The Rocket Man

The wonder of flight has long captured the human imagination. In this beguiling history - ranging from the first aircraft to astronauts and beyond - David Darling tells the stories of the colorful adventurers whose wonder has translated into bizarre contraptions, magnificent achievements and, sometimes, startling folly. Discover outrageous attempts to fly like a bird and the secret military planes that never made it off the ground - including the "flying pancake” and the plane with thirty wings. Meet Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, before disappearing without trace over the Pacific Ocean; the real "X-Men” who flew the supersonic experimental "X-planes” for the US Air Force; stuntman Lincoln Beachey, looping-the-loop in a pinstripe suit; and, of course, The Rocket Man himself: Yves Rossy, who was the first person to cross the English Channel with the aid of a jet-pack. Eccentric and imaginative, reckless and resourceful - Darling's daring cast of dreamers is guaranteed to entertain and inspire.

Auteur

British science writer and astronomer David Darling is the author of the best-selling Equations of Eternity and the popular online resource Internet Encyclopedia of Science. Also a coauthor of Megacatastrophes!: Nine Strange Ways the World Could End, he lives in the U.K.