Undaunted: Long-Distance Flyers in the Golden Age of Aviation

It was a dangerous game - but for a resolute few the lure was irresistible.

When in 1904 the Wright brothers stayed aloft for more than five minutes, nobody paid them much attention. But over the next couple of decades, beginning with flyers like Bleriot, Farman, Roe, Quimby, and Rogers, aviators began to push the limits of the possible, and their exploits caught the imagination of a public looking for sensation.

In Undaunted, Spencer Dunmore tells the thrilling story of these dramatic and romantic characters. They were glamorous figures in an exciting new time, an astonishing era in which long-distance aviators were the crown princes and princesses of the technological age and their flights were major sporting events. A breathless public studied their every move, newspapers all over the world bore their photographs, and crowds lined the streets as they drove by.

When Charles Lindbergh landed in Paris in 1927, he instantly became the most admired man in the world. Alcock and Brown, Amelia Earhart, Amy Johnson, Howard Hughes, and a host of others, many now forgotten, grabbed a share of his glory. To make a record-breaking flight in the golden age of aviation was to gain fame and, with luck, fortune too. The risks were high Ð few of the pioneers lived to old age Ð but for the mavericks, eccentrics, romantics, and visionaries in this book, the adventure was worth it.