First to fly

the long version

"Working with archival sources, newspapers, patent records, and personal accounts, Tom Parramore recounts North Carolina's significant role in the early history of aviation. Beginning well before the Wright brothers' first powered flight at Kill Devil Hill in 1905, North Caolinians labored at the cutting edge of aviation technology from the late 1800s through World War I. First to Fly tells a remarkable story, filled with dreamers, inventors, and pioneering pilots.". "North Carolina was a launching ground for real and imaginary ballooning adventures as early as 1789. Powered experiments, including what seems to have been America's first airplane, gained momentum in the late nineteenth century. Tar Heel mechanics and inventors also built a dirigible and, arguably, the world's first successful helicopter.". "Parramore's account of the Wrights' experiments and turn-of-the-century Dare County provides new information on the crucial role of Outer Bankers in ensuring the Wrights' success. Without this aid, he argues, it is unlikely that the miracle of flight would have first been achieved in 1903 - or in America. After 1903, growth in the new aviation industry, spurred by World War I, outpaced North Carolina's ability to play a major role. But the state produced some of the most notable airmen and airwomen of the era, furnishing hundreds of pilots to the war effort, including the first American to shoot down an enemy plane and, after the war, the first to engage Communists in aerial combat."--BOOK JACKET.