Overview

"Harry Atwood was among the most flamboyant of the celebrated and often foolhardy pioneers of American aviation. Part daredevil, inventor, entrepreneur, and con artist, he became renowned for his flying feats, his plans for a bewildering variety of aircraft, an his ability to inspire otherwise sensible Yankees to invest enormous time and money in his invariably ill-fated projects. As part of the early circle around Wilbur and Orville Wright, Atwood set many of the early US flying records and was constantly in the headlines for two decades after 1910. He built his own airplanes and developed imaginative but never-quite-realized plans for flying wings, Navy seaplanes that would carry immense cargoes, and cheap one-person planes that would be made from a single birch tree. His is a classic American story about riding the wave of enthusiasm in an era of technological progress while ""selling blue-sky"" to an eager and gullible public. Atwood's biography describes a larger than life individual, whose personal life was as complex and bizarre as his professional escapades, during the vibrant and innocent years when the sky no longer was the limit"

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9780874518917

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Reviews

Mansfield's style, backed by painstaking research, takes . . . memories from the black-and-white past and presents them in blazing full color. --Boston Globe

The bizarre life of a daredevil pioneer pilot, trained in the Wright Brothers' school, who became a visionary inventor, entrepreneur, spellbinding salesman of possibilities rather than solid achievements, showman, engineer (MIT), manipulator of trusting investors' vanishing capital, liar, and deadbeat, of whom it was said he spent more time in bankruptcy court than in church. Mansfield (In the Memory House, not reviewed, etc.) attempts to bring to life a complex, extraordinary personality in rapidly changing times of developing technology. Few early pilots (1908-11) died a natural death as they sought to understand and master aerodynamics, changing winds that threatened the stability of flimsy biplanes, and temperamental engines suddenly losing power. Atwood often risked death as he learned by trial and error. To maintain a precarious living, barnstorming aviators became daring stuntmen in a circus atmosphere of cheering crowds at state fairs. The restless Atwood showed great imagination and worked many hours to gain hundreds of patents. To attract research money, he wove together truth and lies with partial successes and failures. Mansfield writes of Atwood's wealth and poverty succeeding each other as he strove to become the Henry Ford of aviation - designing, manufacturing, and selling his product. During WWII he contributed to the famous Higgins boat, essential in invasions that helped to achieve victory. He also led a complicated private life, marrying five times and becoming an adoring yet despotic father, walking away from his children for extensive periods. Before dying at 83, Atwood had a warm reunion with his family, long scattered by geography and time. Mansfield likens Atwood to the skylark, because he had the instincts of a bird flying as high as he could in a kind of limitless space. A large slice of America's not-well-known past and of an eccentric genius who helped develop modern aircraft. A well-researched, honest evaluation of a man and his times. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Growing up on Long Island, HOWARD MANSFIELD used to fly with his father in a small single engine airplane. As part of his research for this book he took hang-gliding lessons. Author of The Same Ax, Twice: Restoration and Renewal in a Throwaway Age (2000), In the Memory House (1993), and Cosmopolis (1990), he lives in Hancock, New Hampshire.

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