The Wright Brothers were wimps.
Or so you might think after reading this account of their unsung
but even more daring rivals--the men and women who strapped wings
to their backs and took to the sky. If only for a few seconds.
People have been dying to fly, quite literally, since the dawn of
history. They've made wings of feather and bone, leather and wood,
canvas and taffeta, and thrown themselves off the highest places
they could find. Theirs is the world's first and still most
dangerous extreme sport, and its full history has never been told.
"Birdmen, Batmen, and Skyflyers" is a thrilling, hilarious, and
often touching chronicle of these obsessive inventors and eccentric
daredevils. It traces the story of winged flight from its doomed
early pioneers to their glorious high-tech descendants, who've at
last conquered gravity (sometimes, anyway). Michael Abrams gives us
a brilliant bird's-eye view of what it's like to fly with wings.
And then, inevitably, to fall.
In the Immortal Words of Great Birdmen...
"Someday I think that everyone will have wings and be able to soar
from the housetops. But there must be a lot more experimenting
before that can happen." --Clem Sohn, the world's first batman, who
plummeted to his death at the Paris Air Show in 1937
"The trouble was that he went only halfway up the radio tower. If
he had gone clear to the top it would have been different."
--Amadeo Catao Lopes in 1946, explaining the broken legs of the man
who tried his wings
"One day, a jump will be the last. The jump of death. But that idea
does not hold me back." --Rudolf Richard Boehlen, who died of
jump-related injuries in 1953
"It turned out that almost everyone from the thirties and forties
had died. That just made me want to do it more." --Garth Taggart,
stunt jumper for "The Gypsy Moths," filmed in 1968
"You have to be the first one. The second one is the first loser."
--Felix Baumgartner, who in 2003 became the first birdman to cross
the English Channel
"From the Hardcover edition."
General
Imprint: |
Three Rivers Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
May 2007 |
First published: |
May 2007 |
Authors: |
Michael Abrams
|
Dimensions: |
202 x 132 x 20mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
304 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-4000-5492-3 |
Categories: |
Books >
Reference & Interdisciplinary >
General
|
LSN: |
1-4000-5492-3 |
Barcode: |
9781400054923 |
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