Speaking with some experience, the writer has found that instruction in the principles underlying the science and sport of aviation must be vitalized by some contemporaneous study of what is being accomplished in the air. No one of the revolutionizing inventions of man has progressed as rapidly as aerial navigation. The “truths” of today are the absurdities of tomorrow. The suggestion that some grasp of the principles and a very fair knowledge of the current practices in aeronautics may be had without special technical knowledge came almost automatically. If this book is comprehensible to the lay reader, and if it conveys to him even a small proportion of the writer’s conviction that flying machines are to profoundly influence our living in the next generation, it will have accomplished its author’s purpose.
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