Dawn Over Kitty Hawk: The Novel of the Wright Brothers

Rating:
Summary: Humans, not icons
Review: A literary agent approached me a few years ago with a proposal for a Wright Brothers novel, and I'm glad that I passed it up: I simply would not have matched Walt Boyne's excellent "Dawn Over Kitty Hawk." Boyne's intimate knowledge not only of the Wrights' aeronautical triumph but the personal and family influences that drove them is exceptional, affording the reader essentially two books in one. Naturally, the focus is upon their struggle to unlock the mystery of the ages--powered flight--but Boyne expertly weaves them into the fabric of the times. The brothers' domineering father, their beloved sister, and the large supporting cast (both pro and con!) allow us to appreciate the full extent of their stunning achievement.
Wilbur and Orville Wright were essential American types: loners who bet everything upon themselves, succeeding in the face of the scientific conventional wisdom of their era, which was found wanting.
You may enjoy DOKH as an historic novel or as an insider's view of the workings of their marvelous Flyer. In either case, you will not be disappointed.

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Summary: History turned into a great story
Review: As a pilot I have always been fascinated with the Wright's accomplishments and I had read several books about them but since it was the 100th anniversary of their accomplishments, I thought I would refresh my knowledge. At first, when I picked this up, I thought it wouldn't be a good read because it was historical fiction and I wanted facts, but I was glad I selected it. The author did an excellent job of fleshing out all the characters associated with the Wright's race to controlled flight. Plenty of research, especially of the Wright's bounty of letters written to colleagues and family about their exploits, gave the author a good feel for how the Wrights interacted with each other and the world, as well as filling out the story with facts. And instead of just reading dry facts, you really felt like you were there, experiencing the thrills, challenges and disappointments that they felt. And he wove together very well how the other major characters of the dawn of aviation (Langley, Chanute, Herring, Curtis to name a few) cooperated and (mostly) competed to be the first to fly. I believe the author kept the perfect balance between good story telling and historical accuracy.

The true measure of the story though, was that, even though I knew most of the facts already, and what the outcome was, I couldn't put the book down easily. It was a great read and I recommend it to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Dawn Over Kitty Hawk
Review: Dawn Over Kitty Hawk is a wonderful book. I had the sense that I was a fly on the wall watching history in the making. This book gives the reader an "insiders look" at the Wrights' personal and business conflicts, and demonstrates that Wilbur and Orville Wright are a classic study in the good old American success story. Walter Boyne cleverly weaves common and little-known facts into a believable story. This is the way they should teach history, instead of just memorizing facts. Dawn Over Kitty Hawk also debunks the common notion that a nonfiction writer cannot write good fiction. This will make your summer reading more enjoyable.

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Summary: Making the Wright's accomplishments real...
Review: There is an old pilot's trick for looking at things...you're more likely to see something if you look slightly away from where you expect to see it, be it the fighter pilot looking for the speck of another aircraft, or the soaring pilot staring for the glint of wings of a circling sailplane in an uprising air current. Peripheral vision is more sensitive and by not looking directly at something, it paradoxically makes it easier to see. And this is the way Walter Boyne's Dawn over Kitty Hawk, the Novel of the Wright Brothers works. By looking at the Orville and Wilbur and their complex family in fictional form, he allows us to see a truly vivid portrait of their accomplishments, set in a fascinating age in American history.

A former Director of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, Boyne weaves many of the major characters from the dawn of flight into a gripping tale that covers everything from the arrogance of much of the scientific establishment of the period to the byzantine wheeling and dealings of the robber baron financiers and their accomplices. Yet he never loses sight of the brilliance, hard work, determination and unbelievable courage that it took for the Wrights to launch forth into the unknown ocean of the air. Boyne's career as an Air Force pilot enables him to convey the feel and danger of those first flights in a way that puts the reader in the air with the Wrights as they struggle to understand the mysteries of flight. He takes the reader along, all the way from the first tentative gliding flights, through the crashes that led to mastery of control and power, ending in their triumphant flights in France and world acclaim.

