As far back as stories go, pioneers have reached for the skies. In the last two hundred years, they have mastered the air & made the modern world possible. Today they are bringing outer space within our reach. They're inventors & toymakers, amateurs & adventurers, visionaries, dreamers &, yes, crackpots. Some have called them irresponsible, even dangerous. But I have met many of them. I have worked with them, & funded them, & flown with them. I admire them, & trust them, & I think they & their kind are our future.
In this book I look at the history of flight through the stories & people who have inspired me. These are tales of miraculous rescues; of records made & broken; of surprising feats of endurance & survival, including some of my own adventures, as well as developments in the future of air (and space) travel. This is a story of pioneers, & of course it
Includes:: the world famous Montgolfiers & the Wright brothers. But I also want to describe some of the lesser-known trailblazers -- people like Tony Jannus, who in 1914 created the world's first scheduled commercial flight, flying his passengers over the waters of Tampa Bay at an altitude of just fifty feet; the