Dawn Over Kitty Hawk: The Novel of the Wright Brothers [Hardcover]

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,

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.