The Air; Conquest of Space and Time

vi, [2], 9-327, [1] pages. Frontispiece (color). Illustrations (photographs and drawings). Maps. Tabular Data. A selection of Aviation Records. Index. Name of previous owner, with city and date on fep. The cover has some wear and soiling. No dust jacket present. Foreword by Lieut.-Col. J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon, M.C., M.P. This is one of the Conquest of Space and Time series. This fascinating volume is No. 4 in Dr Schieldrop's Conquest of Space and Time quartet, written as part of the Hutchinson's Illustrated Library of Modern Knowledge series. Here, Schieldrop recounts the history of flight up to 1940. This comprehensive work is illustrated with over 140 photographs and illustrations, including many fine images of early aircraft. The illustrated story of mechanical flight from man's earliest attempts to fly. Covers the causes of failure in aerodynamics, the basic principles of flight in heavier-than-air machines, Balloons and airships, and the development of world transport. Lieutenant Colonel John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon, 1st Baron Brabazon of Tara, GBE, MC, PC, HonFRPS (8 February 1884 17 May 1964) was an English aviation pioneer and Conservative politician. He was the first Englishman to pilot a heavier-than-air machine under power in England, and he served as Minister of Transport and Minister of Aircraft Production during the Second World War. Moore-Brabazon first flew solo in November 1908 in France in a Voisin biplane. He became the first resident Englishman to make an officially recognized aeroplane flight in England on 2 May 1909, at Shellbeach on the Isle of Sheppey with flights of 450 ft, 600 ft, and 1500 ft. On 4 May 1909, Moore-Brabazon was photographed outside the Royal Aero Club clubhouse Mussell Manor alongside the Wright Brothers, the Short Brothers, Charles Rolls, and many other early aviation pioneers. In 1909 he sold the Bird of Passage to Arthur Edward George, who learned to fly in it at the Royal Aero Club's flying-ground at Shellbeach and bought a Short Brothers-built Wright biplane. On 30 October 1909, flying the Short Biplane No. 2, he flew a circular mile and won a 1,000 pound prize offered by the Daily Mail newspaper. On 4 November 1909, as a joke to prove that pigs could fly, he put a small pig in a waste-paper basket tied to a wing-strut of his aeroplane. This may have been the first live cargo flight by aeroplane. With Charles Rolls, he would later make the first ascent in a spherical gas balloon, which had been made in England by the Short brothers. On 8 March 1910, Moore-Brabazon became the first person to qualify as a pilot in the United Kingdom and was awarded Royal Aero Club Aviator's Certificate number 1; his car also bore the number-plate FLY 1. However, only four months later, his friend Charles Rolls was killed in a flying accident and Moore-Brabazon's wife persuaded him to give up flying. With the outbreak of war, Moore-Brabazon returned to flying, joining the Royal Flying Corps (RFC). He received a special-reserve commission as a second lieutenant in the RFC on 2 December 1914, in the appointment of flying officer (assistant equipment officer), and was confirmed in his rank on 11 February 1915. He was promoted to lieutenant on 19 February 1915 and was appointed an equipment officer on 31 March, with the temporary rank of captain. On 1 September 1915, he was promoted to the substantive rank of captain, with a special temporary promotion to major on 18 May 1916. He served on the Western Front, where he played a key role in the development of aerial photography and reconnaissance. On 1 April 1918, when the Royal Flying Corps merged with the Royal Naval Air Service to form the Royal Air Force, Moore-Brabazon was appointed as a staff officer (first class) and made a temporary lieutenant-colonel. He was promoted to the substantive rank of lieutenant-colonel in the RAF on 1 January 1919 in recognition of his wartime services, relinquishing his commission that year. Moore-Brabazon fin.…