White - Cleared for takeoff: the ultimate book of flight

For Mum and Dad

First published in the United States of America in 2016 by Chronicle Books LLC.
Originally published in the United Kingdom in 2013 by Bantam Press under the title
The Big Book of Flight.

Copyright Project Cancelled Ltd 2013.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without
written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

White, Rowland.
Cleared for takeoff: the ultimate book of flight / by Rowland White.
pages cm
This compendium of the history of flight for young readers includes fascinating facts and trivia, helpful diagrams, stories of aviations pioneers, and fascinating profiles of remarkable planes, accompanied by stunning photographs and illustrations. First published in the United States of America in 2016 by Chronicle Books LLC.
Audience: 10-12.
Audience: 4-6.
ISBN 978-1-4521-3550-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4521-4348-4 (epub 2)
1. AeronauticsHistoryJuvenile literature. 2.AeronauticsHistoryPictorial works.
3. Flying-machinesHistoryJuvenile literature. 4.Flying-machinesHistoryPictorial works.
I. Title.

TL515.W474 2016
629.13334dc23

2014044858

Typeset in Century Schoolbook.
Designed by Bobby Birchall, Bobby & Co.
Additional design by Richard Shailer and Nick Avery.
Illustrations by Patrick Mulrey.
The illustrations in this book were rendered in paint.

Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107

Chronicle Bookswe see things differently.
Become part of our community at www.chroniclekids.com.

Chronicle books and gifts are available at special quantity discounts to corporations, professional associations, literacy programs, and other organizations. For details and discount information, please contact our premiums department at or at 1-800-759-0190.

Prophecy
(From Locksley Hall, 1835)

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there raind a ghastly dew
From the nations airy navies grappling in the central blue;
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro the thunder-storm;
Till the war-drum throbbd no longer, and the battle-flags were furld
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
(180992)

>

O ne way or another, we all want to fly. Whether its floating above the ground through the power of dreams, or a yearning to strap into the cockpit and zoom skyward on a pillar of jet thrust, were all in there somewhere. From leaning into a corner on a Honda Fireblade motorcycle to the three-dimensional sub-aqua ballet of scuba diving, it all, I think, boils down to a desire to fly. Freedom and sensation... its an irresistible combination, and it grabbed me early.

Growing up in England a little too late for the glory days of Eagle comic and Look and Learn, I had the Ladybird Book of Flight, The How and Why Wonder Book of Flight, and, perhaps most treasured of all, the St. Michael Pictorial History of Aircraft. I thrived on a wholly un-PC diet of Warlord and The Victor comics, and had an enduring fascination with Airfix models (the catalogs of which I pored over, returning to the same dramatic images of aircraft time and again). I begged to stay up late to watch TV programs such as the Royal Flying Corps drama Wings, or the BBCs Squadron, in retrospect, an unlikely ten-part series about the fictional adventures of 370 Rapid Deployment Squadron. Although unreal, and with sets even more rickety than those on Crossroads, it had airplanes in it, and that was enough for me. Alongside this required viewing, aviation authors Paul Brickhill, Ralph Barker, and the brilliant Bill Gunston (at one point, I believe, the most borrowed author in British libraries) wrote the books I wanted to read.

Keen as I was on Roy of the Rovers, Judge Dredd, Star Wars, and Adam and the Ants, I could also hold forth about Douglas Bader, the Dam Busters, and the maximum thrustwith full afterburnerof a J-79 turbojet engine.

Adolescence curbed my enthusiasm a little. Even I realized that there was nothing the slightest bit cool about staying in to watch anything featuring Raymond Baxter. But the lull was only temporary. Ultimately flight and flying offered things that were much more valuable than cool: namely, inspiration, wonder, and visceral excitement.

On holiday with my family a few years ago, we visited a bird sanctuary in the hills. With our two childrenmy wife Lucy was heavily pregnant with number threewe sat down on rows of tiered wooden benches for a falconry display. As the handlers prepared for the show, a single large raptor was released and climbed high into the clear skies until it had all but vanished. While the demonstration continued, the bird was forgotten. But at the end of the show, we were invited to look up and soon we were all tracking it. Suddenly, it tucked in its wings and began to dive toward the ground. At first it was impossible to gain any appreciation of the falcons speed, but it quickly became clear that she seemed to be moving unnaturally fast. Her dive was carefully controlled with small, instinctive movements of her tail and neatly folded wings, but it was unnerving to see her plummet straight toward the ground with a terminal velocity way beyond 100 mph. Just when she seemed too close to avoid smashing into the midst of her slack-jawed audience, she swooped a couple of feet over our headsso low that we could feel the disturbance in the still air as she streaked past. She then followed the descending contours of the stadium-style seating toward her handler where, with perfect precision, she flared and dropped gently on to the waiting leather gauntlet.

It was majestica sight so thrilling that I found myself blinking back tears of joy, grateful for a pair of sunglasses to hide such an emotional response to the awe-inspiring display Id just experienced. No wonder the lure of flying has such a hold.

As long as human beings have lived alongside birds, weve wanted to join them. Our efforts to do so have rarely been as elegant or as smooth, but they have been dangerous, exciting, intriguing, clever, unexpected, loud, spectacular, courageous, ambitious, unsuccessful, and brilliant. And sometimes, on rare occasions, like that extraordinary diving falcon, theyve moved us.

Cleared for Takeoff is a celebration of all those efforts. For me, the only real criterion for including something was whether or not it was interesting, so as a reference book, this volume is neither comprehensive nor necessarily useful. In fact, its probably not useful at all because the choices Ive made are determinedly personal ones. But usefulness was never the point.

I still cant help but look out of the window (at work) or run out of the house (at home) if I hear the sound of an unfamiliar aircraft engine. And the urgent, growing realization that this time its unusually close and low gets my heart beating even faster. If what follows prompts a few people to experience the same joy and excitement, then this books been better than useful. I hope it will surprise, entertain, and fire peoples imagination in the same way the books I grew up with captured mine.