seen many errors and unfair comments pointed out in other reviews by folks with much more knowledge of aeronautics and flight history than I have. To this list I'll add (or point out again, if its already been covered) Shulman's constant mocking of the Wrights for some of their ideas that became "obsolete" some time later. Should we also mock Alexander Graham Bell because we moved on to dial telephones, touch tone phones, cordless phones, and then cell phones? Or more to the point, should we mock Curtiss for his courageous and historic flight over New York because such a flight became routine in a relatively short time? 2 stars for what information one can gleam about Curtiss from this book. No more because of the bizarre Wright bashing. This being said, I recommend this book along with James Tobin's "To Conquer the Air" (instead of using the "instead of" option), for two differing views of the Wright Brothers.
Rating: 
Summary: Hero of flight
Review: I read this book at one sitting--couldn't put it down. It is a wonderful illustration of how complex the history of an invention can be, how much of what you think you know is wrong and incomplete, and the role that repetition plays in forming your understanding of events that occurred a long time ago. Shulman tells an exciting story here, and provides plenty of muscle in making the case that Curtiss not only made some outstanding contributions to early aviation, but in some ways eclipsed those of the secretive, monopolistic Wright brothers. The patent fights between the Wrights, Curtiss and the rest of the early aviators is told with enough detail that you can get the sense of the times, without getting unnecessarily bogged down in a morass of detail. While I appreciate the pioneering of the Wrights, the openness of Curtiss in sharing his patents and inventions seems quite admirable to me. The part about Curtiss getting Langley's aerodrome flying was something entirely new to me, and the feud that the Wrights had with the Smithsonian over their cooperation with Curtiss, leading them to send their flyer to a British museum, a revelation. All of these men were humans, and had miserable failings, but remain heroes to me.
Rating:
Summary: Hero of flight
Review: I read this book at one sitting--couldn't put it down. It is a wonderful illustration of how complex the history of an invention can be, how much of what you think you know is wrong and incomplete, and the role that repetition plays in forming your understanding of events that occurred a long time ago. Shulman tells an exciting story here, and provides plenty of muscle in making the case that Curtiss not only made some outstanding contributions to early aviation, but in some ways eclipsed those of the secretive, monopolistic Wright brothers. The patent fights between the Wrights, Curtiss and the rest of the early aviators is told with enough detail that you can get the sense of the times, without getting unnecessarily bogged down in a morass of detail. While I appreciate the pioneering of the Wrights, the openness of Curtiss in sharing his patents and inventions seems quite admirable to me. The part about Curtiss getting Langley's aerodrome flying was something entirely new to me, and the feud that the Wrights had with the Smithsonian over their cooperation with Curtiss, leading them to send their flyer to a British museum, a revelation. All of these men were humans, and had miserable failings, but remain heroes to me.
Rating:
Summary: A bizarre reading experience
Review: Reading this book was a bizarre experience. On page 50, Shulman describes the Wrights' first flight and implies that the inventors were so secretive that they did all they could to keep the news from public release. However, the well-known telegram that Orville wrote to his father on the day of the flight ends with the words: "inform press home Christmas." The author's omission of this detail is unfair to the Wrights and undercuts his own credibility. The author complains that it was a long time before the Wrights made any flight in public. But why is that relevant to who "invented" the airplane? A lot of things are invented privately, and announced or demonstrated to the public only after a patent is obtained: modern pharmaceuticals, for example. An artifact is invented when it's invented, not when it's presented to the public. The author chides the Wrights for not having invented the aileron, a hinged control surface that he claims is one of Curtiss's "inventions." But on page 134 the author claims that ailerons were actually invented, and even patented, in 1868 by a British inventor named Boulton. How then is it accurate to list the aileron as Curtiss's "invention"? The author describes ailerons repeatedly as "wing flaps," which they are not. "Wing flaps" is a distinct term that applies to a distinct set of control surfaces that perform an entirely different function. The author argues that ailerons control lateral stability. This is true, but their more important function lies in turning the aircraft, a subject that Shulman demonstrates no good understanding of. These omissions, errors, and misunderstandings undercut the authority of a book that purports to give a revisionist view of the early history of powered flight.
Rating: 
Summary: History Misunderstood
Review: Seth Shulman has written an adequate book about Curtiss, who did contribute significantly to aviation development. It is readable and interesting but very weak in evaluating history. Shulman either misunderstands, or misrepresents, the relative merits of the Wright Bros. and Curtiss. Curtiss was a talented and committed enhancer of the airplane. Orville and Wilbur were geniuses who invented, out of whole cloth, wing warping (and, therefore, control), aviation propellers, the wind tunnel, and the airplane engine (that is, an engine with a high enough power to weight ratio). Give Curtiss his due but, on a scale of 10, the Wright Brothers are a 10 and Glenn is a 7 or 7.5. History rightly (or should I say Wrightly) recognizes the boys from Dayton.
