Aviation

Hal Wert tells the story of the two Lithuanian-American aviators, Steponas Darius and Stanley Girenas, whose attempt to bring honour to the land of their birth ended tragically in July 1933.

The great military institution took flight on April 13th, 1912.

Jad Adams looks back to a time when, wracked by industrial decline, a nation embraced the world’s first supersonic airliner.

John Swinfield describes the bizarre politics behind the British government’s attempt to launch a pair of airships in the 1920s and how a project that might have boosted national pride ended in tragedy and failure.

The Hindenburg disaster marked the beginning of the end for travel by dirigible. But airships were once a popular and luxurious way to travel.

John Etty shows the vital importance of aviation in the Stalinist Soviet Union.

In 1926 Umberto Nobile, a young Italian airship engineer, became a hero of Mussolini’s Fascist state when he piloted Roald Amundsen’s Norge over the North Pole. But his subsequent attempt to make the journey on behalf of his own country ended in tragedy. Irene Peroni tells his story.

Patricia Cleveland-Peck visits Tempelhof which is about to close for ever as an airport.

Glen Jeansonne and David Luhrssen describe how the pioneer aviator Charles Lindbergh was increasingly disturbed by the tension between technology and its impact on the environment. In his later career, in the 1960s, Lindbergh became a spokesman for the embryonic environmental movement as they describe here.

David Jordan recalls the career of the man Brazilians claim to have been the true pioneer of powered heavier-than-air flight.