The aviation enthusiast will recognize Santos-Dumont, Glenn Curtiss, Professor Langley, and many of the other characters, and there are other historic figures who play their parts in Boyne's novel. There is only one significant character who never really existed but even he contributes to the historical verisimilitude of the novel and is actually a composite of two historical figures. I won't spoil it by revealing the character, but it will take a fairly serious interest in aviation history to recognize him.

Dawn over Kitty Hawk is an imaginative, highly enjoyable contribution to understanding and celebrating that first flight one hundred years ago at Kitty Hawk on 17 December 1903,

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Summary: They were giants! A wonderful telling of a great story!
Review: This is a great telling of a great story -- how the Wright brothers came to be the first human beings to accomplish powered, heavier-than-air flight. As this historical novel makes clear, they did it by being the first men to take a methodical, scientific look at what was required to accomplish not only flight, but controlled, competent powered flight. The Wrights were giants--they were years ahead of their rivals. This novel explains that the Wrights first had to originate, from scratch, all of the mathematics and engineering of how to build a true lifting wing. They then had to design, from scratch, a means to control the aircraft in flight by means of warping wing controls--essentially the same methods we use today. These were staggering achievements that the Wrights did not "luck into." On top of these achievements, since there was no suitable gasoline motor to power the Wright Flyer, why, the Wrights simply designed a suitable engine, from scratch, which at the time was the only suitable engine for powered flight on the planet. In point of fact, between Wilbur Wright's methodical, mathematical approach, and Orville Wright's ingenius mechanical aptitude and intuitive grasp of the problem of flight, the Wrights represented a rare combination of scientific rigor and engineering finesse. They were a decade or more ahead of their competition. The best part of this novel is the manner in which it explains in layman's terms what the scientific-engineering problems were that mankind faced circa 1900 to accomplish heavier-than-air flight. The telling of how the Wrights solved these problems makes a great story.

The novel debunks a number of myths that sometimes persist today when the story of early manned flight is told. Professor Langely was not merely unlucky in his attempt to build his "Grand Aerodrome" (a US-government sponsored project to build the first airplane). In reality, like all of the Wright's competitors, he failed to grasp the fundamental problem of flight--the lifting wing and the need to control the aircraft in three dimensions. This is why each of his attempts promptly crashed into the ocean. Not until they frankly copied the Wright concepts and designs did the Wrights' competitors literally get off the ground.

The novel also provides a fascinating look at the business conflicts between the Wrights on the one hand, and their rivals on the others, as the Wrights sought to make an honest profit from their achievements. This is a wonderful story in its own right, told well.

The Wrights were, quite simply, giants. This novel does a fine job of impressing the reader with the magnitude of their achievements, while still showing us that the Wrights (and their colleagues and rivals) were human beings with the usual array of human failings.

Rating:
Summary: Enthralling history
Review: Whenever Walter Boyne sits down to write about aviation you simply know that the result will be enthralling, informative, and engaging in the most direct human ways. So it is with DAWN, one of the most important books about the Wrights ever written. Boyne brings all his experience, knowledge and writing skills to bear on the epochal Wrights and builds for the reader a new level of understanding about the men who dared so greatly and succeeded so admirably, who established the core of what has become a century later one of the world's most significant areas of endeavour. Along with the telephone, car and computer, the airplane has been one of the most powerful pivots of modern life, giving rise--for example--to today's biggest world industry, tourism. The Wrights risked their lives and committed their skills to make it possible, and this book tells us how.
It also manages to debunk many of the myths and half-truths that invade almost any history.
Isn't it curious how achievements seem almost obvious given the 20/20 hindsight of those of us who came afterwards? This book provides, through fiction meticulously researched and aligned with history, everything we should know factually about the Wrights, framed in a human perspective that gives the men juices and their achievements a more brilliant and accessible reality. One completes the book wishing that one could have been there to witness the events and meet the men, but Boyne brings us very close to those feelings.

Millions of men and women are the beneficiaries of the Wrights efforts, and of the aerospace industry for which they laid down the foundations. Anyone who has ever flown, or been carried in an airplane, or looked up to see those magnificent machines overhead, should read this book. They will not be disappointed.