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The Wright brothers are known around the world as the inventors of the airplane. But few people know Wilbur and Orville invented the airplane in Dayton, Ohio--their hometown--not in North Carolina, where they tested it. Efforts to preserve historic places in the Dayton region where the Wright brothers lived and worked are paying off. Today, you can stroll the Wright brothers' neighborhood, see the original 1905 Wright Flyer III and walk the prairie where they flew it. A project to restore the Wright brothers' factory--the first American factory built to produce airplanes--will complete the picture. In this book, author Timothy R. Gaffney uses historical research and today's aviation heritage sites to retell the story of the Wright brothers from a hometown perspective.

To book a ride on the "World's Shortest Airline" or learn aerial stunts from the redheaded widow of Lawrence Avenue, you've got to go through the airports buried beneath the housing developments and shopping malls of Chicagoland. Many of these airports sprang up after World War I, when training killed more pilots than combat, and the aviation pioneers who developed Chicago's flying fields played a critical role in getting the nation ready to dare the skies in World War II. Author Nick Selig has rolled wheels on his fair share of Chicago's landing strips but faces an entirely new challenge in touching down in places being swallowed by a city and forgotten by history.

Clear weather and a natural harbor made San Diego an early aviation hub, but success in flight came with devastating tragedies. The remains of more than four hundred aircrafts lie scattered across the county's deserts and mountains. Experts estimate that dozens more are on the ocean floor off the coast. In 1922, army pilot Charles F. Webber's DeHavilland biplane went missing over Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. In 1978, Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 178 collided midair over San Diego and crashed in the residential North Park neighborhood, claiming the lives of 144 people in what was the worst airline disaster of the era. Author and aircraft accident research specialist G. Pat Macha recounts these and other stories of astonishing survival, heroism and heartbreaking fatality.