Revolution in The Sky

The years between 1927 and 1937 are known as the golden age of aviation - a time of heady achievement, technological innovation, and the romantic pioneering spirit of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, Wiley Post and Will Rogers, Amelia Earhart, Roscoe Turner, and Jimmy Doolittle. These years saw the continents and oceans spanned by airplanes, the polar regions explored, and records set for distance, speed, altitude, and endurance.
All this was made possible to a very great degree by one aircraft type: the fabulous single-engine Lockheed, first and best known as the Vega, with the later models Sirius, Altair, and Orion. Only 198 planes of this type were built, but their contribution to the history of aviation is immeasurable. In this revised and updated edition of his widely acclaimed but long-outof-print classic, Richard Allen tells the exciting story of the design and construction of the Vega, and of the men and women who flew her into history. With its revolutionary semi-monocoque, stressed-skin design, the efficient Vega had a strength-to-weight ratio superior to the airplanes that had come before. She could carry more passengers (or fuel) a greater distance than had been previously possible. And though she was made of wood and fabric, her new design would point the way to the lightweight all-metal airplanes of the modern era.
Richard Allen's brilliant evocation of this whole period of aviation history, with all its triumphs and tragedies, is supplemented by hundreds of historical photographs and scale-model drawings. It successfully blends technical history with the excitement, adventure, and romance of aviation, and chronicles the careers of the brash young men and women who proved that flying could really get you there.


by Richard Sanders Allen
Published by Orion Books (USA) 1988 revised edition (of 1964 1st). 253pp profusely illustrated with b&w photos, three view, line, and scale drawings, index, appendices, bibliography. 23x28 very good, d/j covered in clear plastic and stuck to inner boards.






Note:
"Long" descriptions, where shown, may have been taken from the book's dust jacket notes, and as such are relevant to the date of publication (e.g. any references to "new edition" "previously unpublished photographs" etc.) and not the present.

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