About the Author

Tom D. Crouch, author of The Bishop's Boys and A Dream of Wings, is curator emeritus of the aeronautics division at the National Air & Space Museum. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia.

Reviews

"A pleasure... turns the magnifying lens on the clan and cultural roots of two unusual individuals....[Crouch] movingly--even beautifully--unfolds their story."--Washington Post Book World"[A] superb biography."

"Crouch interweaves family drama with the history of aviation in a riveting saga of ingenuity, competing claims, public adulation and technical innovation."

"A pleasure... turns the magnifying lens on the clan and cultural roots of two unusual individuals....[Crouch] movingly--even beautifully--unfolds their story."--Washington Post Book World"[A] superb biography."
"Crouch interweaves family drama with the history of aviation in a riveting saga of ingenuity, competing claims, public adulation and technical innovation."

This book is both a biography of these great American heroes and a history of early aviation. Crouch discusses the Wrights' early life in Dayton, which was dominated by their father, the controversial Bishop Wright. He provides a detailed account of the development of the airplane, with its problems of aerodynamics, control surfaces, and propellers. The Wrights' business efforts to capitalize on their technology--fraught with struggles for patents, disputes over contracts, and feuds with the Curtiss corporation--is particularly enlightening. A well-researched book which uses often overlooked original source material, this will have wide interest for general readers and those interested in flying history. BOMC selection.-- William A. McIntyre, New Hampshire Vocational-Technical Coll. Lib., Nashua