People dreamed of flight for thousands of years. When we finally took to the skies, a new world opened up. This sweeping, superbly researched history from American Heritage details how various pioneers and innovators - from the Wright Brothers to Chuck Yeager - helped lift us into the sky.

Here, from American Heritage, is the human, vital story of America's beginnings - from the journeys of early explorers and the founding of the Plymouth and Jamestown colonies to the French and Indian Wars and victory in the War of Independence.

Chronicles the history of flight and profiles the greatest developments in commercial and military aviation.

'Femininity in Flight' considers flight attendants as cultural icons, looking at how attendants redeployed the 'glamourization' used to sell air travel to campaign for professional respect, higher wages, and women's rights.

"If man were meant to fly, he'd have wings." Luckily, the intrepid pioneers of aviation didn't let that little detail stop them. Dedicated to the history of human flight, this richly illustrated retrospective spans centuries of innovation from the drawings of DaVinci to the daring deeds of John Glenn. Strap yourself in for a thrilling, sometimes bumpy ride as the uncertain attempts of the medieval period give way to the excitement of the Wright Brothers' advances and eventually the sophistication of the Space Shuttle. Whether warplanes, transport and tourism crafts, acrobatic machines, seaplanes or helicopters capture your imagination, you'll find every type of aircraft described in vivid detail. Marvel as technology leads to the development of convertiplanes, 21st century superfighters, and the controversial Concorde. You'll even glimpse the future of air travel with prototypes of commercial airliners yet to be produced by Airbus and Boeing.

Aerobatics began with the very birth of mechanical flight, when the Wright brothers realized that man must fly as birds do; not straight and level, but in banked curves: climbing, diving, turning, zooming and rolling. The enthralling aerobatic display of today is the result of an adventure of discovery that has lasted over 80 years. This book is the story of this adventure.

This book begins with the myths of flight which seem to hae haunted mankind from the beginning. It shows the dream begins to acquire substance, first as a feathered toy, then as a funny thing that happened to a paper bag held over a fire, then as a wood and canvas flegling which quickly grew to cast its shadow across the face of the earth. Ten Chapters marking history through Postwar. --Amazon.