Rating: 
Summary: Curtiss vs. Wright
Review: Seth Shulman writes a highly entertaining, enlightening, and well-written biography of the irrepressible Glenn Curtiss in "Unlocking The Sky." Unlike the typical biography, however, which drags out every last boring detail of the subject, Shulman's Unlocking The Sky cuts to the chase, framing Curtiss's life in the context of his early-and most significant-inventive successes, his involvement in the resurrection of the Langley Aerodrome, and his gut-wrenching and years-long legal battle with Orville and Wilbur Wright.
Before consuming Shulman's text I was, like most Americans, sold on the mythical status of the Wrights and their achievement. What little I knew of Curtiss created an image of a creative but conniving Johnny-come-lately in the burgeoning aviation field. When I read and reviewed "The Wright Brothers: A Biography" by Fred C. Kelly, which does an excellent job at presenting the Curtiss vs. Wright patent case in favor of the Wrights, I stated that with their "successful and historic flights at Kitty Hawk in 1903 the Wrights had ushered in a reasoned, scientific approach to the quest for man-flight. They had accomplished the impossible in virtual isolation, without financing or institutional support. They embody the can-do American ideal of independence and ingenuity."
Unfortunately, they also embody the American penchant for litigation. Even as taken with the Wrights as I was then, I did have the foresight in my review to add that while the Wrights "undoubtedly deserve the admiration and gratitude of mankind--Kelly was a personal friend of the Wrights and I'd like to read other viewpoints on the legal aspects of their later battles. Kelly may have been too close to render an objective and balanced picture of them.
This is exactly what Shulman supplies in impressive fashion. Undoubtedly the debate over patent infringement and the pre-Curtiss-reconstruction viability of Langley's aerodrome will go on indefinitely. But Shulman is convincing that Glenn Curtiss is an American worthy of greater renown-perhaps worthier than even the Wrights. Curtiss was certainly a more likable and prolific inventor.
A very minor, subjective beef with the book is something he hints at in the acknowledgements when he thanks his agent, who "strongly encouraged me to experiment with the narrative form." The result is an abruptly shifting narrative style sometimes referring to events historically, and other times in present tense-as if we were watching it occur now. The device served only to throw me out of the story. All in all, though, it's a very enjoyable and highly recommended book. --C.B. Jonnes
Rating:
Summary: A Revisionist Read, A Foolishly Weird Book of errors, fun
Review: Shulman's chosen title says it all. This is not about the race to invent the airplane, but Curtiss' battle with the Wrights over patents. Shulman has an axe to grind, but the bias is so clear and strident that after a while the battle between the Wrights and Curtiss seems only an allegory for how many feel about Microsoft. Shulman quotes admiringly Henry Ford, "Patents should be used to protect the inventor, not to hold back progress" without delving into the issue of how to resolve the contradictions between society's desire for progress and the inventor's desire for reward for effort. Skipping over this issue Shulman denigrates the accomplishments of the Wrights. Shulman trumpets Curtiss' rebuilding of the Langley flyer and ability to make it fly. Revisiting history is fine and rebuilding past flying machines is fine also. But, to argue that because Curtiss could get Langley's machine to fly raises Langley to the level of the Wrights is pure mischief. Langley's machine did not fly, as many others did not fly. The Wrights flew and in doing so achieved a singular accomplishment. Overall, a very irritating read for his sloppy history.
Rating:
Summary: Great read and it helps take you into the social settings
Review: The Wright Brothers did what most of the world said was impossible. Langley, Smithsonian with US funds at his disposal failed to do what a couple of HS educated bike mechanics solved. The author compares them with Rockefeller and Carnegie who never invented anything but stole the idea of others or paid pennies for their ideas. I drove across the Potomac River for 24 years, and never saw "chunks" of ice at the time of year Langley's attempt fell into the drink. Furthermore, if in fact there were chunks of ice, as a military pilot with actual experience I know that time of usefull conciousness in December Potomac waters, even without the ice, is much less than landing on frozen sand dunes. Making the attempt in such weather, with a complicated and untested launcher was just plain stupid. So much for titles, higher education and funding granting common sense to anyone. Curtiss was a great pilot and inventor, why did the author have to bash the Wright's attempt to save their patent. Unlike most inventors, they had some business sense and should not be faulted for knowing that the rest of the world would try to steal their momentous discovery. The Wright's real flying began near Dayton, and was observed by hundreds, if not thousands. Its absurd to claim these flights were "private". The plane was kept from prying eyes while on the ground. The USAF does the same with its experimental aircraft, which may be observed from afar by numerous people. They solved the problem of lateral control which was the concept that was the basis for their court victory. If this discovery was not patentable, then why did it take others so long to solve the problem with other devices which have been invented such as the airleron, the spoiler, etc.
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