Skip to content
You are not logged in |Login  
     
Limit search to available items
Record:   Prev Next
Resources
More Information
Bestseller
BestsellerE-book
Author Lehrer, Henry R., author.

Title Flying the beam : navigating the early US airmail airways, 1917-1941 / Henry R. Lehrer.

Publication Info. West Lafayette, Indiana : Purdue University Press, [2014]

Item Status

Description 1 online resource
Physical Medium polychrome
Description text file
Contents Frustrating beginnings (1917 -- 1919) -- "I follow roads, rivers, and rail lines" (1920 -- 1924) -- Lighted airways (1925 -- 1928) 636 -- Radio range and blind flying; almost a decade of monumental aeronautical growth (1929 -- 1936) -- Aviation reaches for maturity (1937 -- 1941) -- Epilogue.
Summary "With air travel a regular part of daily life in North America, we tend to take the infrastructure that makes it possible for granted. However, the systems, regulations, and technologies of civil aviation are in fact the product of decades of experimentation and political negotiation, much of it connected to the development of the airmail as the first commercially sustainable use of airplanes. From the lighted airways of the 1920s through the radio navigation system in place by the time of World War II, this book explores the conceptualization and ultimate construction of the initial US airways systems. The daring exploits of the earliest airmail pilots are well documented, but the underlying story of just how brick-and-mortar construction, radio research and improvement, chart and map preparation, and other less glamorous aspects of aviation contributed to the system we have today has been understudied. Flying the Beam traces the development of aeronautical navigation of the US airmail airways from 1917 to 1941. Chronologically organized, the book draws on period documents, pilot memoirs, and firsthand investigation of surviving material remains in the landscape to trace the development of the system. Although today's airway system extends far beyond the continental US and is based on digital technologies, the way pilots navigate from place to place basically uses the same infrastructure and procedures that were pioneered almost a century earlier. While navigational electronics have changed greatly over the years, actually "flying the beam" has changed very little"--Provided by publisher.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject Air mail service -- United States -- History.
Air mail service.
United States.
History.
Navigation (Aeronautics) -- United States -- History.
Navigation (Aeronautics)
Genre/Form Electronic books.
Electronic books.
History.
Added Title Navigating the early US airmail airways, 1917-1941
Other Form: Print version: Lehrer, Henry R. Flying the beam. West Lafayette, Indiana : Purdue University Press, [2014] 9781557536853 (DLC) 2013042314 (OCoLC)854609734
ISBN 9781612493398 (electronic book)
1612493394 (electronic book)
9781612493404 (electronic book)
1612493408 (electronic book)
9781557536853
1557536856