Janet R. Daly Bednarek

What happens when I get a new hobby? I borrow every book in the library that’s on the topic and read them. All of them. This was the first general aviation book that I read that isn’t a how-to or guide book or manual. It presents a short but straightforward history of general aviation in the United States from the time of the Wright brothers until mid-2001.

The first thing I didn’t love about this book was the lack of a central narrative to tie everything together. The book was split into time periods and each of those chapters was further split into subsections without a unifying flow to everything. It made the book less interesting and compelling.

The book was also quite short. It was probably impossible to include much of a narrative within the constraints of the length. I felt like a topic would just warm up and the chapter would be over. I felt the same at the end of the book too.

There was also almost no look at jet planes and the interplay between commercial and general aviation. The two can’t possibly be disconnected completely.

I also found a lot of terminology unclear. The authors did a good job of not using acronyms, but then they would say something like “a two place airplane” without specifying that it means two seats. I had to look that up. It distracted from the reading.

Also, the book had about two paragraphs about September 11. Granted, this is a consequence of when the book was published. The effects of that day continue to reverberate in the aviation world even 17 years later and the lack of those implications in this book makes this text more appropriate in the “may as well be ancient history” pile.

That said, it did whet my appetite for more information on general aviation. I am on the lookout for something more recent, more compelling, more inspiring. Hopefully that book exists. Sadly, it’s not this one.… (mais)