The Flyers: In Search of Wilbur and Orville Wright

I lived in Dayton, Ohio, for three years during the late 1960s. I appreciate the nostalgia and reverence Noah Adams captures in his description of Dayton and of the Wright Brothers' exploits. I remember the huge bombers taking off from Wright-Pat airbase, their somber mission and the fear of nuclear war always a palpable emotion in those years. Adams captures both the essence of the Wright family and its influence on the world. I never had a chance to see their Oakwood home, but Adams let me feel the ambiance each room in their house and the dynamics between the two brothers and their family. The visitation of Adams to Kitty Hawk and to Hawthorne Hill accentuates the intensity of those first flights. The added photographs of these historic moments intensifies their importance. What I would give to have been there in France or in New York harbor when that old-fashioned airplane swooped by. Larry Rochelle, author of DUST DEVILS, SIREN SORCERY, GULF GHOST and BLUE ICE.

This is a great little book. You follow along as Adams revisits many of the places where the Wright Brothers went. Just like any such visitor, he revels in the little things he finds that match up with some bit of the legend, like finding a building where they stayed; or the hospital where Orville was laid up after the first fatal crash. He also finds evidence of the huge impact Wilbur made in France where he was hailed as a hero. Who'd have thought there was a "Wilbur Street" in France?No, this is no substitute for those blow-by-blow accounts of each innovation, but it fills in the gaps and adds some chronolgy that others lack. For example, he mentions how Orville's crash happened while Wilbur was in Europe, and how long it had been since Orville had last flown. This is a fine book, and if you've ever gone on your own trek to try and get a sense of history by "being there", you won't be able to put it down.

Noah Adams took a year off from NPR and went in search of the Wright Brothers. He sought out the threads of their story in locations from Dayton Ohio to Paris France, as well as deep inside the many long letters that Orville, Wilbur, their father Milton and their sister Kate shared over the years. The result is a fresh telling of the Wright story that is well worth reading.Adams' book caught my eye because I have been on my own Wright Brothers quest the last two years, producing a documentary for The History Channel. In reading his book I discovered we had unknowingly crossed paths twice. Once in October 2002 on the dunes of Jockey's Ridge state park, a few miles south of Kitty Hawk, watching military pilots try their hand flying the Wright Brothers 1902 glider, and once at the annual air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Having done a substantial amount of research into the Wrights' story, I wondered if I would learn anything new in this book, and was delighted to find that I did. No other book that I've seen details Wilbur Wright's first encounter with alphabet soup at a hotel dining room in France in 1908, which is a wonderful moment. Other little known nuggets also come to light here. The Wrights' sense of humor, hidden from the world and saved only for family and close friends, is also write large on these pages, which helps us see past the starched suits and pinched faces and come face to face with the real men.Other parts of the story that I was familiar with were told with caring and detail that made them seem brand new. One exquisitely sad chapter deals in detail with Will and Orv's sister Kate. She and Orville were as close as two people could be, and came to rely heavily on each other after Wilbur's death. But when Kate fell in love in her 50's with an old college friend, recently widowed, and decided to marry him, Orville cut her off. He didn't attend the wedding, he returned letters, and never spoke to her again before she died of pneumonia two years later. Adams tells the story through Kate's letters, and the pain is palpable.But it is Adams' own explorations that what really set the book apart, as he visits the dirt racecourse in Le Mans where Wilbur Wright astonished the world with his first flight, charters a boat to Kitty Hawk the same way Wilbur Wright did, or examines the original glass negative of that famous picture of the first flight. Listeners to NPR are familiar with Adams' folksy style. You meet the people he does, be they curators, taxi drivers, whoever. He occasionally stumbles, rambling on too long about a moth collector at Huffman Prairie, or a stunt pilot flying at Oshkosh. But he hits far more often than he misses. His observations and his musings, and his weaving of modern day people and happenings into the story make this book unique among the many Wright books that have come out this year. You can learn the history well you enjoy the ride. I highly recommend it. One other note: I downloaded the audio

I happened on this book at a local shop just after it was released. Having read the superb biography of the Wrights, "The Bishops Boys" by Tom Crouch, I can recommend this book as an excellent companion piece. Noah Adams' narrative has an immediacy to it, and he brings the Wrights alive as only a storyteller can. As he travels around the country, and the world, tracing the footsteps of the Wright brothers and sister, offering observation and insight, Adams brings us face to face with their - and our - history. With the appproaching "centennial of flight", this would make a very appropriate book gift, especially for the holidays.