The Airport Book: From Landing Field to Modern Terminal

Greif, Martin

ISBN 10: 0831701501 / ISBN 13: 9780831701505

Published by Mayflower Books, New York, 1979

About this Item

192 pages. 870g. Grey board with slightly faded black cloth spine and top edge, Very Good with the contents tight and clean in a Very Good d/w with repaired tear to top of spine. Illustrated with around 250 b/w photographs. A history of the development of the landing field into the modern airport of today.

Seller Inventory # 13516

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Airport Book: From Landing Field to Modern Terminal
• Publisher: Mayflower Books, New York
• Publication Date: 1979
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0831701501
• ISBN 13: 9780831701505
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Aviation

About this title

Synopsis

Before there were airports, there were landing fields. And before there were landing fields, there were just open stretches of land – anywhere that the early spider-like flying machines could alight: farmers’ fields, pastures, the lawns of resort hotels and country clubs, the grassy expanse of the local golf course, or even baseball fields, race tracks, and cemeteries. The trend of aircraft design from small airplanes with light wing loadings to the larger fast transports of the 1930s with their heavy wing loadings, higher landing speeds, and slower climb ratios rendered obsolete the casual approach the airfields and brought about the birth of the modern airport. Although there have been scores of books on aviation history and hundreds of books on airplanes, THE AIRPORT BOOK is the first ever to celebrate in text and pictures the history of that place of endless excitement and fascination – the airport. In almost 250 rare photographs and a text that vividly captures the adventure of early air travel and its joys and frustrations today, martin Greif traces the development of the airport from the first canvas seaplane hangars of World War I to the bustling, highly sophisticated air terminals of today. Along the way in this broad survey are a recreation of the first truly international terminals of Europe in the 1920s, a fascinating explanation of why the first large North American airports were deliberately designed to resemble railroad stations, a collection of prize-winning Art Deco renderings from the world’s first architectural competition for the design of airports in 1929, a glimpse at many long-forgotten visionary schemes including a series of floating islands called seadromes that were believed would someday make transoceanic flight possible, and an extraordinary New York airport that consisted of a huge concrete circle resting on six 80-story skyscrapers.