First World Flight: The Odyssey of Billy Mitchell [FIRST EDITION]

Lane, Spencer

Verlag: U.S. Press, 2002

Beschreibung

As new condition black boards with silver spine lettering contained in an as new condition non price-clipped photographic dust jacket. Includes Author Dedication; Acknowledgments; Foreword by Phil Boyer, President, A.O.P.A.; Foreword by Paul H. Poberezny, Founder and Chairman, E.A.A.; Introduction; and Bibliography. Illustrated with a large section of black-and-white photographic plates and a black-and-white photographic frontispiece with a facing page of facsimile autographs. "After the millions of casualties of World War I, another war seemed unthinkable. America's priorities became a return to peace and prosperity. By the early 1920s budget cuts had decimated the military. President Coolidge felt aviation had little practical value and suggested that the 232 Army airmen, left from a wartime peak of 20,000, could take turns flying the few obsolete aircraft that remained intact. General Billy Mitchell believed that only a successful world flight could save the U.S. Air Service from destruction by the politicians. After years of planning, he began an unauthorized public campaign for support of the flight as elections rapidly approached. Coolidge and Secretary of War Weeks reluctantly bowed to public pressure and authorized the flight - but exiled Mitchell to the Far East. Douglas Aviation, newly formed in the back of a barber shop with $600 of borrowed capital, built the lumbering but strong open cockpit biplanes, the "World Cruisers", for the flight. Limited funds meant that they would be powered by obsolete, unreliable, war surplus Liberty engines left from the previous decade. Few countries then had airplanes; airfields and supply depots were virtually non-existent. The Pacific and North Atlantic oceans had never been crossed by air. To extend the Cruisers' range, radios, rafts, parachutes, life jackets, and even survival rations were left behind. In the press, the fliers were given little hope of surviving the hazardous ordeal. Strap yourself into the cockpit and ride along with the young American airmen as they attempt to do the impossible, to complete their World Flight - and change the course of history for the balance of the century." - from the inner front jacket flap. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 005144

Bibliografische Details

Titel: First World Flight: The Odyssey of Billy ...

Verlag: U.S. Press

Erscheinungsdatum: 2002

Einband: Hardcover

Zustand: As New

Zustand des Schutzumschlags: As New

Auflage: 1st Edition