- Save $10 when you spend $50 and pay with Bill Me Later. The fast and convenient way to buy without using your credit card. Offer limited to items purchased from Amazon.com between July 14, 2008 and July 21, 2008. One per customer account. Enter code BMLSAVES at checkout. Here's how (restrictions apply)
Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.
|
|||||||||
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Better Together
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Those Wonderful Women in Their Flying Machines: The Unknown Heroines of World War Two by Sally Van Wagenen Keil  (4)
$24.95
|
Yankee Doodle Gals: Women Pilots Of World War Ii by Amy Nathan
$14.28
|
American Experience: Fly Girls DVD ~ Kath Soucie (5)
$17.99
|
Daughter of the Air: Brief Soaring Life of Cornelia Fort by Rob Simbeck  (4)
|
Women Pilots of World War II by Jean Hascall Cole |
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
The first American woman to fly a plane ignored the orders of her flight instructor and unblocked the throttle he had rigged to prevent her takeoff. She lifted above where he stood on the tarmac for a few moments before returning, triumphant, to the ground. From that moment, the history of America's airwomen has been one such high-flying rebellion after another. In chapters that intercut profiles of the most important (and forgotten) American women aviators with a more general history of aviation, Amelia Earhart's Daughters revives this fascinating and underdocumented slice of American women's history.
The first American woman to fly a plane ignored the orders of her flight instructor and unblocked the throttle he had rigged to prevent her takeoff. She lifted above where he stood on the tarmac for a few moments before returning, triumphant, to the ground. From that moment, the history of America's airwomen has been one such high-flying rebellion after another. In chapters that intercut profiles of the most important (and forgotten) American women aviators with a more general history of aviation, Amelia Earhart's Daughters revives this fascinating and underdocumented slice of American women's history.
As Haynsworth and Toomey explain, female aviators in the U.S. earned their way as "barnstormers" in the first two decades of the 20th century, performing airborne stunts for the enthralled masses at county fairs and exhibitions. When America's role in World War II deepened after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, enterprising women pilots pushed for and finally found work as Women's Airforce Service Pilots, delivering military planes for combat around the country and overseas. Finally, women demanded and, after much disappointment, gained a role in the U.S. aerospace program. Although the authors' desire for completeness sometimes leads to digression, these terrific, adventurous women are well worth knowing. Read and be inspired! --Maria Dolan
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
During WWII, a group of American women pilots under the leadership of the legendary Jacqueline Cochran shattered the aviation gender barrier by performing feats that, until then, women supposedly could not do. Under the auspices of the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), a division of the U.S. Air Force, Cochran's aviators flew some of the fastest and most dangerous aircraft of the day, including the P-51 Mustang fighter, notorious for taxing the strength and skill of its pilots. Because the story of the WASPs is already well known, Haynsworth, an advertising copywriter, and Toomey, who teaches English at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg), to their credit, use the Cochran/WASPs tale as a springboard for a series of lively chronicles of unsung female heroics. One of their best anecdotes involves a Chinese-American woman who crash-lands in a Texas field in 1943 while in training for the Air Force. The terrorized locals insist she's a Japanese invader until the pilot and her fellow soldiers stage a mock surrender. The authors present freshly angled details on a number of familiar episodes from other historical eras such as the U.S.-Soviet space race. The pioneering voyage of Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, is related with wit and drama so that, 35 years later, we're still relieved to read that her prolonged silence in orbit resulted not from death, as Soviet engineers feared, but because she'd fallen into a deep and weightless sleep. Informative, often gripping, this is a must-read for those who would understand the indelible contrail women in aviation and space flight have left in their wake since the invention of the airplane. Editor, Claire Wachtel; agent, David Hendin.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
|