Smith wrote a column for Flying Magazine as well as articles for AOPA Pilot and Sports Aviation.
Smith and Harrington recount the role of Pennsylvanians, from Orville Wright teaching General Henry Harley "Hap" Arnold (from Gladwyne) how to fly, to the recent expansion of U.S. Air-based in Pittsburgh. In between these chronological extremes are many careers and corporate entities: the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia, from 1917 to after World War II; the Navy's fourth aviator, Victor D. Herbster (West Newton); Holden C. Richardson (Shamokin), Naval Aviator No. 13 who participated in the first trans-Atlantic flight (he got as far as the Azores); General Carl A. "Tooey" Spaatz (Boyertown), pilot with Pershing's Mexican expedition and World War II commander of Air Corps units in Africa, Europe, and the Pacific; Henry C. Mustin (Philadelphia), organizer and first commanding officer of the Pensacola Naval Aviation Training Base; Harold F. Pitcairn (Bryn Athyn) and Pitcairn Aviation of Philadelphia; Virginius E. Clark (Uniontown), first commander of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base; Congressman M. Clyde Kelly (Pittsburgh), author of the Kelly Airmail Act; Taylor Aircraft (Bedford); Piper Aircraft (Lock Haven); NARCO (Philadelphia), aircraft navigation instruments; Lycoming (Williamsport), aircraft engines; Sensenich (Lancaster), propellers; and McCreary Tire (Indiana), second largest producer of small aircraft tires.
Pennsylvania was at least the godfather of the first trans-Atlantic flight, the NC's flown in the expedition having been designed at the Naval Aircraft Factory. The Keystone State was the birthplace and home of All American Aviation (now U.S. Air) and of Penn-Central Airlines (later Capital Airlines and now merged with United).
Herbert Veil, of Big Run, Jefferson County, had the most glamorous World
War I career. Joining the French Foreign Legion in 1917, he learned to fly at Pau, France, flew for l'Arm&e de l'Air before transferring to the U.S. Army, was awarded the Croix de Guerre, and climaxed his career by flying his Spad biplane through l'Arc de Triomphe. But with more elan than last winter's imitation of the feat; since his plane's wingspan was wider than the space in the Arch, he had to stand it on its wingtips to pass through.
Pennsylvania produced seven of thirty-five World War II Air Corps generals, including "Hap" Arnold who has been the Air Force's only five-star rank. Brigadier Jimmy Stewart (Indiana) got his star afterwards in 1959.
The story is well organized into fifteen parts which serve as chapter titles. Least known of these is the short, unhappy. life of the autogyro, or gyroplane, which it seemed would be the successor of the fixed-wing aircraft, until the helicopter appeared.
The book represents a comprehensive and exhaustive research job. Also, to tie together so many and often unrelated items would tax the ingenuity of a professional continuity writer. Yet the authors accomplish this without disrupt- ing the narrative.
The work has a bare minimum of editing, printing, and binding errors. I mention four mostly as proof I read it: the phrase "from whence" appears on page ix; Irwin, Pa. is misspelled in the caption under picture no. 22; the PBN had a gross weight of 36,000 lbs., rather than 30,000, page 99; and page 150 made its preview on page 95 in my copy. Trained researchers will be frustrated by the dearth of endnotes, those few listed adding information rather than indicating sources, thus rendering the bibliography nearly useless. And the Lusitania sinking predated our concern over national defense by a year, rather than creating a "radical change" in public opinion (p. 30). Nor did Pershing's chase of Pancho Villa affect our diplomacy (p. 30).
Students of the history of technology or of aeronautics should include the book in their research, and Pennsylvania history buffs will enjoy it. Readers of my generation will be caught in a prop-wash of nostalgia-"my generation" having learned to fly in Piper Cubs in the CPT program, flown the N2S for primary training, earned single-engine seaplane ratings in the N3N-3, and sat on dozens of Navy parachutes, these last three items all made at the Naval Aircraft Factory. And now I know why the Officers' Club at Pensacola was named Mustin.